twilights hive
by white1498
Summary: repost of a story by law abiding pony on fimfiction
1. Chapter 1

arc one: of the hive

Stepping Out of the Shadows

A week had passed since the wedding of Shining Armor and Princess Cadance. Life for the average pony mostly returned to normal as Canterlot's citizens repaired the damage left behind by Chrysalis and her swarm. While Ponyville had witnessed more crazy events than the capital in recent history, Canterlot demonstrated to its rulers that resiliency did not lie with Ponyville's citizens alone.

That provided Celestia just one more reason to protect her subjects. At present, the solar diarch was presiding over a newly formed committee to determine what should be done about the changeling threat.

Celestia found herself in was a well-used conference room with an oval wooden table surrounded by fifteen seats. The princess sat in the center of the oval's north side, with Twilight Sparkle sitting to her right. Various advisors from both the civilian and military sectors joined them to discuss changes to their foreign policy.

As the groups muttered amongst themselves, the lavender unicorn tapped her mentor. "Shouldn't we wait for my brother to return from his honeymoon? He is the Captain of the Guard, after all," she whispered.

Celestia fully understood her protégé's concerns. "Normally, I would agree. However, he was directly manipulated by Chrysalis, and while I know Shining would do his best to stay objective in this matter, I fear he would take a less… diplomatic route." She let a small smile show through. "Besides, he and his wife need time to recover from the ordeal, and I can't think of anypony better suited to the task than Cadance."

After mulling it over, Twilight had to agree. "I just don't see how he'll be able to relax though. The changelings practically declared war on us."

Celestia's smile disappeared. "Sadly, I agree. Nevertheless, we drove them from our lands and soundly defeated them. I'm hoping that will allow us to broker peace between us before this escalates into a full blown war."

One of the mares on the other side of the table loudly cleared her throat. "Princess Celestia, could we start with what we know about changelings in general?"

"A prudent course of action," agreed the diarch, before turning to the lavender mare at her side.

Twilight was rather comfortable in a committee setting. Her tutelage under the white alicorn taught her much in the ways of politics and how to speak the language. "I'm afraid our knowledge is quite lacking. We have only sporadic texts about changelings, and most of them are mythological, not historical. Everything we know is from firsthoof experience during the invasion. They appear to be insects and most likely have a rigid caste system, but that is merely conjecture." Twilight suppressed a sigh of defeat. "Other than the fact that they derive power from love and can assume any form they wish, we have no concrete knowledge. Perhaps they can only assume the shape of other ponies - we just don't know."

As Twilight ended her speech, one of the army captains spoke up. "Then the way I see it, we have two primary objectives. Find out everything we can about them, and prepare ourselves for armed conflict, should it come to that."

The other military personnel and several civilians murmured in agreement. Celestia was against the second action. _Our allies will see a military buildup as a sign of aggression and might do the same. The griffins and minotaurs get antsy when they have a large army at their command and no one to fight against. Since I've never heard of a changeling invasion before, I doubt they would stand hoof to hoof against another army in the field._

Before she could voice such concerns, rapid knocking on the heavy oak doors echoed through the chamber, and a frightened earth mare poked her head in. Celestia identified her as Bound Scroll, her chief secretary. The alicorn was troubled to see the mare in such a state. "Princess, we have a diplomat urgently wishing to speak with you."

Celestia arched a curious eyebrow. "I thought I decreed that all audiences were canceled for the day. If it's anything truly urgent, they will have to bring it up with my sister during the night court."

"With all due respect, Princess. I don't think you want to wait for this one. She claims to be a diplomat for a changeling queen by the name of Cadista."

The news was met with stunned silence. Celestia, who had dealt with a thousand years of harrowing experiences, was the first to speak. "Where is this… diplomat?"

"She's waiting just outside."

An army captain balked at the declaration. "You let a potential enemy agent this far into the palace?"

The earth pony rubbed her left foreleg nervously. "Well, that's just it. She's been in the palace for over two years now as Ambassador Gloss. She just walked up to my desk, said she needed to speak on behalf of her queen, and then dropped her disguise right in front of me."

 _I remember her,_ thought Celestia, _Two years ago, she requested open borders between our nations to begin trade relations._ Her bewilderment deepened. _Now that I think about it, Gloss plays almost no role in our politics. She attends open parliament and public court sessions, but only acts to maintain the simple trade agreement between us and her kingdom._

The alicorn addressed Bound Scroll, "I would never turn away an attempt at diplomacy. Send her in."

"At once, your majesty."

A few tense moments later, an unusual being entered the chamber with the dignity and poise Celestia had come to expect from the enigmatic Gloss, telling her that she was not an imposter. _Or a very skilled one._ Her appearance took the room by surprise.

Gloss looked like a normal unicorn with several differences. She had a grey coat of fur and a vivid orange mane, like a normal pony. The most striking were the holes in her extremities - the largest were only the size of a bit.

Her horn was smooth ivory, with no spiral, and curved slightly up, ending in a sharp point. Her eyes had pupils, but they were almost completely hidden by a soft azure glow behind them. The ambassador had the trademark insectoid wings of a changeling, along with a pair of fairly intimidating fangs.

Celestia silenced the quiet murmuring that had filled the room with a rap of her hoof. "Ambassador Gloss," she began slowly. "I must say you surprise me. You are no doubt aware of the invasion we suffered last week. So, why would you reveal yourself and endanger our treaty? You know that I cannot allow it to stand because it was made under a false pretense."

Gloss spoke with the eloquence of a Canterlot noble, which further hid any nuances the room full of advisors might use to glean information about her race. "If I may, your majesty, the treaty we share was not written with malicious intent and my—people have made no actions against you. With only a scant few minor exceptions, everypony under Queen Cadista's rule who has visited your lands has abided by your laws to the letter. Surely you cannot blame us for the actions of another."

"And how are we supposed to know that?" one of the civilian advisors barked. "For all we know this Queen Cadista is just one of Chrysalis' aliases."

Gloss recognized the stallion as the minister of Public Safety. "Tell me, Kickback, who warned you of the invasion in the first place?"

The minister couldn't answer, but Celestia could. "You did, and you requested no recompense after the fact. Why?"

Gloss inclined her head in thanks for her actions being remembered. "It is as I said - I represent Queen Cadista. My—people have been in armed conflict with Chrysalis' nation for some time now. My queen required that I warn you of the attack."

Twilight Sparkle was not yet convinced. "We only knew there was a threat against the capital. Couldn't you have told us more?"

"You must understand," Gloss replied evenly. "It is not our way to reveal our true nature. If I had told you who you were up against, Chrysalis would have sent harsher reprisals against us. I have been authorized to tell you that my—people were in no shape to deepen Chrysalis' ire."

Both Twilight and Celestia caught onto the ambassador's brief hesitation every time she said 'people'. It was a quirk that Gloss had always possessed. The alicorn cast her pupil a knowing glance before returning her gaze to the ambassador. "You were hoping the warning would have been enough to force Chrysalis to abort the invasion, weren't you?"

The room hung on the diplomat's answer. "You are as perceptive as ever, your majesty," she said with a nod of respect. "We had hoped that upon hearing of the warning she would back down and not reveal our kind to the world at large. Unfortunately, that did not come to pass.

"Her bid for power has endangered us all, and threatened to mark every changeling as enemies of the state. Chrysalis singlehoofedly destroyed our best and oldest defense. My queen has always harbored great respect for Equestria. She knew it would only be a matter of time before you learned how to counter our disguises and purge us from your realm. She does not blame you for that course of action - she would do the same in your place. In time, you would teach these methods to your allies and we would be cut off from our best source of love. As a result, my Queen has decided to break away from tradition, just as Chrysalis did. We, however, wish to extend the olive branch, rather than cross swords."

Twilight whispered to the princess. "If this offer is legitimate, then we should take this opportunity. If we open relations with one changeling nation, we could eventually do so with all of them."

Celestia took it as sound advice and addressed the ambassador. "Before we conduct any negotiations, I must speak with Queen Cadista directly. You may tell her a sign of good will would be the return of any abducted ponies you've taken."

Gloss tilted her head to the side, and her eyes became distant, as if she was hearing someone speak to her. Eventually, her attention returned to the diarch. "While we would like to do what you ask, we cannot, since we never took anypony hostage, your majesty. We have no ponies to return, because we never replaced, nor foalnapped, any of your citizens."

Celestia wanted to believe her, but trust towards the changeling came slowly to the alicorn. "Pray that you speak the truth, _ambassador_. I will contact you by the end of the day as to when I can host your Queen's arrival."

Gloss bowed her head. "Thank you, Princess Celestia. I hope our two nations can continue to coexist peacefully." After a nod from Celestia, Gloss left the chamber.

"We must consider this new development before we can reach a decision on how we handle future relations with her kind," Celestia addressed the committee. "To that end, I call for a twenty-four hour recess."

The gathered advisors agreed, and after the diarch rapped the table three times, they departed. Twilight, however, remained in her seat until the council left. "Princess, do you really think Cadista wants real peace between us?"

The alicorn recalled everything she knew about Gloss and the treaty Equestria had written with her. "I get the feeling that Cadista is a minor power in her part of the world. Immigrants from her lands are extremely few, but I don't know if they stay in Equestria. Her kingdom has only two main exports: a gel-like healing agent that accelerates the recovery time of skin injuries, and advanced machinery. They're the ones who sell us parts for our train engines that we can't manufacture on our own. As far as I know, the only imports they take are steel and coal. Both their imports and exports are in small quantities, however, as the imports they ask per month could barely keep Manehattan afloat for the same length of time."

Twilight assumed any actual trade was done within Equestrian borders while the changeling merchants returned alone back to their lands. _Perhaps they are simply more self-sufficient._ Her ears perked up at the thought of delving into a new culture. "We still know next to nothing about changelings, and if Gloss' appearance tells us anything, it's that they are far more diverse than what Chrysalis' group would have us believe. I'd like to go to their lands and study how they live."

The solar diarch gave a lopsided grin. "I commend your will to put aside your misgivings about changelings in light of the invasion, but they are a secretive people by their own volition. I doubt they will want anyone poking their noses too deeply into their society for some time." Her tone shifted to that of a warning. "Plus, their lands lie to the distant south beyond the Cresnox Jungle. It's a dangerous place for travelers of any kind."

Twilight was not so easily dissuaded. "Well, the changelings manage to do it every time they come in to trade. I'm sure you can convince Cadista to let me tag along as a temporary liaison to gather cultural information for a more permanent ambassador later on."

The white alicorn was intrigued. While half of Twilight's tutelage during her time in Canterlot was in magic, the other half had been in politics. "That is an excellent suggestion, and I'm sure Cadista will agree as a show of good faith. Nevertheless, I still want to take my measure of their queen before I can let you go. If I sense any deception in her, I will send someone else in your place." Twilight considered this a sound condition. "And if Cadista appears trustworthy enough to avoid harming you, then I also want an army detail to escort you. Five soldiers should be small enough to avoid threatening Cadista."

Twilight grinned widely and nuzzled her teacher. "Thank you, Princess. I only hope I can build a bridge between our two peoples."

The solar diarch returned the affection in a motherly manner. Even though Twilight was a young adult, the alicorn couldn't help but to see the lavender mare as a surrogate daughter. It always went unsaid between them, but both knew how the other felt. "If anypony can get it started, it'll be you."


	2. Chapter 2

Rebirth

A mind nearly devoid of thought drifted through a sea of murky water. Time held no meaning in this empty, watery expanse that had occupied the mind's awareness for as long as it could remember. Every so often, a memory would flitter through its consciousness. Sometimes a face, or a name, or a long lost place. Whatever meaning they once held had been washed away by time.

Except for one. A great, formless beast that brought with it great pain. The mind was grateful that particular memory rarely showed itself. Yet, the featureless void was beginning to shift, and change. A concept began to form, a notion that the mind was female, though she did not know what this meant. The water had always been a soothing orange color. A part of her remembered that water shouldn't be orange, but she found no reason to concern herself with that. Even so, the orange hue was growing more intense with each passing moment.

Suddenly, a thousand voices echoed through her consciousness. At first, the mind recoiled, frightened by this new experience. It was like an unintelligible murmur, floating just beyond her awareness. She felt the voices calling to her, welcoming her, embracing her. Slowly, she relaxed, and slid into the background noise, letting it permeate around herself. The mind did not understand what the voices were saying, but they emanated warmth and safety. She belonged with the voices, and they belonged with her.

Slowly, an intelligible thought bubbled up through the chorus of voices. _Wake up,_ they said. She was confused. _Wake up._ A jolt lanced through her mind, and the water became a bright, vivid orange.

 _Wake up, Twilight Sparkle._

The purple mare's eyes shot open. She was suspended in an orange, viscous liquid. Instinctively, she tried to gasp for air, but was already breathing that same orange substance. Part of her was terrified of being encased in a chrysalis. She didn't know how she knew she was encased in a chrysalis, but that didn't concern her right now. Instinctively, her mind reached out to the chorus echoing through her subconscious, and found comfort in their warm embrace. Slowly, her fears were calmed by their soothing presence.

A single command rose up through the murmurs, a voice she felt absolutely compelled to obey.

 _Break free._

Twilight hesitated, trying to figure out how to do that.

A few seconds later, a second command emanated from the voice. _Do not think. Act!_

Compelled to obey, Twilight braced her back legs against one side of the chrysalis and thrust her head forward with all her might. She heard a loud crack as her horn tore through the outer lining of hardened wax, sending cracks through the chrysalis. Instinct took over, and she pulled her head back down and thrust it up again, smashing through the weakened shell. Instead of taking in a large gulp of air, her first act was to retch the orange liquid from her lungs. She slumped onto the side of egg, heaving, until she was at last able to breathe free.

Once she had recovered her strength, Twilight's hooves broke down the rest of her chrysalis. She stumbled out of it, still disoriented, and collapsed on top of a growing pool of orange fluid, with her legs splayed outward.

A tall, grey figure stood several feet away, watching as Twilight freed herself from the egg. "Well done, Twilight Sparkle." The purple hatchling turned towards the figure as it walked up to her. An unspoken feeling bubbled up from the chorus in her mind, telling her exactly who this was. "Do you know who I am?"

"You are my Queen - Queen Cadista," she replied, with a hint of reverence. A part of her felt it was wrong to say that, but she didn't know why.

The matriarch nodded with a warm smile as she bent down to help Twilight stand, lifting her with her forelegs. "Very good, my child. Are you feeling well?"

Twilight was captivated by her queen's appearance. She was tall, as tall as one of the pearly white faces that kept dancing through her fractured memories. Cadista had grey fur, small holes in her extremities, and possessed a vivid orange mane and tail. Her baby blue eyes had reptilian slits, but they held a mix of compassion, sadness, and hope. The hatchling realized her queen was waiting for her to speak. "I am a little tired, but I believe I am whole."

"That is perfectly natural and will fade shortly. Do you know what you are?" Cadista asked with gentle concern.

The question caught Twilight off guard, and her first answer died on her lips. She twisted her head around to look at herself. She possessed a familiar lavender coat, which had an abundance of sticky orange liquid stubbornly clinging to her fur. Her tail had a deeper shade of purple with a pink and orange stripe in it. Something about the orange color seemed off, but Twilight ignored it. She also had a pair of deep crimson, translucent, gossamer wings that buzzed lightly upon being regarded. Upon her flank was a six pointed purple starburst with five smaller orange starbursts surrounding it. She noticed it was the same shade of orange that Cadista possessed.

"I am a changeling, my queen," she replied as though it were common sense.

"Good. Your connection with the hive mind is strong enough to grant basic knowledge. That is why you know these things."

"Hive mind?" queried Twilight, "Is that what you call those voices I hear?"

Cadista turned towards the exit. "Walk with me, Twilight Sparkle. I will answer any questions you have, but we must get you cleaned up."

Feeling strong enough to walk, the purple changeling obeyed. "Yes, my queen."

As the pair started moving, Twilight studied the hatchery she was in more closely. Aside from the orange egg she had escaped from, there were twenty more, precisely positioned to maximize space in the medium-sized room. However, all of the other eggs were grey, and only half of them concealed an occupant.

Cadista could tell her charge was distracted by her surroundings and elevated her voice just enough to return Twilight's attention back to her. "To answer your question, Twilight," the young mare's face whipped back to listen to her queen. "The answer is yes. All the changelings under my domain are connected to the hive mind." Immense pride colored her voice as she spoke. " _Our_ hive mind has been tailored over many generations to grant unity and improve cooperation without suffocating the listener's personality. Seeing how countries outside of ours operate, I have found letting drones have individuality to be greatly beneficial."

Through the intricate web of the hive mind, Cadista sensed Twilight accept her words as irrefutable fact. "What do you remember before your rebirth, Twilight?"

For several seconds, Twilight's mind went blank. "Only… flashes. Faces I think I should know, but don't. Places and names that mean nothing to me, but I know they should. And…"

She trailed off. The queen could sense her apprehension and adopted a motherly tone. "There is no question you cannot ask, Twilight Sparkle. Tell me what troubles you."

The former unicorn looked up to her queen and took comfort in the feeling of patient compassion drifting off of her. "It's only a shapeless beast really. A big one. Far bigger than even you, my queen. The only thing I remember is that it caused me terrible, horrible pain."

Cadista smiled sadly. _She actually remembers portions of the attack. It is a testament to her mental fortitude that she didn't go insane while inside the chrysalis._ The elder changeling brought them to a nearby shower room. "Have no fear, Twilight. You are safe here."

Twilight relaxed considerably after hearing her queen's reassurances. The hive mind impressed upon her that Cadista was to be implicitly trusted. With no reason to think otherwise, she did. Cadista guided Twilight to a shower, turning it on and scrubbing the orange substance from Twilight's fur with a sponge, grasped in her orange telekinesis.

She did so with the care that a mother would bestow upon her child. Something felt off about having her queen bathe her, but Twilight was not about to protest. Normally a drone would have cleaned Twilight, but this was a critical period in her integration into the hive, and Cadista needed to make sure it went smoothly.

As the conversation lapsed into silence, Twilight contemplated all she had learned after freeing herself from the egg. She raised her left foreleg to inspect the three small holes that went straight from one end to the other. _Why do these holes feel like they shouldn't be here?_ She glanced at Cadista's forelegs while the queen used her kinesis to cleanse the orange liquid off of the purple mare. _My queen has holes in her legs. So it must be normal for a changeling to have holes. And I am a changeling,_ she thought with shaky conviction. _...Aren't I?_

As Cadista shut the water off and cast a drying spell, Twilight managed to get a good look at her back. _I have wings like my queen, and—_ she licked her teeth and found two long fangs in the front of her mouth. _…And I have fangs. So, I am definitely a changeling. But then, why do I feel like I should be something else?_

"Come Twilight, you must learn what it means to be a changeling."

The phrasing of the request struck a chord in Twilight. A cloudy memory brushed the forefront of her mind, reminding her that, somehow, she had always wanted to know about this. She didn't know where the memory came from, or what it meant, but it gave her a sense of eager anticipation nonetheless. "Gladly, my queen."

Pleased to see such enthusiasm to learn, Cadista led the newborn changeling out into a short, well-guarded hallway that led to the hive proper. Several drones with bladed weapons and armor stood vigil over the hatchery. At worst, Cadista feared confusion and resistance, but the ecstatic look upon Twilight's face let her relax. _She may yet come to terms with this when her memories return._ "Since you have only been reborn today, I want you to explore the major areas of the capital."

A keen expression danced of Twilight's face before it soured a little. "Who will be my guide? Can it be you, please?"

Cadista chuckled lightly. "Why not? A Queen does not last long without the ability to multitask." _I can spare the day, at least._ "Since it'll be me taking you around, why don't I show you one of my favorite places in the city? After that you can go wherever you wish, within reason."

"Oh, thank you, my queen!" Twilight's wings buzzed with excitement. Her superior's benevolence assuaged any misgivings she had about her body, for the moment.

Cadista stepped up to a bronze, iris like doorway that had no immediately identifiable handle. _It must be opened by magic only._ She did not see her queen's horn light up, but after stepping onto a metal plate in front of the door, it quickly opened with a hiss of steam and the grinding of greased cogs, revealing a large city beyond the portal.

Twilight was transfixed by how the door had opened on its own, knowing only that it had something to do with the metal plate. The sudden absence of her queen drove her through the door, only to stop in wonder at the sight of the city.

Cadista stood off to the side with a proud smile on her face. _Only her memories are suppressed. I knew Celestia's protégé was an avid scholar, and it seems that has survived her amnesia. Without memories of any other city, our home must be mind boggling for her._

The hatchery was built low to the ground, so Twilight's field of vision was fairly small. Sunlight filtered down through a massive caldera, huge grey walls rising out of a faint fog, curling up around the city in sharp points. A faint, barely perceptible orange dome covered the ceiling. Homes and factories dotted the landscape, as changelings fluttered to and fro on both hooves and wings alike. As Twilight watched hundreds of grey figures going about their business, the hive mind imprinted two words into her mind: brothers, and sisters.

She felt her queen's presence to her right and turned to face her. Something about that thought seemed off. _I—believe I've always had brothers, or was it just one brother?_ She kept watching the grey figures flitter about as doubt clouded her thoughts. _I need confirmation._ She turned to the one source of knowledge she felt she had every reason to accept as truth. "Are they my brothers and sisters?" She waved a hoof at the sky for emphasis.

Cadista nodded sagely. "Yes Twilight, they are your siblings, and you are their newest sister."

Again, Cadista's phrasing bothered her. _I… believe I've always been a sister. But to whom? To them?_ She studied the changelings again. The idea of being a sister felt comfortable to Twilight, like a warm blanket on a cold night. _Yes, I am a sister._ A smile crossed her face as she looked over the other members of the hive. "I am your sister," she said both proudly and quietly.

The declaration was just loud enough for Cadista to hear. "Come along, Twilight, I have much to show you."

Twilight watched her queen take to the air, and without a second thought, flew after her, as if she'd been flying her whole life. As she followed her queen to the central tower that dominated the city's skyline, a troubled thought nagged at her.

Cadista, and any nearby changelings, could sense Twilight's increasing anxiety through the link. She slowed down to be parallel with the hive's latest addition. "What troubles you, young one?"

Twilight examined the other changelings before facing her queen. "Why am I the only purple changeling? You also keep talking about my 'rebirth'. Haven't I always been a changeling?"

Cadista had not expected this question so early. _I've underestimated you again, Twilight Sparkle._ "I do not wish to hide things from you, Twilight. I am being truthful when I say rebirth. However, you hatched barely two hours ago. Give yourself time to adjust to this life, before delving into the past."

Cadista landed on top of the large tower with a sweeping view of the entire city. At its peak, the tower housed a massive orange crystal that powered the shield dome.

Twilight almost forgot her question at the sight of the massive crystal. "But, I already remember things from…I guess my old self. My past is important, isn't it?"

"Of course it is," Cadista replied, reassuringly. "But the present and future are just as important." _Something I have learned only recently myself._ She adopted a sympathetic expression. "The process of your rebirth suppressed much of your old memories, Twilight. They will return on their own, I promise. Once they do, you are free to do as you will - within reason, of course," she added carefully.

Twilight paused, digesting the information. "Do all of my siblings go through rebirth as well?"

"Not in the same manner as you have. But, I will let the caretakers explain that to you later. For now," she swept a hoof towards the grand view of the northern half of the city, "I wish to welcome you to the capital of our hive, Stripped Gear."

Satisfied by her queen's words, Twilight looked down to the city below. As before, her amnesia made the dense urban area seem magical in its own right. Stripped Gear had an alien aesthetic to it, with bronze machinery dominating the landscape. Factories along the eastern district all had fanciful architecture that was both practical and inventive. The commercial and residential districts used even more whimsical designs.

Cadista let Twilight bask in the view of the city for a few minutes. It gave her a chance to focus more of her cognitive efforts in making sure all was well within the hive mind. Twilight's wings buzzed with amazement, so much that she drifted off the ground a few times before getting a hold of herself.

"So, this is my home." The mare looked back to Cadista with a question on her tongue.

The orange haired queen sniffed Twilight's as of yet unvoiced query through the hive mind. "You will be staying with me for the foreseeable future, young Twilight. I want to make sure your integration into the hive mind continues without complication."

Twilight's curiosity was only compounded by that statement. "Why do I get the feeling not every rebirthed changeling stays with you for that?"

Cadista was not used to anyone directly questioning her decrees, even if Twilight's tone did not suggest she would disobey. _This is the new way, Cadista. I have to foster such inquisitiveness in her, not suppress it._ She took strength from the hive to remain warm and calm. "Because, you are not like other rebirthed changelings. You will still learn how the common drone lives, and what they desire. But, after your tasks for the day are over, you will return to my side at the palace. Do you understand?"

Cadista did not use a forced command like before. She wanted Twilight to remain loyal of her own volition. Twilight briefly mulled over the directive, before bowing her head. "As you wish, my queen." She had dozens of questions to ask about so many things, but a hunger that had been growing ever since her hatching took precedence. "Is um—Is there any chance I could grab some food? I don't think I've eaten since… I guess my last meal in my old life."

Cadista smirked at Twilight's feeble attempt at a joke. _Yes, she might be able to inject some of that equestrian vitality into my drones. That's exactly what my hive needs to continue mother's dream. The real trick will be getting her to willingly stay as more and more of her memories return._ "Since you will be spending much of your time outside of the palace, let me take you to—" Cadista's warm demeanor evaporated as she looked to the west with a scowl.

Twilight's ears flattened at the sudden shift in her queen's mood. The hive mind reflected the change as well and she could feel her siblings' mounting distress. "My queen?"

Cadista masked her anger on both her face and in the hive mind. "My apologies, Twilight, but an important matter has come to my attention." One of the nearby engineer drones watching over the tower's shield generator dropped his work and flew over to Cadista upon hearing her unspoken command to him.

"I am yours to command, my queen," said the changeling, bowing. He was like every other male drone Twilight had seen so far; grey fur, azure glowing eyes with barely perceivable irises, and all business.

"Your tasks for the day are being shifted to palace duties. However, you will still be compensated for a full day's engineering work. I want you to escort Twilight Sparkle to one of the food courts - I care not which. After that, you are to act as her guide to wherever she wants to go within Stripped Gear, as long as it isn't dangerous." She cast a glance at Twilight. She didn't visibly react, but Cadista could feel her compliance with the indirect command.

The drone snapped a crisp salute. "It will be done."

Satisfied, Cadista turned to Twilight. "I want you to return to the palace by sundown. I will be back by then."

 _We're in front of one of my brothers, so I should probably keep it formal, like he did._ Twilight bowed her head. "As you wish, my queen."

Cadista lingered for a moment as she considered Twilight's response. _Humility; she will need that for the coming months._ Without further ado, she departed, leaving the grey and purple changelings on their own.

Twilight watched her depart with a thread of uncertainty. _I'm just one sister among hundreds, if not thousands. I hope they don't mind me being purple._ She felt like an outsider. _Why was my rebirth different from everypony else's? Why am I purple when everypony, even Cadista is grey?_ She sat on her haunches while gazing upon the constantly busy city of Stripped Gear. _Who did I used to be? Was I a changeling back then too? Or was I... something else?_

Twilight raised a hoof to look at the holes in her legs. _Why do these seem so out of place? Does my past even matter?_ A few faces flashed across her mind's eye. _Argh, I can't even put names of any of them._ The more she tried to focus, the more something stood out about them. _They're not grey. Nor do they have fangs or the eyes._

Suddenly, Twilight wanted a mirror. In her brief search for a reflective surface the engineer came into view. He had a distant look in his eyes as if his mind was a million miles away. Having no one else to turn to, the newborn changeling stepped over to him and politely cleared her throat. "Excuse me, brother."

The grey drone snapped back to reality. "Yes? Are you ready to go?"

Twilight's stomach growled in response, but she beat down her embarrassment. "Almost. Is there a mirror I can use? I haven't had a chance to see what my face looks like yet."

He was caught off guard by her casual mannerism, now that Cadista was gone. "Oh, sure," he fumbled around his tool belt to retrieve a hoof-sized mirror on an iron stick. He sensed her curiosity and spoke while using his hooves to unscrew the mirror off the handle. "We engineers keep a mirror on hoof so we can see into nooks and crannies while conducting repairs and routine maintenance on the machinery."

He used a cloth to wipe away some of the caked on oil and grime, but the rag barely made it any better. He presented the mirror to Twilight, who instinctively took it into her orange-colored telekinesis. She didn't notice him sigh in relief for not being reprimanded about his mirror being dirty. _She may not be a pain in the flank after all. ...Provided this is normal behavior for her._ The drone, like the rest of the hive, had sensed Twilight's entry into the Link. It's power had been subtle, but her strong mind still left echoes from its induction. _Well, she did just come out of the pod today, so there's no telling what she'll be like later on._

Twilight ignored the stains on the mirror to look at herself. Her fangs were quite prominent, which briefly made her feel ill-at-ease before she dismissed it. _We all have fangs, I'm just being silly thinking there's something wrong with them._ Her smooth upturned horn looked normal enough. Nothing else about her face struck her as being strange, except for her eyes. They were a rich shade of lavender; that much was familiar. What wasn't familiar were the reptilian slits that looked back at her. _They look like Cadista's._

She stole a quick glance at the drone who was gazing off into space again. His irises were barely visible behind the gentle azure glow, but they were definitely circular. _What does that mean?_ She asked herself worriedly. _Why do I look more like Cadista than I do my own brother?_ She put the mirror down. _Well, I'm sure my queen will tell me once I get to see her again._

The drone felt Twilight's anxiety wafting off of her like a cold front. _How do I address her? The queen never actually said anything about that._ He sent Cadista a low priority query over the Link. He received a reply a few moments later. _Like a normal sister, except that I can't allow any harm to reach her, huh? Well, that makes things both simpler and more complicated at the same time. Especially since she's a new hatchling._ He cautiously stepped forward. "Twilight? Are you well?"

"Huh?" she whirled around to face him. His concerned expression made her feel apologetic. "Oh, I'm sorry, I never thought to ask for your name."

He stuttered for a bit as his mirror flew back over so he could grab it. _Wow, she's actually asking for my name?_ "I-it's, uh, Ratchet. Ratchet Altair." He quickly grabbed the mirror in his hoof and replaced it on his belt. Twilight's cheeks flushed red as her stomach growled even louder. "Why don't we follow the queen's advice and get some grub?"

A sheepish smile found its way on her lips after seeing him ignore her different color. "That sounds great. Thanks."

While being high above in the tower gave a grandiose view of Stripped Gear, Twilight missed all the little things that brought out the city's splendor. Ratchet was leading Twilight over the various bakeries towards the food court of the southwestern district. It sat between the southern light industry mills and other assorted food processors.

Ratchet cleared a series of steam pipes to finally arrive at a large plaza. Over a hundred round tables with seating for three covered the bronze and brick plaza. Twilight made a conscious effort to stay close to Altair so she would not lose him in the sea of grey figures. It did not take long for him to dive down towards an empty table. Twilight was glad he landed as quickly as he did and barely managed to stay on her hooves upon reaching the ground. She breathed heavily while trying to ignore her wings burning from the prolonged flight.

"Sorry, I kept slowing us down Ratchet. I'm just not…" She trailed off as she just concentrated on keeping her composure while taking her seat.

He waved her apology off. "Don't worry about it. You just hatched today, after all." He reached under the table to grab a menu and indicated for Twilight to do the same. "So, do you remember having a preference or is it all still new to you?"

Twilight scrunched her muzzle at the illegible text. "I don't–" Her confusion reached the hive mind, and it responded by granting her knowledge on how to read the language. Bit by bit, the letters started to make sense to her, and within half a minute she could read the menu. "Oh, well, I guess I can."

"I don't remember what kind of food I used to eat." She searched the large assortment of options, but none of it sounded even remotely familiar. She glanced at him and saw he was ready to order. _I don't want him waiting on me._ "Why don't you pick something for both of us?"

"Alright then." Altair replaced his menu under the table. "Do you know how to summon a server?"

Twilight fiddled with her hooves under the table. "No, sorry."

 _Odd, most rebirths can recall that, at least._ "Don't worry about it. You sound really faint in the Link, but you still might be able to do it. Just read the ID number on the center of our table and yell both it and our meal selection over the Link. We're getting two orders of Venlady Stew. The shout won't go past the court and serving area so you don't need to worry about disrupting operations outside of it."

Twilight craned her head forward to read the number on her table. "How do I speak over the hive mind? I've only been listening so far."

 _She doesn't even know that? I didn't realize she was so new at this._ He hid his slight irritation well. "You can practice later; I'll go ahead and place our order."

"Oh, okay," Twilight replied, a little downtrodden. _He'll be able to place the order faster than I could, and I am super hungry right now…_

To distract herself from her stomach, she looked around at all of her brothers and sisters eating around her. A barrage of delicious aromas tantalized her nose. "I'm surprised there's such a wide selection of different foods on the menu." She turned back to Ratchet. "I'd love to see how it's all prepared."

Altair leaned back in his chair with a smug grin. "Yup. We're lucky to be under Queen Cadista, she really makes our lives better than the average 'Ling."

Twilight tilted her head in curiosity. "What do you mean?"

"Our queen believes in quality over quantity when it comes to us drones. We have a superior standard of living over every other changeling hive there is. Thanks to her desire for technological advancement, our productivity is twenty times that of the next best hive. And with the individuality our hive mind allows, our creativity and inventiveness by far surpasses that of the others."

"Fascinating," the purple mare chirped with shared pride. "So, are we a major power?"

'Um…" He trailed off as his pride all but vanished. "Well, we're a really small hive. We barely number four thousand, and our higher standards end up costing more resources so other hives can support much larger populations than we can as a result."

Before she could inquire further, a muscular grey mare arrived bearing a platter. "Order up." Twilight pushed her forelegs off the tabletop as the table-sized platter was slid into place. The tableware was magnetically attached to the platter. The waitress removed the battery from the electromagnet in the center to allow the silverware and other items to be moved normally. "Enjoy."

Twilight removed the cover on the bowl to find enticing stew. Two cups full of some alcoholic beverage sat behind the bowl and three pink glowing crystals. The purple mare looked at Ratchet's food and saw he had the same thing, but only one crystal.

Confusion marred her face as she wrapped one of her gems in the orange glow of her telekinesis and brought it over to her face for inspection. "What are these for?"

Ratchet was continuously puzzled by her tendency to vocalize questions. _Why doesn't she just ask the hive mind? Is her connection really that weak? Or is it inconsistent?_ He sent out a request to the Link so it would give Twilight her answer. He watched as her confusion slowly turned to understanding.

 _Oh, so I feed on love, and these gems hold onto some so it can be accurately rationed. Makes sense, I guess._ She wanted to know why feeding on love felt strange and why she received three crystals instead of one, but her hunger gnawed at her. She moved the crystal closer to her horn and with the knowledge the hive had given her, and began to feed. A bridge of orange light formed between her horn and the gem and the pink glow started flowing from the crystal and into her.

Her first taste of love was mind blowing. Twilight felt her magic and muscles fill with energy as her hunger demanded to be satiated. Soon, all three crystals were levitating adjacent to her horn as they all poured their contents into the famished changeling. She held her breath as if the bridges of magic were like straws and she was sucking the love through them as fast as possible. The crystals quickly lost their color and became lifeless in less than a minute.

As soon as all three were completely drained, Twilight let out a shuddering sigh, barely managing to place the three crystals back on the platter. Ratchet started eating his soup as he waited for her to catch her breath. "First feeding is always the most memorable."

Twilight nodded dumbly as her eyes drifted towards Altair's crystal. He watched her expression until she tore her eyes from it. _No. That's his love. I got three; it would be so unfair to even ask._ The purple pony politely cleared her throat before focusing on her stew. "It was. Thanks for bringing me here." she forwent the use of a spoon and simply levitated a bite size glob of stew. As soon as she tasted her first mouthful, her stomach finally stopped complaining. The heavy broth of vegetables and strips of meat tantalized her tongue with almost just as much satisfaction as the love crystals had. "You picked some great stuff, this stew is amazing."

"Glad you like it. It's a personal favorite of mine," he replied warmly.

The meal lapsed into silence as the reborn changeling devoured her meal with less than ladylike manners. While it tasted superb, it felt increasingly strange to be eating meat. "Do changelings always eat meat?"

He shook his head. "We're the only hive that does, as far as I know. Our previous queen discovered a way to increase our creativity through some genetic manipulation, but it required us to become omnivores to satisfy our altered nutritional requirements."

A plethora of questions popped in her mind. "The queen can alter our genetics?"

"Only before we hatch." He took a swig of beer before continuing. "I'm not privy to the exact science behind it. But I do know that every queen of every hive decides our place within the hive while we're still in the egg. They use a sort of magical alchemy to mold us into the desired drone. Cadista and Queen Yumia, her predecessor, have always made much higher investments in each of us to maximize our potential contribution to the hive. That's why on an individual basis, we're far superior to drones of any other hive."

Twilight mulled over the information as she ate her stew. "But, raising livestock requires a lot of land that could be more productive if it was given over to crops. Doesn't that make our unique diet less efficient if resources are so scarce?"

Ratchet was genuinely impressed. _The simple things she's forgotten and yet she knows something about agriculture._ "True. It means our overall food production is lower than other hives of comparable farmlands, but, as you can see," he waved a hoof to encompass the city, "what we gain for it has proven to the queen that having smarter, more individualistic drones is well worth the additional overhead."

Twilight had no idea how other hives lived, but what she kept inferring from Altair displeased her. _Seems like other changelings have miserable lives. Why is there so much disparity between the hives? Wouldn't the other queens see how intelligence is better than weight of numbers?_

Ratchet noticed Twilight kept stealing glances at his as of yet untouched love crystal. He felt a twinge of sympathy and grabbed it with his hoof. After draining only half of it, he presented it to her. "Here sis, you have the rest."

Her eyes dilated to the size of dinner plates before she shook her head and pushed the crystal back with a hoof. "I can't take that from you. I already had three."

Twilight's display of compassion only spurred him on. He pushed back a little to bring the crystal closer to her. "Don't worry about me. I'm already getting paid overtime, I'll be fine. Besides, you're a new hatchling. You need all the love you can get."

Twilight worked her jaw as she tried to resist the temptation to snatch it from his hoof. "Are you sure you aren't going to go hungry, Ratchet? I wouldn't want you to suffer on my account."

"I had a big breakfast. Go on, take it, I'll be fine."

Twilight slowly took the crystal in her hoof and stared at it before looking at him with a grateful smile. "Thank you, Ratchet. I really appreciate it."

He returned her smile. "Don't mention it."

Like the others, Twilight levitated the gem to horn and greedily sucked every last bit of love out of it. It wasn't nearly as much as the others, but it tasted sweeter.

The rest of the meal passed quickly. The alcohol was not strong enough to give Twilight anything more than a mild buzz. When the server returned to take the platter away, Twilight held Ratchet's crystal close to her chest. "Can I keep this one?"

The waitress gave her a puzzled look, but couldn't talk to Twilight on the Link, so she spoke aloud. "Why keep a dry crystal?"

She grinned sheepishly. "I just want a memento of my first meal."

The grey mare shrugged. _I've seen weirder quirks._ "Suit yourself, sister."

Altair found the request odd. _Well, she forgot everything of her old self. She's probably just trying to fill the gap by holding onto new memories._

As the waitress departed, Ratchet got out of his chair. "You still up for a tour of Stripped Gear?"

Twilight nodded happily. "I've been dying to see everything, but can we stay on the ground for a little while? My wings are still sore from earlier."

"Not a problem. Why don't we go see the manufactory first? There's this one spot I like, where you can see the assembly lines at work."

Twilight's eyes glittered at the prospect. "Sounds fun! Lead the way."

Ratchet's tour lasted for hours until the sun started to dip below the horizon. Twilight's mind was racing with all of the sights and sounds she had witnessed. Every detail was memorized and cataloged into her memory. Her scholarly mindset had survived intact from her rebirth, and it drove the mare to learn everything she could about her new home and siblings.

As with all things, the day could not last forever, and with the setting of the sun, her eyes turned to the palace in the center of the city. "I should get back to the queen."

"Seems like it's about that time," he concurred.

After spending the past few hours on the ground, Twilight's wings were fit enough to fly again. "I'll see you later, won't I?"

He tilted his head in contemplation. "Possibly. If you end up in engineering detail, you might."

The idea was highly appealing. _Those machines were so astounding. It's amazing what my siblings have accomplished with such little magic use._ The passing thought gave her a funny feeling. _Why would the minimalistic approach to magic use seem so odd to me?_

"You don't want to keep the queen waiting," Ratchet announced loudly enough to snap her out of her musings.

"Oh, you're right, of course." She buzzed into the air, flying towards the bronze and marble palace before turning around to wave a friendly hoof at him. "I know it was a command, but thanks for showing me around Stripped Gear."

"Have a good one, Twilight," he waved back as she turned to leave. _I have to say, she's not what I expected._

Twilight made her way to the palace. She could sense Cadista's presence at the center, but had no idea how to get there. Her unspoken query reached the hive mind, and it wordlessly gave her the route she needed to take. Twilight scanned the palace perimeter, saw a doorway that felt like the right one, and flew over. The two guards stood aside without hesitation. Drones fluttered to and fro within its halls. The palace was undergoing renovations, so Twilight was unable to glean what the purpose was of the various rooms she passed by.

Whenever she needed to make a turn, or open a door, the purple changeling felt the choir of voices lead her in the right direction. _This place is like a maze; I'd be totally lost without the hive guiding me._

The palace surrounded the central barrier tower, serving to protect the chambers below it. Consequently, Twilight's journey was rather short. Cadista's chambers were guarded by a pair of solid bronze and steel doors, along with two burly looking male drones. Upon seeing Twilight's approach, their horns lit up and activated the doors. The portal opened with a hiss of steam and clanking gears.

 _She even uses machines instead of just magic to guard her home,_ thought Twilight as she watched the doors open.

A familiar voice met her ears from within the chamber. "Ah, Twilight, you've returned."

Twilight rushed inside to find Cadista sitting on a sofa, in deep communion with the hive mind. "Of course, my queen."

Cadista stopped her communion to speak to the purple changeling directly. She was pleased to sense the purple changeling's unquestioning loyalty. "Please, just Cadista. You have taken to your rebirth into the hive quite well, so there is no need for you to be so formal with me in private."

"O-okay, Cadista." She replied hesitantly.

The orange crowned matriarch gestured to her large, but plainly decorated bed. "You should get some rest. We have much to do, tomorrow."

Twilight was a little nervous about the offer, and feared she might disturb her queen's sleep. _I don't want to hit her if I toss and turn at night._ "Wouldn't it be better if I slept in my own bed?"

"You will, eventually. However, I'd planned to be with you all day to accelerate your induction into the hive mind. Since I had matters to attend to, you will sleep in my chambers until your connection is fully established."

Twilight scratched her head in thought. "Well, you know more about this sort of thing than I do, so I trust you. May I ask what we'll be doing tomorrow?"

Cadista stifled a yawn as she made her way over to the bed. "We'll be receiving a very important ruler from a nation to the north, and I want you fully rested for the event."

Twilight joined her queen on the bed. "Who is it?"

"Princess Celestia," she replied evenly.

Twilight tilted her head. "Who?"


	3. Chapter 3

Memories

The following morning Twilight was barely able to enjoy a rather fast breakfast before being led back to the queen's chambers and having two of her sisters assault her with brushes while another two filed and polished her hooves. Cadista was having the same done to her, but was taking it with far less reservation than Twilight.

"I don't see why I can't groom myself," she whined. "I have telekinesis after all."

Cadista sent the antsy purple mare some calming stoicism via the hive mind. Twilight's wings stopped buzzing in irritation, but she couldn't stop squirming every so often. "Normally I would let you do that Twilight, but Celestia will be here shortly and I want expert hooves to make sure you're more than just 'good enough'."

Twilight didn't have any reason to resist against the need for perfection, but a different question entirely sat in her mind. "I don't understand why it's so important that I meet this Celestia person though."

"She has requested to see you, and I have no intention of denying her that right."

Cadista's phrasing sounded odd to the lavender mare. "The right? What do you mean?"

The orange haired matriarch smothered a sad sigh and instead her expression turned downtrodden. "I will not lie to you Twilight Sparkle. This meeting will not go easily for her, and I have a strong feeling it will not be easy for you either. From what my eyes and ears in Equestria tell me, you were her star protégé for most of your past life and she cared—cares," she corrected, "for you greatly."

Twilight's shock was so profound she lost her voice for a few seconds. "Protégé? I used to be a personal student of a different country's queen?!"

"She prefers the title Princess, but yes. By all accounts you two were close friends."

Twilight stopped fidgeting against the groomers. _I wish I could remember her._ "If you don't mind my asking, why did I go from being her student to yours? I can't believe you would take me against my will if you're allowing my old teacher to come here freely."

Cadista was satisfied with how both Twilight and her own appearance turned out so she dismissed the groomers with a silent command via the Link. She waited until the drones left before climbing off her seat to stand next to Twilight. Cadista was horribly uncomfortable showing overt displays of affection. Not that the drones would have thought any less of her, but that Twilight was the first person outside of Yumia that was not only nearly her social equal, but an ally as well.

"Twilight," she began sadly. "The truth is…" The matriarch couldn't believe how difficult it was to speak. _I can win shouting matches against other queens and can even stare down their armies to make them back off, but I can't say a word to this poor mare._

She finally let go of that depressed sigh and pulled her chair over with her kinesis before sitting down next to Twilight. "Your name has always been Twilight Sparkle. That much hasn't changed." The lavender pony focused on her queen with trepidation and trust in equal measures. "You used to be a unicorn under Celestia's rule. Our hive has had cordial relations with each other for years now and the hive has grown dependent on trade with Equestria. When one of the other changeling queens invaded Celestia's capital city, she risked the whole changeling race by having the races of the world mark us as enemies. So in an attempt to salvage the situation I revealed our hive's existence to Celestia and managed to keep our two nations at peace."

Cadista could sense Twilight's growing confusion as to where she fit into any of that. "Three weeks after the invasion you joined one of our trade caravans after Celestia and I agreed to let you come to Stripped Gear in order to help facilitate more open diplomacy than we had been practicing in the past."

Twilight felt a spike of malice from her queen, and was grateful that it wasn't directed at her. Nevertheless it still made her cringe as she caught a glimpse of the face that was the focus of her matriarch's ire. "It was another queen wasn't it?"

Cadista's mouth became little more than a pressed line as she reigned her emotions back in. "If you were able to pick that up, then your connection to the hive must be strong enough for you to witness the collective memories. If you wish, I can show you what happened. I must warn you however that it will not be pleasant."

Twilight remained silently contemplative. She couldn't help but to pick at one of the larger holes in her right foreleg and her wings flickered every so often in agitation. The formless beast danced on the edge of her mind, trying to repel her from investigating. "I'm scared to see it. But—I need to know." She looked up from her hooves to meet Cadista's sad motherly gaze. She shuddered in apprehension before shaking it off and replacing it with determination. "Please, show me what happened."

Cadista nodded and touched horns with Twilight. "The hive will attempt to push upon your mind. Do not resist or the memories will not form properly."

Twilight closed her eyes and listened to the chorus in the back of her mind grow louder and surge forth to envelop her. She fought the urge to withdraw. _I am part of the hive, and the hive is a part of me. I will not run from myself._ Twilight's world collapsed and everything went black.

* * *

From the blackness, color started to return. A blue sky emerged along with sporadic clouds and dense trees, but the details were extremely fuzzy. Twilight felt greatly disoriented until Cadista's voice spoke to her left. "Be at ease Twilight. The hive is not usually called upon to reconstruct memories like this; it will take a few seconds for everything to stabilize." She didn't want to add that the memories that were being rebuilt were all from dead changelings and thus were scattered across hundreds of different drones rather than the original witnesses.

True to her word, the landscape solidified and Twilight could see several dozen changelings along with a small contingent of Equestrian soldiers closely escorting a very familiar face. Eight large train car sized wagons loaded down with coal and steel were in a jagged line down the stretch of a wide yet unfinished road. The wagons were being pulled by large steam engines that chugged along at a trotting pace upon six large bronze painted steel legs arrayed out like an ant. The engines were as large as train engines and the legs allowed them to navigate rough terrain and had the necessary strength to pull the wheel based wagons over the numerous rocky outcroppings. The road itself ran along a stretch of land that the jungle flora had difficulty claiming due to the rock being unnaturally toxic to plant life. What few boulders that the steam engines were unable to drive over had been moved to provide an inconsistent divider between the road and the jungle. It was a path that was designed to look uninviting and up until now, no Equestrians had risked venturing along the southbound road.

Twilight instantly noticed the figures were all frozen in time, but the biggest thing that confused her were the swaths of black emptiness. In many places only part of an object was visible while the rest of it was inky black space. "Why are some pieces missing?"

The orange crowned matriarch manifested fully into the waking dream. "This is a reconstruction of every changeling's memory of the events leading up to the attack that nearly claimed your life. The Link is only able to build from what it has available, and as I said before the hive mind is not usually called upon to do this. As a result, only what the drones see and hear can be accurately recreated."

Cadista brought Twilight towards one of the wagons and showed her the black emptiness up close. "Since none of the drones are looking at this spot then the hive cannot render it."

Realization dawned on Twilight and her scholarly curiosity roared its way to the forefront. "So that's why we're not assuming the place of one of the changelings? We can see from any angle we want thanks to the Link compiling everything at once." She felt Cadista's wordless affirmation. "Astounding!"

Twilight recalled seeing a purple mare towards the center of the convoy and flew over to see her. There, sitting upon one of the steel bearing wagons sat the unicorn Twilight Sparkle. Surrounding her were five Equestrian guards: two unicorns, two pegasi, and an earth pony stallion. By the look of their armor, rank, and stern faces, Twilight surmised they must have been veterans. The lavender changeling inspected the unicorn doppelganger intently.

The frozen mare had an amazed expression on her face as she watched the steam engine behind her wagon raise its leg to kick a loose boulder out of the path. The unicorn's mood was not Twilight's focus. Twilight looked at her old self with a haunted gaze. The lack of fangs, holes, wings, and that she had round irises, a straight spiraled horn, and no orange coloration made Twilight acutely aware of how different she was now.

Memories long dormant revealed themselves and shot to the forefront of her mind. She winced as a migraine started forming from the onslaught of more faces, sounds, and names. She pressed her hooves on her head to try and suppress the headache.

Cadista flew over to lay a comforting hoof on Twilight's withers. "If you are in pain Twilight, we can continue this another time."

The migraine started to subside a bit. "No, no its okay." A brief memory of a blue furred minotaur crossed her mind. "No pain, no gain right?"

Cadista was still concerned for her newest daughter's wellbeing. _No matter what she decides our relationship will be in the end, she still carries my blood in her veins._ "I don't wish for you to overextend yourself."

"I remember why I was here," Twilight muttered while inadvertently cutting her matriarch off. Cadista ignored the unintentional slight to let the mare speak. Twilight studied the frozen unicorn's exuberant expression. "I was traveling with the changeling merchants to Stripped Gear. I was going to learn about you and your—our people." She corrected herself after seeing the holes in her upraised forelegs.

Twilight shifted her gaze to the Equestrian soldiers. All of them were keeping constant watch over the changeling caravan guards as if they didn't trust Twilight's new brothers and sisters. By contrast, the guards paid the soldiers no mind, with only one directly looking in Twilight's direction. A couple of merchants were looking in the unicorn's general direction so she was one of the few ponies that were completely rendered by the hive mind. The Link informed Twilight that the guards were worried about the lavender unicorn's presence and didn't want her there.

Twilight was stumped by the revelation. _I can't sense any malice in his desire for me, or the old me, at least to be elsewhere._

Being so deep in communion with the hive mind, Cadista was able to clearly pick up Twilight's thoughts even if her connection was still incomplete. "You are an important pony Twilight. Both the unicorn you used to be, and the changeling you are now." Twilight hung on her queen's words like a lifeline. "We feared that if anything were to happen to you, our hive would suffer Celestia's full wrath."

"But something did happen to me." The formless massive beast reared up in her mind, causing Twilight to feel ghostly pain all over her body. By strength of will she tried to push the memory and the haunting pain to the dark recesses of her mind.

Cadista had been prepared for that memory to surface after Twilight informed her of it yesterday. The queen redirected most of that perceived pain throughout the hive mind. With it being dispersed by thousands of minds, none of them felt more than a tickle, if that. "I'm afraid so."

Twilight feared what she might see might cause the pain to become unbearable. _If just seeing its outline is enough to hurt me, actually seeing it might cripple me._ "I don't want to see the attack right now. I—" She looked pleadingly to her matriarch. "Can I at least know if I chose to become what I am?"

Cadista frowned sadly. "You did. Your wounds were so great there was no other alternative to save your life."

"May I see?"

The orange crowned queen did not respond with words, but by commanding the waking dream to shift. Twilight found herself back in the hatchery where it all began. The vision formed much faster this time as the memories came from living drones that witnessed the event. As before, the scene recreated in front of Twilight was frozen in time. An empty transparent pod was open on top and was filled with familiar orange liquid Twilight remembered waking up in. The hatchery was crowded with three burly changeling soldiers off to the side, a frozen Cadista stood still as she weathered an extremely cold and seething fury of the pearly white alicorn in front of her. The frozen Cadista was extremely uncomfortable looking into Celestia's frigid rage that was carefully concealed by the mask of someone who had seen many battles in her time.

Nevertheless, now was a situation that the past version of Cadista was terrified that could spiral out of control in a heartbeat. The queen knew her hive's future rested on somehow placating Celestia, but the diarch didn't act like how she was used to dealing with.

 _The other queens range from coy to flying rages when they are wronged,_ Cadista mused to herself as she once again looked death in the face, _but Celestia tempers her indignation behind that frighteningly frigid mask of hers. The alicorn made it crystal clear she was angry, but also that she would never again let that fury cause her to make mistakes._

Lying suspended in the air and wrapped in the orange glow of a stasis spell was the achingly familiar broken and bloody unicorn who was positioned between the two royal ponies and the unoccupied chrysalis.

Cadista turned to Twilight who was at her side. "Prepare yourself, I will begin the memory momentarily."

Twilight wasn't sure how to do that, so she stood there to await the specters of the past to move. An instant later the memory started playing and both visiting changelings were chilled by Celestia's ice cold tone of voice.

"I trusted you to protect her while she was in your lands and now her life hangs on the edge of a knife. If you had let me send a full battalion with her, this never would have happened."

The Cadista of the past maintained a strong front, but she knew her small hive could never stand against the full might of Equestria with Celestia spearheading the fight. "Please be reasonable Princess. The other hives are still in uproar from Chrysalis's attack on your people and the revelation of our existence to those beyond the jungle. If you had sent even a small platoon the rest of the hives would have seen it as an act of war upon us all."

The alicorn's ear twitched as she used her profound willpower to keep anything but a frosty expression from showing. "You stated time and time again that the other hives would ignore her presence. I saw the battlefield on the way in. The assailants didn't steal the cargo-"

"They came for Twilight Sparkle, yes I know," Cadista interjected with a flash of emotion. "And every last one of my children in that convoy died to protect her!" Celestia's frigid mask cracked as the orange crowned queen pressed her point. "My brood did everything in their power to keep Twilight safe, and it was through both their and your soldiers' sacrifice that she emerged alive at all. Believe me Princess, this is the last thing I could have possibly wanted."

A single tear escaped Celestia's right eye, but a quick spell made it evaporate. She gathered her courage to look upon Twilight's broken body. There was more blood on her fur than visible purple. Her horn was chipped and cracked down its length and her left eye was swollen. The lavender changeling felt her stomach churn at seeing the extent of her injuries. Only the unicorn's left foreleg escaped having a broken bone or shattered hoof.

Changeling-Twilight could only guess what kind of internal injuries were present as well. Twilight absently touched her abdomen where she remembered the worst of the pain. Celestia's ability to hold her fragile mask in place was weakening by the second. Cadista used the pause to speak again. "My stasis spell is imperfect, and the window of reviving her is shrinking every second we waste arguing who is at fault. I've already spoken with Twilight and she's already agreed to go through with it."

The alicorn gestured a wing at the four guardponies behind her and they left the hatchery without question. Cadista took the hint for desired privacy and told the nearby drones to depart as well. The alabaster mare inhaled sharply to keep her composure. "I want to speak with her."

"Princess, time is-"

Celestia's frosty tone raised hundreds of degrees but her volume never rose above a speaking voice. " **I will speak with Twilight to see if she truly wants this or we are at war.** "

Cadista ground her teeth but held her peace. "I can bridge your minds so I can keep the stasis spell active, but please be brief."

An orange glow began at Cadista's horn before two tendrils of magic split off to touch Twilight and Celestia's horns. Celestia's inner voice was much more emotional than her exterior one. _Twilight, can you hear me?_

The unicorn didn't respond at first, and when she did it was faint. _Celestia? Are you-_

Casting decorum to the winds, the alicorn bent over her prized pupil and wanted to caress her mane, but feared that even the slightest touch could cause further harm. _I'm here Twilight. I'm right beside you._

The unicorn couldn't move her eyes to try and see, so she opted to speak only. _I'm so sorry Princess. I should have listened to you._

Even through the stasis spell, the lavender mare cried at causing her second mother such anguish. Twilight's memory of this moment broke free of the fog of her amnesia and she cried too while her mouth silently parroted the unicorn's words.

 _I wasn't ready for this. I-_

Celestia heard Twilight's voice was getting weaker. The diarch in her pushed its way to the forefront. _Twilight listen to me. Cadista says she can heal you in one of her chrysalises. Did you agree to let her turn you into a changeling?_

Twilight's voice was wracked with fear and sobs. _Y-yes. I'm scared Celestia. I don't want to forget you, but I'm too afraid to die._

Celestia knew time was running short as Twilight's voice continued to grow weak. The lavender changeling's returning memories became increasingly clouded and blurry as her past self came closer and closer to death's door. Thankfully the waking dream remained clear.

Twilight's confirmation was the last thing making Celestia hesitate in letting her go. She faced Cadista and shouldered the weight of her decision upon her withers. "Do it. Save my daughter."

Cadista acted with great care and levitated the unicorn above the open egg and slid her through the top of the chrysalis and into the orange fluid below. A caretaker drone entered silently and applied a gel to seal the cocoon. Neither member of royalty uttered a word until the caretaker left.

The alabaster alicorn's composure was hanging by a thread when she spoke to Cadista. "Please, leave us." Cadista nodded her compliance and turned to leave. As the past version of Cadista departed, the hatchery turned black and was soon absent completely when the queen closed the door behind her.

Even though the room was visually gone, Cadista remained by the door. This left the lavender changeling in a black void with only the sound of a broken heart weeping in pain. Eventually that too faded as the morose queen moved further down the hall.

Twilight was silent for a long while. Cadista gave her time to brood before offering some words she hoped would sound comforting. "She came to visit you as often as she could. The moment you hatched I had my ambassador inform her of the news."

Twilight listened silently. She finally spoke again a minute later. "We really cared for each other," the lavender mare said sullenly without looking away from where Celestia's ghost disappeared.

"She still does, Twilight Sparkle."

This time she did face her matriarch. "Then why don't I feel that way towards her? I feel pity and sympathy for Celestia, but none of the love that passed between them."

Cadista sat down next to the young mare. "Love like that doesn't come in an instant. You have only seen one memory of her and whatever fragments that have returned to you. I'm sure when you recover more memories of her, that love will return."

Twilight kept playing the hatchery scene over and over in her head. "Was there really no other way to save me? It caused her so much pain to let me go."

"I'm afraid so." The queen's tone grew bitter. "You were poisoned with venom of a ghast spider. It's not overly lethal in of itself, but it prevents magical healing in the victim. This toxin was present in all but the lone earth pony who survived. Whoever perpetrated the attack wanted to make sure you stayed dead." The queen detected Twilight's confusion and elaborated. "The perpetrator was obviously not expecting Celestia to allow you to undergo rebirth into a changeling, it's the only process we know that can counteract the venom if the victim is too far gone to survive their wounds until the poison passes."

Twilight's depressed mood shifted to righteous anger. "Someone or something wanted to make sure I was dead?"

Cadista nodded. "That is what the evidence tells me at least. As for who, I only have conjecture and a hunch to go by. All of the hives have easy access to ghast spiders because they are found all through the jungle to the north and east."

Sensing that Twilight would not be able to emotionally handle any more memory projections, the orange crowned matriarch ended the waking dream and both changelings' perceptions returned to the queen's bedchambers.

* * *

Twilight's expression softened as she accepted Cadista's words as truth and took the shift in perception in stride. "I'd be dead if it weren't for you. I can never thank you enough."

Cadista's mood fell at Twilight's gratefulness. "I cannot accept your gratitude Twilight. It is, at the very least, partially my fault that your life nearly came to an end in the first place."

The queen paused to pick her words carefully. "When I heard Celestia say you expressed a desire to visit my city to learn about the hive, I thought that was a perfect opportunity to show you our splendor. If I could convince you, Celestia's star pupil, that not all changelings are like Chrysalis's ilk then you would in turn convince Celestia of that fact as well."

Confusion marred Twilight's features. "But it was my idea to come here in the first place wasn't it?"

"Yes, it was. But I should have insisted somepony less important to the Equestrian crown come in your stead. The other hives need time to reconcile the aftermath of Chrysalis thrusting us into the global spotlight. But my ambition and need for Equestrian trade spurred me to hastily accept your offer to come here."

Twilight stood up and gave Cadista a hard look coupled with a forceful tone that surprised the orange matriarch. "But **I** chose to come here! Seeing how much the Princess cares for me, I have no doubt she probably tried to stop me or at least gave me plenty of warning. I believe you did the same, even if you may have downplayed it a little just so I would come anyway. None of that changes the fact that I came here willingly now does it?"

Cadista was stunned for several moments in the face of the lavender pony's heated argument. She blinked after regaining her wits and chuckled lightly. "You surprise me yet again Twilight. I half believed you lived in your mentor's shadow, but now I see you are your own mare."

Before she could respond, Twilight heard something just barely unintelligible over the hive mind. Cadista on the other hand understood perfectly. "She's here."

* * *

Twilight was a bundle of nervous energy that had already started to fray her mane and make her right eye twitch every so often. She was flying through several corridors behind her queen as they made their way to the recently remodeled reception hall. _Okay Twi, just try to stay calm. You're only meeting the one pony whose mere whim could spell disaster for the hive. And you just happen to be her former student._ She gulped nervously.

Cadista and the few drones they passed by could taste Twilight's fretfulness, but there was little she could do to console her. Twilight kept running how she thought the meeting would happen and what she would say. _What can I say to her? Sorry I'm a changeling now and my place is here? No, I still owe her much. Whether I remember it or not, Celestia was my teacher and close friend in my past life._

Cadista left her towards a pair of large brass doors and two flanking changeling guards' horns lit up to start the mechanisms to open it. The chamber was a very spacious room with next to no furniture. The northern wall was actually a large open space with a balcony that allowed flying visitors to enter. A vastly complex set of blueprints made out in bronze relief decorated the floor. The schematics themselves were nonsense, only made by the artists who crafted it to look both scientific and pleasing to the eye. Cadista also made sure the commission was done that way so as to not give away any trade secrets to visitors. Standing in the center of the room with ten pegasi soldiers in gold colored skysteel armor behind her was an apprehensive Celestia.

Remembering that she used to be a unicorn, Twilight opted to stop flying before fully coming into view of the alabaster alicorn and walked inside. The moment the princess locked eyes with Twilight the purple mare hesitated at the intense look of recognition and distress from Celestia. The diarch passed a quick word to her escorts who turned about-face.

Cadista stepped aside as the alicorn tried to mix haste and composure into her race to stand before her protégé. _This is between them, not me._ Celestia bore two full saddlebags bearing Twilight's cutie mark with the stars behind the purple starburst still being white.

Celestia and Twilight stopped three feet away from each other with Celestia doing everything in her power to keep from wrapping her forelegs and wings around Twilight in a crushing hug. "Do you remember me, Twilight?" _Please, please remember something about me._

Twilight was rendered speechless as she stared intently at the alicorn's face. Seeing Celestia through the eyes of someone else's memories was one thing, but hearing that painfully familiar voice address her directly coupled with that pleading expression was another. Twilight could feel the alicorn's hopefulness that she would be able to see even a faint spark of recognition.

Cadista stepped back a bit. "I'll leave you two alone."

The alicorn curtly nodded her gratitude while keeping her gaze on Twilight. With a silent command Cadista and her drones left the chamber.

Celestia risked breaking her regal image and sat down on her belly in front of Twilight so she would be eye level with her. "Do you remember anything at all about me?"

Twilight found her voice after seeing Celestia's eyes mist over and hearing the emotional warble in her speech. "I- I saw a memory of you right before I was placed in the chrysalis. I-" she winced as pain lanced through her brain and she held a hoof to her temple.

In a vain hope that she could trigger Twilight's memory, Celestia abandoned her usual regal posturing and unbuckled the saddlebags before running forward to embrace the young mare in a tight motherly hug. "Oh Twilight. I'm so sorry this happened. I should have never let you go." She wept shuddering tears into the lavender changeling's fur while constantly repeating her apologies over and over again.

Twilight knew she should have feelings for the princess currently trying to crush the life out of her. But outside of a few brief flashes and the scene in the hatchery, there simply wasn't enough to spark what she once shared with Celestia.

Her analytical mind kicked in after recovering her wits from being bum rushed into a hug. _She was my mentor. I probably owe my life to her at least once, and she must have provided for me greatly if she loves me this much._ Twilight was nearly overwhelmed by the intense mother's love washing from the alicorn like a torrential river. She barely managed to remain lucid from the ecstasy of drinking in so much love. _Until I remember what we once meant to each other, I can at least try to begin anew._

Casting aside her misgivings, Twilight attempted to hug her old mentor back and buried her muzzle into the alicorn's neck. _If for nothing else, the Princess is in pain, and maybe this will let that heal._ A small part of Twilight was more than happy to greedily inhale as much freely given love as possible.

Slowly, over the course of several minutes, the elder mare's tears dried up and she released Twilight from her embrace. As she pulled away, Celestia searched Twilight's expression. She found sympathy, and a very faint twinge of recognition, but not the happy smiling face of her beloved student. "I know you don't know me as I do you, but thank you Twilight. I- I needed that."

 _We must have shared a deep personal relationship so she will probably prefer that I drop her title._ "I wish I remembered more of my past, Celestia, but the memories just aren't there yet."

The admittance nearly crushed what was left of the alicorn's hope. The inner pain was mirrored by her face as she was not yet able to summon the will to reform her typical regal visage. "I knew coming so early after your—" she found it difficult to associate her beloved unicorn with the term that came to mind. "Your rebirth wouldn't have given you much time to recover. But I had to see you. To know you were whole again."

Twilight attempted to inject some humor to lift the mood and bonked herself in the head with a hoof. "Well I'm not whole quite yet, but I'm getting there."

Celestia gave a much needed chuckle. "I see some of Pinkie's sense of humor rubbed off on you." As that touch of mirth returned to the diarch she finally took in Twilight's new appearance. _Behind the fangs and slitted eyes and stripe of orange hair, my little Twilight is still in there._ Relief flooded her and eased her mind. _I don't care if she's a changeling now, she's still the Twilight Sparkle I know and love._

Pinkie's name meant little to Twilight Sparkle, outside of assuming it was an old friend of hers. "I know this may sound weird, but my journey here wasn't a total loss." The princess's mood began to fall again, and Twilight scrambled to elaborate. "What I mean is, I came here to learn all about changelings right? Well now that I am one, I can learn everything there is to know and I can tell you all about it." She didn't want to voice her fear that Cadista might object to that.

Celestia decided to count her blessings that Twilight was still willing to help her even if she didn't fully remember their relationship. "I would appreciate that, thank you." _At least your metamorphosis will have meaning outside of preserving your life._ "Are you being treated well here Twilight?"

The younger pony nodded sincerely. "Yes of course. Cadista has been nothing but accommodating." She cast her eyes downward to rattle off a list. "I'm not hungry, thirsty," she remembered the love crystal Ratchet gave her, "everypony's been very kind to me." She looked back up to Celestia. "They've welcomed me as their sister. I have every reason to be happy here."

Celestia hung on the term sister for a moment before pushing it aside for later. "I'm glad. I couldn't bear the thought of you being treated poorly because of all this."

Twilight placed a comforting hoof on her mentor's right foreleg. "Believe me, Princess, I may have only been alive again for a day, but what I've seen of the hive so far is amazing. Surely you saw it all on your way here."

"I did, several times when I came to visit you during your—convalescence." The alicorn turned around to levitate the saddlebag she had left behind and placed it next to the two sitting mares. "I brought you some things I thought you might like to help jog your memory."

Twilight noticed her cutie mark on the bags, and zeroed in on the fact that the background starbursts were white. The alicorn withdrew several books, scrolls, a few purple and green candles, and a photo album. Twilight eyed the books hungrily, and pouted slightly when Celestia started with the album that had the words 'Over the Years' written on its cover. She cracked it open to a bookmark. Two pictures dominated each page. The one on the left was a picture of a filly Twilight with her parents and brother all standing together with the scroll denoting Twilight's acceptance into the School for Gifted Unicorns was floating beside the exuberant young pony in a lavender glow.

The one on the right was of a much older Twilight with her six best friends crushing each other in a group hug. Twilight felt a stab of familiarity from it all and couldn't decide which photo to focus on first. Knowing that Twilight's most recent memories would be of her friends, the alicorn started with that photo. She pointed at the list of names at the bottom of the page. "Your friends and family went through your old photo album and put names and dates around the pictures."

Twilight yipped at finally having names to put with the faces in her memory. "I've seen them before! Rarity, Applejack," she had to keep looking between the faces on the picture and the legend below it to link the names. "Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, and Spike. I saw some of them in my dream last night, but I couldn't tell who they were."

"They were your best friends in Ponyville." Celestia drifted her hoof to the other picture. "And this is your—" she hesitated before saying 'family' after recalling what Twilight had referred the hive as the same thing. "They are your first family. Shining Armor-"

* * *

The pair pored over the captured memories for hours. Every so often Twilight would remember a face, a name, or a place. Unfortunately she was never able to piece together whole events or grasp some people's personalities. Sometimes what fragments she did have painted the event or person in the wrong light and Celestia tried to correct those she knew about.

They went over a fourth of the photo album before Celestia gave Twilight some of her old favorite books and several letters written by her friends and family. Yet time eventually forced the alicorn to end her visit. By now, both mares were sitting side by side with the unread scrolls sitting off to the side. There had simply been so much of a lost lifetime to share in just the photo album alone.

"Twilight. I know this is selfish of me to ask," Celestia began. Her mind told her that she should wait for more of her old self to resurface, but her heart demanded that she at least try. "I can take you back to Canterlot or Ponyville. I know your friends and fellow Ponyvillians would welcome you back." She held back saying it would please her greatly if Twilight accepted. The alicorn felt guilt and hope in equal measure.

Twilight felt a friendship with the royal alicorn, unfortunately it was not the same one she used to have, but one built from scratch as they shared her lost memories. She mulled over the offer carefully. _It's obvious I had or have a place back in Equestria. But-_ Twilight's face turned grim. "I'm sorry Princess, but I can't accept your offer. Going back now would make all of the pain and suffering you and my friends went through meaningless. Even worse, with me being a changeling, my very appearance will always remind you of that pain which would never have a chance to be vindicated. I came here to learn about changelings and that's what I'm going to do with this second chance at life."

Twilight's words cut the alicorn deeply, and only her countless years of experience kept that new pain from showing. Twilight placed a caring hoof over Celestia's foreleg. "For better for worse Celestia, I am a changeling now. And until I can figure out what that means to me, my place is here with my brothers and sisters."

The diarch had suffered many goodbyes over her long life. The hardest of all had been the banishment of her sister. This was a close second. _At least I know for certain that Twilight's spirit remains intact._ "Your life is your own Twilight. I will not take that from you, even if it pains me not to." She paused to recollect herself. "There is one more thing I need to give you Twilight."

The princess levitated one of the forgotten circular candles and placed it in front of Twilight. It was made of a light green wax three inches in diameter and half a foot long. "This candle was made from some of Spike's donated scales. Instead of normal fire, it creates a small flame of dragon fire. If you ever wish to write me a letter, burn it with this candle and it will appear at my side. Any letters I write back to you will appear next to the candle."

Twilight took the gift into her orange magic and floated it over to sit between her forelegs. "Thank you, Princess. I can't remember our old relationship, and I know I probably will in time. But until that day comes, I would be honored to forge a new friendship with you. I'll write at least once a week."

The alicorn smiled weakly. "I would like that very much." She stood up and stretched her wings to get the stiffness out of them. "I wish you well, Twilight Sparkle."

The lavender mare got to her hooves as well. "And I wish you the same, Princess. Have a safe trip home."

The white pony smiled warmly as she walked over to her escorts. After climbing into her waiting chariot, she waved farewell at Twilight who had followed her to the balcony and waved from the ground until the golden chariot passed through the shield dome and slowly vanished from sight.

Twilight took a deep breath and pressing a hoof to her chest and moving it forward at the exhale. "I think that went well."

Buzzing wings behind the mare made her turn around to see a male drone had collected her gifts and presented the saddlebag. "I figured I'd save you some time while you watched her leave and repacked your things."

"Oh. Thanks."

He nodded while flying to her side to help put it on her back. "Mother will be glad you decided to stay, sis."

Once it was secured Twilight turned to face him. "Well this is my home after all," she said with a sense of finality. "But yes, I'm sure she will. Speaking of which, I better go see her."

Without further preamble Twilight shakily climbed into the air with her burden and slowly started making her way towards Cadista's chambers. The drone chided himself at seeing her struggle with the heavy weight. _What was I thinking letting her carry that much?_ He summoned another nearby sibling for assistance and took to the air before quickly chased her down. "That's a really heavy load for a recent reborn. Why don't we take some of the weight off your back?"

With her wings already feeling strained, Twilight dropped to the ground. "I could use the help, thanks." She smiled at her siblings' thoughtfulness.

The two drones hefted the books out of her saddlebags while the female drone spoke. "Like my work boss always tells me; nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs."

Both of her siblings took the heavy tomes in their forelegs and followed Twilight all the way to the queen's chamber. The doors were open so the trio entered without needing to announce themselves as Cadista felt their presence in the Link. She drifted back out of her communion to speak with the lavender mare more personally as the two drones dismissed themselves.

"Well the palace isn't under siege by a furious alicorn so I take it your meeting went well," she said with an attempt at humor.

Twilight removed her bags and levitated her belongings to the side of the door. "It did." She smiled a bit at the humor. "I believe we came to a reconciliation of sorts." She started walking towards her queen who got up from her couch to be face to face with the purple mare. Twilight became a little apprehensive about what she was going to say next. "I know my place is here with my brothers and sisters, but I would like to reconnect with my old friends and family at some point and visit them in Equestria."

Cadista smiled at the sentiment. "Family is paramount to every changeling my dear. Once your connection to the hive mind is complete, I think it would be a good thing if you visited your first parents." She bent down to be eye level. "Let them know that just because you are a changeling, doesn't remove the fact that you are Twilight Sparkle."

The lavender pony grinned happily. "Ratchet was right. We are lucky to have you as our queen." She leaned forward and nuzzled her matriarch.

Cadista was caught off guard the physical display of affection and was unsure of how to reciprocate. After a few moments she opted to wrap a hesitant foreleg around Twilight and pat her mane. _We may have changed your body Twilight, but I think you'll end up changing us more than we ever did you._

Twilight separated from her elder with a slightly worried look. "I sort of promised Celestia that I would write her about changeling life. Is that okay?"

Cadista climbed back to her hooves. "I made the agreement to share my culture with Equestria before all of this happened, and I will certainly not go back on my word now. Just don't share our engineering and alchemy secrets. You can tell her about our technology, just don't go sharing schematics and formulas."

Twilight was just happy that taking the initiative like that wasn't met with a reprimand. The conversation lulled as Cadista let Twilight choose if she wanted to share anymore of her talk with Celestia. Privacy was not a foreign concept in Cadista's hive, and if Twilight wanted to keep her own counsel on the little details then she would leave the matter be.

Twilight spied Ratchet's crystal sitting on the brass end table where she had left it last night. _Oh that's right!_ She focused on the hive mind and tried to announce a request to be heard by someone other than just her queen.

Cadista was halfway to her couch when she heard the request. The oddity of it made her turn around with bemusement written all over her. "Why would you want nineteen empty love crystals?"

Twilight wrapped the distant crystal in her orange magic and pulled it over to her. "I don't know what it cost you to save my life. I mean besides worrying about potential war with Equestria. But I'm sure my rebirth was taxing. Especially considering what kind of changeling I am."

The physical differences between herself and the average drone did not go unnoticed by Twilight. Most noticeable of all was that Cadista and Twilight's eyes were unique among the hive. "I want to carry my own weight, and I want to start with this."

Twilight was brimming with Celestia's love and she held the empty crystal to her horn and carefully refilled it back to its original pink glowing luster. She felt herself grow weaker, but her body was so saturated with love that the effect was minimal.

Cadista was startled at Twilight's willingness to part with freely given love. "Twilight, that's not necessary. Our gatherers may be few, but they still more than exceed our monthly love requirements."

Twilight sent the crystal to her saddlebags. _I have to return the favor._ "Cadista, how long was I in the chrysalis?"

The queen scowled at Twilight draining herself. "Almost two months."

Twilight faced her matriarch with determination etching her grimace. "And when did I start needing love?"

Cadista knew where this was going. "Barely over a month ago."

"Then I have a lot of time to make up for."

Cadista felt the need to draw the line and sent out a countermand to Twilight's request. "If you want to contribute to the hive there are more productive ways for you to do that. Yes it's true your transformation was greatly taxing on our love surplus, but that's why I increased the number of gatherers right after you entered the chrysalis. Let them do their job so you can do yours."

Twilight frowned but did not object after being given a way to repay the debt she felt she owed. "Yes, my queen." Cadista had to give the young mare a notch of respect for knowing when formality was required of her. "Then can I get started on making my contributions today?"

Cadista glanced at the large clock on the wall by the large bronze and steel doors. "Your commitment is to be commended Twilight. I do not fault your enthusiasm, just your chosen method." Twilight's mood lifted at the praise, and a small smile returned to her. "Seeing that you have a strong affinity for scholarly pursuits I want you to apprentice under Chief Engineer Sprocket Altair. It is time for the midday meal, so go take a lunch and then find Sprocket." Cadista recalled how Twilight just made a deliberate request via the hive mind. "I trust you know how."

"I do."

"Very well." Cadista dismissed her with a gesture so Twilight made for the exit, but not before going over to Celestia's gifts. Having no time to place them on any furniture, Twilight opted to leave them on the floor. The disarray of her belongings irked her so she used her kinesis to organize everything with the books in alphabetical order, the letters stacked behind them, and the candle on top. The photo album was propped up against the books. _I'll take the time to read the letters after work._

Twilight eyed her saddlebags. _I might be given books to study so I better bring that with me._ After donning the burlap containers she flew off and out of the palace. She had one place she needed to visit before going to the closest food court. A quick query amongst the Link she was directed to a small tailor store that was built for making modifications rather than new products. Twilight found two of her sisters gossiping while mending some protective jackets. Work amongst machines was not always safe and definitely not clean. It was much easier to wash clothing than it was to scrub stains out of one's fur or wings.

They stopped chatting when they saw the lavender mare arrive. "Excuse me, can I get a quick alteration done?"

"Depends on what you need and how fast you want it," the grey mare to right replied. Twilight exercised her voice through the Link to convey her wishes.

The other drone got out from behind her work bench. "That won't take long at all, three minutes tops."

Twilight levitated her saddlebags over to the mare's waiting foreleg. "I appreciate it."

It turned out to only take two and a half minutes for the tailor to return. "There you go, it's dry so you don't have to worry about it running."

Twilight brought the bags over in her magic so she could inspect them. The cutie marks that decorated the bags had the white starbursts dyed to a vibrant orange to match the marks that adorned her flanks. She smiled at the sight of it. "It's perfect."


	4. Chapter 4

Engineering

After eating a thoroughly enjoyable lunch, Twilight flew off to find Chief Engineer Sprocket Altair. The hive mind told her he was currently stationed in the Altair University. As she flew towards her destination, Twilight was confounded by the school's very existence.

 _I don't understand. Why would we need a university if the Link can tell us everything we need to know?_ She thought about asking the hive mind, but ultimately decided she could ask Sprocket himself. She _was_ , however, still wondering why she got three love crystals for lunch. _I know I can make general requests over the Link, but I don't know how to send complex questions yet. I guess there's no harm in trying, right?_

Twilight focused on Cadista's image and tried to send her a query. She got a reply back a few moments later, but couldn't decipher it. _Crud. This isn't working._ She was still ten minutes away from the university, so she decided to try something else.

Looking around, she spotted a drone flying parallel to her, and drifted over to him. "Excuse me, can you help me with something?"

He instantly recognized the purple coat and slitted eyes. "Of course, Twilight, what do you require?"

"I can't seem to ask the queen a question over the Link, yet. Can you help me speak to her?"

"Absolutely," he replied happily. "What did you want to know?"

"Well, the queen knows I was given an enormous amount of love from Celestia when she visited, but I still received three love crystals for lunch. Why couldn't they be saved, since I've already fed so much today?"

"Give me a second," he replied while relaying the message. "She says since you're a royal changeling, you require _at least_ three times as much love as us drones. The longer your body's brimming with love, the faster your overall development will be."

She cocked her head at the statement. "My… development?"

This time, the drone didn't bother relaying the query. "Well, it's not for nothing, sister, you're still at the princess stage of development. You're not going to stop growing until you're queen size, as it were."

The thought of learning more about her physiology was enticing. "So, I'm still basically a larva as far as royal 'Lings go?"

He gave a nonverbal sound of uncertainty. "I guess you could say that. Royal 'Lings come in three flavors. A princess, what you are right now, is what every royal changeling starts off as. You'll reach the proto-queen stage at some point, and that's usually marked by your first laying. Full queens are like Cadista, and well, you know how they are."

Twilight mulled over the information. "What do you mean, laying?"

He thought it was an obvious answer. _I guess it's our own fault for being so insular towards the other pony nations._ "It's short for when you lay eggs."

"Oh." She cringed a bit and pulled her hind legs closer together.

The drone felt sympathy for her. _Twilight was already an adult mare before being reborn as a royal so she'll probably learn about this stuff rather soon, but I might as well help her out now._ "In the other hives, a proto-queen will stay with the old hive until she has about three hundred drones hatch, giving her enough of a workforce to begin her own hive. That is, if she doesn't try launch a coup against her mother."

Twilight recoiled at the last bit of information. _Sounds dreadful._ "How does, um," she tried to think of a tactful way to ask. "How does our hive work in that regard?"

"Well, that's entirely between you and Cadista. I don't know if it'll make you feel better, but Cadista and Yumia decided this hive was far too important for that particular set of traditions. Cadista stayed on for four hundred years longer than she could have, because they wanted to make sure our hive survives. So, when Yumia was killed by Chrysalis two hundred years ago, Cadista was already here to make sure the hive didn't collapse without a queen."

"What happens when a hive collapses?"

"Depends on the drones, really. If the other hives had the ability to be independent like ours, we'd probably just be left queen-less, without a way to replenish our numbers. We'd still be very disorganized and frightened with the absence of her presence in the Link, but I don't think we'd remain that way forever."

The answer satisfied Twilight more than the drone could possibly know. _At least if the unthinkable happens, my brothers and sisters would be able to carry on._ "And the... less independent drones of the other hives?"

His even demeanor fell. "They'd likely go feral, or at least close to it." Both changelings lapsed into a brief silence before he spoke up again with genuine gratitude. "I'm really glad you're here, sis." Twilight perked up at the statement. "With Cadista being alone on the throne for so long, I always worried that if something happened to her, everything we had accomplished here in Stripped Gear would be destroyed by the other hives."

Twilight studied him for several long moments before answering, as a smile slowly spread over her face. "I'm glad I'm here too, brother."

The drone noticed his destination was almost directly below him. "Hope to see you later, sis, bye!"

Twilight waved back at him until he flew away. The university was close by, and she descended towards it. _For knowing I'm a princess and all, my siblings seem to be a lot more casual toward me than I thought they'd be. Well, I prefer it that way, rather than them walking on eggshells._

Twilight found she was being directed to a square, four-story building. The space was occupied by various student projects to demonstrate their prowess in the field of engineering.

Gleaming monuments of bronze and brass crowded the inner square, making it difficult to navigate by air. Twilight was captivated by them so much she whined about her predicament. "Ouuah, I want to study these so much! But... I can't keep Sprocket waiting."

The moment she entered the building's halls, a deep sense of belonging washed over her. Memories of the smell of chalkboards, books, and the droning of lecturers behind classroom doors, all came rushing back to her in a garbled mess. She pressed a hoof to her temple to ward off a headache, but the pain didn't really matter to her. _This is a place of learning, and being here feels so_ right _! I know I'm going to love it here._

Before she got very far, however, her thoughts drifted back to her saddlebags, and she descended to the ground and opened the left pouch. Inside were four filled love crystals, three of which she had received for lunch. She levitated the ones from lunchtime in front of her and sighed. _Hasten my development. I don't know how to feel about one day… laying… eggs,_ she brooded over the slightly unnerving thought. _My siblings work on machines, as soldiers, even in the sewers. Am I not obligated to fulfill my purpose, just as they do? I don't want this magnificent city to collapse if anything happens to Cadista just because I'm too scared to play my role._

With her mind made up, she brought the crystals to her horn and drained them. They barely registered amidst Celestia's love. "I'm still saving the last one for Ratchet."

After depositing the empty crystals in her bag, Twilight made her way through the corridors to Sprocket's office. _Okay Twi, make a good first impression. Show him that you're the perfect student, and this first meeting will be a cakewalk._

Before she could bang on the door, a gravelly voice yelled from within the office. "There's no need to knock, Twilight Sparkle, I can sense you out there."

With a sheepish grin, Twilight entered the office, and was met with an absolutely horrifying sight. Discarded papers, damaged scrolls, books in complete disarray, toppled inkwells, balled up pieces of paper on the floor, and a broken chalkboard met her eyes, and she had to fight every fiber in her being to keep herself from rushing forward to clean it up. _How can he possibly work under these maddening conditions!?_

A gravelly voice from behind a pile of books directed her attention. "So you finally arrived? I must say, I'm not very impressed."

Sprocket's condescending tone broke Twilight from her stupor. "What makes you say that?"

"That you obviously don't see the beauty of my filing system," he said while sweeping a leg at his office. "Your distaste is palpable over the Link."

"W-well, I— er, um, I'm sure it works for you," she hastily replied to avoid further insult.

"Right," he replied curtly. "I'll be blunt, Miss Sparkle, I don't really see why our queen would bother sending you to me. I only deal with those who know what the Pontoon effect is, how to work with Axiomatic design, and at the very least know how to reverse engineer another student's work equal to or lower than their grade."

She rubbed her foreleg nervously. "Isn't that why I'm here? So I can learn those things?"

He scowled and sat down at his desk. "If you were here to enter the school as a normal student, then I'd say yes, but the queen's got it in her head that she wants you to apprentice under me. Me!" He started grumbling more to himself than to her. "To think I have to dumb down my theories and concepts so an elementary student can grasp even one percent of my genius."

Twilight arched an eyebrow. "To be honest, I don't see the point of having a school. Research and development, I understand, but can't the hive mind give me all the information I need?"

He harrumphed as he perused some of his notes. "You are a recent reborn, Miss Sparkle, and a former Equestrian at that, so I will forgive your ignorance." He ignored a sour look from Twilight, and continued. "Tell me, if we carried such valuable information over the Link, made available to every brother and sister in the hive, what do you think would happen if another hive took one of ours hostage and ripped the information out of them?"

Twilight recoiled a hoof. "They _do_ that?!"

"Of course they do." He stopped looking over his notes to study the fledgling royal. "Most queens care nothing for the loss of a few hundred drones. To them, ripping apart another queen's drone is like peeking into your neighbor's window." Sprocket didn't seem to notice, or care, about the appalled look on Twilight's face.

"So, you can imagine why such knowledge never leaves an individual drone's mind. Except for when he's working, then it's shared with his fellow researchers, but only what's relevant to the task at hoof."

Twilight's wings fidgeted uncomfortably. "Oh, makes sense I guess."

The grizzled old researcher wasn't sure if Twilight was up to the task of being under his wing, but his orders demanded that he give her a chance. "You may be a princess in body, Miss Sparkle, but until Cadista says otherwise, you're just like any other drone to me." He leaned back in his chair to look over his disastrous filing system. "That being said, mother thinks you have potential, and I'll abide by her judgment until proved wrong."

Sprocket got up and started digging through his scattered books, pulling some out and placing them on the front end of his desk until he had a stack of twelve. "Read and memorize these texts and pass an exam about them. _Then_ I'll know if you can handle being my apprentice. If not, find something else to do with your time, or enter the school like any other student."

As she walked over to the pile of books, primal joy erupted out of Twilight at the prospect of reading. "I have a feeling I'm going to love it here."

He rolled his eyes as the mare tenderly placed each book in her saddlebags. "We'll see."

* * *

Two blocks away, Twilight walked into a three story library crammed with books. Rows upon rows of shelves left little room to walk between them. Only the top floor and the roof had any real open areas to read. Twilight made her way into the center of the first floor and took a deep slow breath as a profound sense of nostalgia and belongingness oozed out of every shelf and tome. _This feels like I've finally come home._ "Maybe I should move in here after my connection with the hive mind is complete," she thought aloud with a giggle.

There were dozens of drones in the library, all of them either studying or searching for books. Not wanting to disturb them, Twilight opted to snatch a cushion and find an empty spot near one of the ground floor bookcases. She settled down near a window, and pulled out the first book on her list. _Basic Engineering Principles._ She had to suppress a squeal of delight. "This is going to be so much fun!"

* * *

Twilight was so engrossed in her studies, she didn't notice it was far past lunchtime. Page after page, word after word was consumed by her ravenous hunger for knowledge. The former librarian had just opened her third book when a drone stopped by.

"Order up!"

Twilight's head jolted away from the page to see a familiar face holding a small food tray on his back and giving her a warm smile. "Ratchet? Ratchet! Hey, how've you been?" She climbed to her hooves and gave him a friendly nuzzle.

She pulled away and spotted a faint blush on his cheeks. "Well enough. Mother heard you never took your dinner rations and figured you were busy, so I brought you some dinner."

"That was thoughtful of her. Let me get my stuff packed, I wouldn't want to potentially ruin any books with spilled food."

Still not trusting her flying abilities under such a heavy load, Twilight opted to walk to one of the wooden and brass benches right outside of the library to eat. The mare found that her brother brought a different meal this time. "I thought you might like the supreme pizza. It's a favorite among the alumni."

Twilight set her saddlebags down and levitated the tray to be in front of her. The aroma that hit her after lifting the dish cover made her stomach protest being ignored for so long. "Its smells great, I seem to forget to eat when I study." She saw him fidgeting in front of the bench. "Why don't you join me? I could use some company."

"Sure, sis," he replied, enthusiastically taking a seat.

Twilight spied the trio of love crystals on her tray and yelped out of remembrance. "I'm glad it was you who brought me dinner, I have something to give you." She lifted the tray above her so she could dig into her bags before withdrawing the crystal filled with Celestia's love. _Didn't she say love is meant to be shared?_ She faced Ratchet and gave him the crystal. "Here, I still owe you from yesterday."

He eyed it quizzically as she deposited it into his hoof. "You saved one from lunch just to give it to me?"

"Well no, that's some of the love Celestia gave me. I don't think I'll go love starved for a whole week, thanks to her."

He couldn't stop his jaw from dropping. "I-I don't know what to say. Do you know how powerful freely given love is to its intended recipient? It would do you far more good than it would ever do me."

"But, Celestia said love is meaningless if it's not shared. Of course, the Princess thinks love is more of an abstract concept, rather than a resource, but still, I want to share it with you."

A ghost of a smile found its way on his face. "Well, thank you, really. But if you want to share your love, let me give this back and I'll take one of the crystals on your tray, instead."

She furrowed her brow at the suggestion. "Why does it matter which crystal you use? Isn't it all the same?"

"For me, yes, but this love," he handed the gift back, "was love given to you, for you. Because of that, you would receive at least five times as much nourishment from it than I ever could."

Her ears dropped a little along with her voice. "Oh. Well… here then." She placed Celestia's love back on her plate and gave Ratchet two of her other crystals. "What you did still means a lot to me, and since I have six crystals worth here, giving you two shouldn't be a problem then. If anything the second one can be for bringing me dinner."

Ratchet knew she was just trying to be kind and accepted them without protest. "Thanks sis. I appreciate it."

Her smile grew and she wrapped a foreleg around him and pulled him into a sidelong hug. "Hey, brothers and sisters look out for each other right?"

He chuckled at her expected casual demeanor and hugged her back. "Yeah, we most certainly do."

* * *

A few hours after sundown, Twilight returned to the queen's bedchambers. Her wings ached every time she tried to fly a long way with such a heavy load, so she walked most of the way. Twilight found Cadista had brought in an easel and canvas along with an assortment of paints. A collection of artwork had also been placed on pedestals around the room.

The queen spoke without looking away from her drawing of a verdant forest. "You left quite an impression on Sprocket today."

"I did?" asked a bemused Twilight as she trotted over to inspect the painting.

"Oh yes, most students balk or tremble at the workload he gives them. A bit of an intimidation tactic he uses to separate the wannabes and the will-bes. I didn't tell him you were Celestia's star pupil, so he was refreshingly surprised to see your eagerness to learn."

Twilight pulled one of her books out to read and breathed in the intoxicating aroma of knowledge. "There's just so much to learn! Can I take the rest of today and tomorrow to study?"

Cadista put the finishing touches on a tree before facing Twilight. "Well that _is_ what Sprocket asked of you, but before you do, there are still a few things you need to learn."

Always eager for new knowledge, Twilight levitated her saddlebags and book over to lie next to the rest of her belongings before giving Cadista her undivided attention. The queen cleaned her brushes and prepared her other supplies to be left alone for a while.

"Now, what do you know about the trade agreement we have with Equestria?"

Twilight rubbed her head as she searched her randomly cobbled together memories. "I know we import steel and coal, and I believe we export machinery, but I can't recall anything else."

Cadista nodded while levitating a short knife from a chest of drawers. "The piece you're missing, Twilight, is something we changelings call 'salve'. It's a gel like substance that we produce that can repair skin, stop bleeding, prevent infection," her tone shifted to condescending, "and those hives that still wrap themselves in chitin can use it to repair that too."

"Each hive has their own… brand as it were," Cadista continued. "The salve we produce can't repair chitin, as I have long since found its use in both queen and drone to be uncivilized. As a result, our salve has been tailored to work on skin to a much more effective degree."

"Makes sense. But this sounds like medical stuff, why would this be considered basic knowledge?" Twilight asked while eyeing the knife floating next to her queen.

Cadista knew Twilight wouldn't understand unless it was shown to her. "We make it within ourselves. Allow me to demonstrate."

Cadista raised her left foreleg and used the knife to make a shallow cut a few inches above her fetlock. Twilight winced, but said nothing. Cadista raised the wound to her mouth and spat a wad of orange gel onto it before using her magic to smooth the substance across the wound. "It hardens shortly after being exposed to air, so it's very useful in saving somepony's life when medical aid is too far away. All you need is soapy water to clean it off later."

Twilight studied the orange liquid on her queen's leg. "So, I was submerged in salve while I was in the chrysalis?"

Cadista nodded. "That's what gave the fluid its color yes, but this is not what turned you into a changeling. Salve is only designed for healing."

The more Twilight looked at it, the closer and closer she felt to remembering something. "Wait a second, I-I…" She fell on her haunches and clutched her head as a flood of old memories came rushing back.

A cascade of images of a pink alicorn with reptilian eyes, green fire surrounding her in a throne room, dark crystal caverns, and fighting scores of black changelings while being side by side five ponies, and other memories tried to cram into her mind all at once.

Cadista was at her side and hesitated for only a moment before wrapping a leg around Twilight. "Hold on, I will ease your pain." The queen deepened her mental connection with Twilight and spread her pain across the Link.

The young princess removed her hooves from her head as the pain abated. "Thank you. I remember parts of a wedding, when I saw a changeling for the first time in my life."

" _Chrysalis_ ," Cadista spat the word as if it was poison. "She did everything in her power to make us look like monsters."

Twilight only barely listened as images of the attack came back to her. "Yeah, she did," she muttered sullenly at now being associated with such beings.

"Chrysalis is not one for caring about the wellbeing of others," Cadista spat, "A most telling attribute of her callousness is what she's done to her hive's salve."

Twilight momentarily forgot the disturbing images of ponies being wrapped in cocoons against their will to look at her queen. "What do you mean?"

"You should know, Twilight, that even hives that care little for the common drone have always kept trying to improve their version of salve, if for nothing else than to allow their drones to recover from minor to medium injuries. _Chrysalis_ , on the other hoof, reengineered her hive's salve to be a grotesque method of restraining their captives. Instead of possessing any healing properties, it's sticky to everything except chitin. It's absolutely revolting," she cursed the other queen's name before seeing Twilight's cowed face and softened her expression.

"I apologize, Twilight, I should not get so heated at the mere mention of her name."

The lavender changeling nodded and resumed a more neutral posture again. "Did the other hives act against her for attacking Canterlot?"

Cadista's face became unreadable. "In their own way. Nubile and Thereena suspected she would be weakened from the failed invasion and attempted to annex some of her lands. Yeelindrus and Jstrul are her younger sisters, so they have little choice but to remain allies with her. The rest, however, are unsure, and have called for a Summit of the Queens to decide what the hives should do about Chrysalis bringing us into the global spotlight."

"The very last place we wanted to be," Twilight mused aloud.

"Well," Cadista replied wistfully. " _I_ at least feel we'll do better this way than hiding in the shadows, but mother and I never agreed with most changeling traditions."

"When are you going to the summit?"

Cadista's smile fell a little. "I'm afraid that's going to be, when _we_ are going the day after tomorrow."

Twilight's eyes dilated to the size of saucers. "W-wait, why am I going?"

"Outside of our personal relationship, Twilight, as far as the rest of my hive is concerned, you are an equal with your siblings. At least, until you decide you want to be more. However, general tradition states that you are my heir, and thus you must attend with me. It would be seen as a grievous insult to the other queens if you didn't. There are many traditions I can cast aside, but this is not one of them."

Twilight broke out in a cold sweat. "B-but I don't know the first thing about traditions, or posturing, or politics, or any of that stuff. I've only been a changeling for two days!"

 _Well, technically, you could have been considered a changeling once I started feeding you love in the chrysalis._ Cadista wrapped a leg around Twilight. "I know, and after hearing they were calling the summit, I had hoped you would not hatch until after it began. But alas, that was not meant to be."

Several hairs started to frazzle out of Twilight's mane and tail. "I don't want to get you or the hive in trouble because I don't know any better."

Cadista had to put forth serious effort to not ease Twilight's mind. _She needs to recover from this on her own or she'll never make a good leader._ "Don't worry, I'll be there to both protect and guide you. No pony would dare harm another during the summit." Her tone grew sardonic. "A rare time of peace between us, to be sure."

Twilight remembered a calming technique and slowed her breathing while moving her upraised hoof to her chest and back away on the exhale. Cadista watched with curiosity as her daughter centered herself. When she opened her eyes again, Twilight's face was even and calm. "I think we got off our original topic about the salve."

Cadista felt a lopsided grin crease her face. "That we did. Let me show you how to use it. After that we should call it a night."

* * *

The Link was always present in Twilight's mind. Twilight often mused that the line between her mind and the chorus of voices was blurring with each passing second, even if the Link was unintelligible most of the time. She could receive and give instructions when putting forth strong effort sometimes, while required information would be automatically given to her without even needing to voice a request.

Now, however, the voices, as quiet as they were, were finally understood. Twilight awoke the instant the line between the Link and her mind eroded away completely. She cracked her eyes open and sat up at the realization that she understood the voices. She saw Cadista sitting on a cushion in front of her easel with a few pieces of breakfast hovering nearby. Thus far, the queen was unaware of Twilight's awakening, so the purple changeling used the opportunity to try speaking to her via the Link.

Good morning, Cadista.

The matriarch turned to face Twilight and replied with a pleased note of satisfaction, but inwardly suppressed her alarm. And good morning to you, Twilight. So, you can finally speak normally through the Link. Come here so I can examine you more closely.

Cadista abandoned her artwork while Twilight climbed out of bed so they could close the distance. The matriarch stopped a foot away from Twilight and used her magical senses to inspect the purple changeling. _Astounding. It should have taken at least another week for this to happen. Perhaps the freely given love of an alicorn is more potent than I realized._ "This is good news indeed. Your merger with the hive mind is complete. It appears retaining Celestia's love like I asked has greatly accelerated your development."

Twilight mulled over her words. "Well, I'm sure Celestia would be happy to know her love helps me like that."

"Undoubtedly." She smiled at the young changeling. "How does it feel, now that you are truly one with the hive?"

Twilight looked to her recovered memories to piece together a reasonable comparison. "Before, I was alone with my thoughts. It never caused discomfort or loneliness because that's how I had always been. Now though, it's like I'm in a vast forum where everybody's talking and I can understand them all at once. I am part of the whole, but I feel like I stand above them a little. Like I could direct the flow of conversation if I wanted to."

"That's your royal blood. A queen must be able to listen to all of her drones and direct the will of the hive."

Twilight looked at the ground as a puzzling question came to mind. "Cadista, why did you make me a royal changeling instead of a drone?"

Her large purple eyes moved back up to search her matriarch for an answer. Cadista sighed while levitating some food over to Twilight. "The biggest reason was to maintain your ability to remain independent. By our nature, a royal changeling can survive with either a million drones or completely by herself. You do not _need_ to be part of a hive mind, and you can recover from being severed from it if necessary. However the most important aspect of this independence is that another queen cannot subvert your will and force you into her hive like she could with a drone."

Twilight cringed. "I didn't think other queens could do that, or would want to."

"It's mostly used for spying on each other," The queen explained, "but the point is, if one of the other queens got ahold of you, they could forcibly induct you into their hive mind and rob you of your very identity, if they were so inclined. As a royal, however, that's impossible."

 _Geeze, I didn't think life outside the hive was so ruthless._

Twilight's thought was not broadcast over the Link, but Cadsita noticed Twilight nervously scuffing the ground. "Don't worry about it, Twilight. Now that your connection to the Link is complete, I can guide you through all the ridiculous pomp and ceremony. Some might question your position at first, but none would dare harm you during the summit."

Her words only had some of the effect she was hoping for. _Time to switch topics._ "How about I summon breakfast while I teach you more of your natural abilities?"

Twilight's pout switched to a large smile while her wings buzzed in excitement. "That sounds fun!"

Brandishing a smile of her own, Cadista beckoned Twilight over to one of the walls of her chambers. As if to mirror the city's shield above the hive, the queen's bedchambers was a dome as well. "You've probably already seen several of your brothers and sisters doing this already, so stop me if you already know how to do this."

Cadista propped herself up onto the incurving walls and started walking up towards the ceiling as if she was on the ground. Twilight's eager grin never left her face. "I saw a few drones reading upside down in the library when all the tables were occupied. And I remember Chrysalis' brood doing that during the wedding. I've just been so preoccupied that I never thought to ask how to do it myself."

"Well, now is a good a time as any then. Wall walking is not very difficult to grasp. All you have to do is feel the interior of your hoof for a muscle and sort of…pull on it."

Twilight had never taken the time to actually inspect the bottom of her hoof since hatching and looked down on it now. The front and side outer parts of her left forehoof were the same as before, but the frog had been replaced by a rough looking mass of muscle. _Must be that way so I can walk on rough ground without being injured._ Experimentally, she pressed the same hoof against the wall and pulled the muscle. She felt a twinge of her magic flow through the muscle which adhered itself to the wall.

Cadista nodded in praise. "Excellent. Now just start walking up. Once you begin with the first hoof, the rest will follow automatically after they make their next step. Just be sure to keep at least two hooves on the wall at all times or you'll slip off."

Following her matriarch's advice, Twilight put both forelegs on the wall then leveraged their suction to kick her back hooves off the ground and onto the wall.

"Let instinct tell you how to walk. Your body will release and adhere as needed without additional thought on your part."

Twilight couldn't help but giggle as she walked up the wall to be at Casita's side. "This is really neat. I could find all kinds of good reading spots now that I'm not restricted to the floor."

Cadista smirked. "As good a use as any."

After walking along the ceiling for a few minutes, a drone appeared with Twilight's meal and departed after leaving it on a fold out table. The young royal got an idea and levitated the food over to her while still remaining on the ceiling. "Might be fun getting used to wall walking."

Cadista shared the sentiment. "It can be disorienting when all the blood rushes to your head, so try to mix your training with rest time on the floor. It'll take a while, but your body will acclimate eventually."

"I will, thanks," Twilight was exhilarated by the chance to try something new. _Upside down dining, this should prove to be quite the experience._ Cadista dropped off the ceiling and returned to her painting.

Twilight was only able to eat like that for a few minutes before a headache made her fly back down to the ground near Cadista to finish her meal. "So, when did you take up painting? Did you do all of the painting in here? They're really good." She gestured a hoof to the five different works of art strategically placed across the room.

The matriarch glanced at her other pieces of art with pride. "I did, thank you. Mother said that a queen influences the hive in more ways than one. She believed that the demeanor of the queen is reflected in her drones, and I am in full agreement. As such, I try to keep my creativity strong so the hive can benefit from that."

Twilight briefly studied the other paintings. Most depicted machinery, or Stripped Gear from multiple elevated angles. "Well, I think it's working. The hive has built a great city here."

"I'm glad you agree. I know in time, you will make improvements I could only dream of."

Twilight fell silent while gnawing on her food. _I hope I can live up to those expectations._

* * *

The rest of the day and much of the next was entirely occupied by Twilight studying the fascinating world of engineering in the books Sprocket gave her. Most of that time was spent in the library on campus. The repository of books called to Twilight like an old friend. The structure resonated the same way with many of its patrons, and the purple changeling felt that collective mood echo within her. It served to only bolster her already insatiable hunger for knowledge.

Currently, she was hanging from the ceiling on the second floor of the library reading the last book assigned to her. Unlike most structures in Equestria, changeling architecture typically took wall-walking into account. Twilight found reading upside down both entertaining and useful for staying focused.

Twilight was so enthralled by her studies that she didn't hear someone calling her name from below three times before they switched to speaking via the Link. You always seem to forget to eat, sister.

The purple mare's ears perked up and she looked down to see a female drone she hadn't seen before, but the hive mind quickly gave Twilight her name. Heh, I guess I do get a little carried away. She spotted the tray of food on the grey mare's back. I'll be right down, Flexi.

Twilight kept her books in her orange kinesis and dropped off the ceiling and into powered flight before landing next to Flexi and speaking normally. "You really don't have to go through all the trouble of bringing me meals all the time, I just need an alarm clock."

Flexi smirked. "The librarian would chew your wings off."

Both mares tittered at the humor before Twilight spoke. "Well, I'd better take this outside." She leaned forward and gave Flexi an affectionate sisterly nuzzle. "Thanks for thinking of me."

The grey drone knew of Twilight's alien preference for physical displays of affection and smiled while returning the gesture in kind. "It was nothing, really, we all look out for our own."

Twilight broke contact. "Well, perhaps one day we can expand our definition of 'our own'. Maybe I'll see you around sometime."

Flexi frowned as she walked off to eat. _What does she mean by that?_

This time, Twilight found an actual table so she could both read and eat. _Now I just need to finish the last chapter review before I compile my notes on everything. Then, I should be able to pass Sprocket's test._

As her pony friends knew, Twilight's version of passing was a perfect score, and that had not changed one bit since becoming a changeling. _I should be ready a couple of days after the summit._

Twilight shuddered at the thought. "Don't focus on that, Twi, Cadista will help you through it, and it'll all turn out fine in the end." _Actually, now that I'm fully integrated into the hive mind, maybe she'll let me visit Ponyville and see my old friends. I remember some bits and pieces of them, but if we got along back then, then I'm sure I can reforge old friendships._

Twilight was halfway through with her meal when Sprocket's voice yelled at her through the Link. Twilight Sparkle!

Twilight jumped out of the chair at Sprocket's yelling. She groaned before responding. Yes, Sprocket?

If you're to be my apprentice, you shall call me Chief Engineer Sprocket!

She rolled her eyes. "Oh joy, he's going to be one of _those_ teachers." Yes, Chief Engineer Sprocket.

Good, how goes your progress?

Twilight took the time to get back in her chair to look over her notes. I just finished the last book you gave me. I'm writing up my final notes before reviewing them, and then I'm going to reread and improve my notes.

The old engineer balked before his tone became one of disbelief. You've read them all? All twelve in two days?

Twilight tilted her head. Yes, Chief Engineer, I've read them all.

He was silent for a few seconds to recompose himself. Come to my office in an hour to take your exam. I will not tolerate delay.

B-but I haven't had a chance to study my notes! I just need a couple of days.

Sprocket scoffed over the Link. Do you want to be one of those lowly assistants picking through the ruins of yesterday's breakthroughs, or do you want to push the boundaries of science as my apprentice?

Twilight frantically started putting her notes and books away. Well, yes, it's ju—

Then what are you waiting for? he interrupted, Science waits for no pony!

Twilight sent an apologetic call for a server to clean up her food while she telekinetically wrapped her saddlebags on. "I think science waits just fine," she grumbled while galloping off to the chief engineer's office.

Twilight burst into Sprocket's office on the fourth floor a half hour later, panting. _I hate stairs so very much right now. I really need to get my wing strength up._

Sprocket was standing near the one of his drawing boards when he turned to face the winded mare. "Ah good, I like a student who believes in being early," he said while completely ignoring her discomfort. He flew over to a high mounted line of shelves in the back of the room to fish through some papers. "I'll have your test in a moment. Why don't you place your belongings by the door, I want no temptations for cheating."

Twilight would have been insulted if she hadn't been out of breath. "I do _not_ cheat."

He found the paper he was looking for and grabbed it in his hoof. "Yes, yes, they all say that." He landed on the ground next to her. "This way, if you please, we need to get to the testing room."

Twilight followed wordlessly as they passed several rooms until they got to one with a heavy bronze iris door. Sprocket used a jolt of magic to activate the portal and it opened to reveal a small desk and chair with decent lighting. The walls were lined with dark orange resin.

"What is this place?" she inquired while looking around the spartan décor.

"This is the mute testing room. You'll see why when I close the door. I'll be kind and give you a warning: it can be quite jarring the first time."

She was perplexed by the statement. "What do you—" As soon as the door sealed behind him, the hive mind went silent. All of the voices that welcomed her and embraced her as one of their own were shut off. She was alone in her thoughts for the first time since she hatched, and the sudden silence left her with a migraine, quivering in terror. Without the memories of her past, she would have been a gibbering mess on the floor.

Sprocket always felt a little guilty about doing that. "Don't worry, this room only acts as a filter. You are still one with the Link, you simply can't hear them."

Twilight was rubbing her forelegs to get the chills out her of being so alone. "Do you really not trust me?" she growled indignantly.

"You simply don't understand what the queen has done, forcing me to take on an apprentice. Your discomfort will pass, and if you can't handle a little stress on the job, then you're not cut out to be under my wing."

 _I'm starting to think that might be rather unhealthy._

Sprocket dropped the test on the desk which already had an ink well and quill waiting for her. _This room wouldn't be necessary at all if I knew you didn't have help. Nopony could possibly read and understand even those basic principles in two days. Those cliff notes of hers must have been given to her by somepony else. Possibly even mother._ "Well, go on, get started. When you're done, use this lever here to open the door and give your exam to me."

Taking a deep calming breath, Twilight walked over and sat down at the desk. Sprocket pulled a lever next to the door and a sphere enclosed him and the exit to keep the Link filtered out when he opened the door and left. As soon as the door shut again, the sphere slid back into the floor.

She wrapped the quill in her orange magic and flipped the test over to the first problem. _You can do this Twilight. You haven't even spent a full week in the hive mind, you got through it back then just fine, you can handle an hour or two without it. Just focus, you need to focus!_

* * *

For two hours the test picked and prodded at Twilight's brain so much a throbbing headache threatened to make her pass out. Years under Celestia had shaped and molded Twilight's very way of thinking to make her an excellent test taker, but Sprocket's test was ruthless and the absence of the Link made it worse. The test picked through obscure methodologies and downright criminally obtuse requirements of solving calculations. The final question had been a short essay on why Twilight thought she could even dream of standing in Sprocket's shadow as his apprentice.

It took a monumental effort to keep from using that as an excuse to vent her frustrations at Sprocket for rushing her testing and cutting off the Link. _If he thinks I'm going to give him flowery praise however, he can guess again._

With the test held firmly in her magic, Twilight bolted for the door and pulled the lever to open the door. She slumped in the empty hallway as the chorus of voices flowed back into her. _I feel whole again._

It only took a few seconds for her mind to reacclimate to the Link. She was surprised to feel an extremely angry Cadista in the direction of Sprocket's office. _That can't be good._ Twilight tried to hide her presence from the hive mind as she crept towards his office. She could hear shouting coming through the closed door.

Cadista was staring needles through Sprocket. "What gave you the right to place her in a testing chamber? She's barely out of the shell and you want to traumatize her by silencing the Link!?" He shrunk away from the irate queen. "I can't believe this. I thought you were above that. After I free her from that torture chamber, you and I are going to have a long discussion about your _career_."

As Cadista was about to head for the door, Sprocket held out a pleading hoof. "L-Let's not jump to conclusions, my queen. Twilight Sparkle wasn't taking this apprenticeship seriously!"

Cadista was almost at the door. "We'll see about that, _after_ I free her."

She burst through the door to find Twilight waving at her with a sheepish grin. "Oh, hey! I finished."

Cadista's presence in the Link instantly shifted to apologetic concern. "Thank goodness you're alright! After I noticed you weren't responding to me, I had half the hive looking for you until _this one_ ," she stabbed a hoof behind her to Sprocket, "came forward with his crimes. I had no idea he would go this far with you, or anypony for that matter."

Twilight was just happy to see Cadista, but felt she should at least put on an air of strength in Sprocket's presence. "It wasn't fun, but I survived intact." Her test flew over and landed on the engineer's desk. "I think that should take care of my exam." _Even if I failed, at least I can prove to him that Twilight Sparkle_ doesn't cheat _._

Cadista sent Twilight accolades through the hive mind before addressing both of them. "Somepony else will have to grade that test, I'm afraid. The position for Chief Engineer has just been vacated."

"My queen, I must protest!" Sprocket nearly shouted. "You decreed that Twilight was to be treated as any other sister. She simply _could not have read_ twelve detailed textbooks in two days. She either got others to help her, or she doesn't care enough to take it seriously."

"I _did_ read those books!" Twilight retorted, "but I told you I wasn't ready for the exam yet, I wanted time to re-read them and go over my notes!"

Sprocket scoffed. "Please, you may have won mother over because of some nonsense with being a foreign diplomat or something, but I deal in cold facts. No pony reads and comprehends reference text that fast."

Cadista had had enough and was going to reassign him to grunge duty when Twilight made a rebuttal. "Then why not grade my exam then? You put me in that filter room; I couldn't possibly have cheated, right?"

Twilight looked to Cadista. _Alright, I'll try it your way for the moment._ The matriarch glared at Sprocket before flicking her head towards the waiting test. As he sulked over to look at it, she led Twilight out of the room to speak. "I must apologize for his actions against you, Twilight. I knew he prided himself on being one of my top researchers, but not to the extent that he would try to commit such an act against you just so he wouldn't have to take on an apprentice."

"It wasn't _that_ bad, I could almost ignore the silence towards the end of it. But, might I ask why we even have such a room?"

Cadista let out a long sigh. "It's used for multiple reasons, but it's mainly for students taking the higher graduate exams. The problem is that, at every other time in our lives, if we don't know something, our instinct is to send a query through the hive mind. As you can imagine, that defeats the purpose of testing to see if you know the answers. Our hive's drones are fully capable of surviving days, if not weeks of separation from the Link. Longer, if they undergo rigorous training. But even then, it is unpleasant."

Cadista stopped near an open balcony and sat on her haunches, gazing at the city under the dim glow of the shield dome. Twilight used the opportunity to sit next to her and lean against her matriarch. "So, our hive's natural resistance to isolation coupled with me being a royal helped keep me from having a mental breakdown?"

Cadista was starting to enjoy Twilight's physical affection. "Correct. But, even then, I wanted you to remain within the hive mind for a minimum of two to four weeks before isolation training."

Twilight had some ideas as to why Cadista would want to do that, but didn't voice them so she could enjoy Cadista's company, both in the physical world and within the hive mind. "Just promise me a heads up before you do that, please?"

Cadista took a lesson from the young mare and wrapped a foreleg around Twilight. The queen found the effect they had on each other fascinating. _She has such an unusual influence. Perhaps there is more Equestrian in you than just your spirit._ She inwardly chuckled at such an impossible idea.

Silence reigned for ten minutes before Sprocket made a low priority request for Cadista's attention. Being what she was, it was trivial of her to keep Twilight company while casting a baleful shadow over the chief engineer. Well?

I don't know where you found this former Equestrian, but she only got three questions wrong out of two hundred. It's just not possible. No pony absorbs knowledge that fast!

Not very scientific of you to ignore the evidence. All the more reason your reassignment is final. Be glad you remain an Altair.

Yes… my queen. Cadista detected more resentment in those words than submission.

The matriarch kept her thoughts to herself. _You're not useless yet, Sprocket. Don't do anything stupid._ She looked down at Twilight, cooing softly in her embrace. _Perhaps I let my ambitions run away again by assigning her to Sprocket. She needs somepony who hasn't let their ego grow bigger than their intelligence. Somepony who's a skilled engineer, who's familiar with her._ Her focus shifted to another drone who was just now bedding down for the night. Ratchet Altair!

Rachet nearly tripped. Yes, my queen?

There's a sudden vacancy in the upper ranks of the engineer caste. I've noticed your exceptional work on the barrier tower - you're being included in the promotion shuffle to Engineer, First Class.

It took a moment for him to put his thoughts together. T-Thank you my queen. I will do my utmost to be worthy of it. But… may I ask something?

You may.

Why trouble yourself with informing me directly?

Because a new assignment will be waiting for you by the end of the week. Prepare to take an apprentice. First class engineers were the lowest rank eligible to take an apprentice, but they typically didn't receive one until the next promotion.

Cadista could tell he had been thrown off balance by the news. It will not begin immediately, so you'll have time to settle into your new position first.

He sighed in relief. Thank you, my queen.

Cadista ended the conversation as her attention drifted to the mare at her side. "Come along, Twilight, we should get some rest for the summit tomorrow."

Twilight reluctantly pulled away from her queen. "Alright, but can I ask a favor?"

"I owe you one for letting Sprocket put you in an isolation room. Name it."

"After the summit, can I go to Equestria for a few days? I want to meet my old friends, and hopefully get some more of my memories back."

Cadista smiled at the idea. "I don't see why not. Your integration into the hive mind is complete, and another trade caravan will be leaving the day after the summit. I've quadrupled the guards since that unfortunate event, so it should be safe now. It'll also be a good learning experience for you to see how our love collectors operate."

Twilight's wings buzzed out of happiness. "Oh, thank you! Ever since I read my friends' letters, I've been dying to see them. I'm sure we can all be friends again."

Cadista started flying towards the palace with her heir in tow. "Knowing you, Twilight, I wouldn't doubt it."


	5. Chapter 5

The Summit

quill, gripped in orange telekinesis, hovered above a blank piece of paper. Its delicate tip trembled above the parchment, as though the quill itself were channeling Twilight Sparkle's excitement. Reading while hanging from the ceiling was one thing, but writing was an entirely different kind of difficulty.

Dear Princess Celestia,

You would not believe where I am right now. Cadista is taking me to the Summit of the Queens aboard a huge airship! The summit is an important political event, and in the interest of keeping open relations between our nations, Cadista has suggested I tell you all about it. I won't be writing about it, though, because I'd rather tell you in person!

Tomorrow, when the Summit's over, I'll be joining the next trade caravan into Equestria to see you, my first family, and my friends in Ponyville. Every day, something helps me recover more of my old memories. I can only hope that I'll get them all back in time, but I've prepared myself for the possibility that it might not happen. Then again, the future is just as important as the past. Even if I don't get all of my memories back, I forge new ones every day, along with new friendships.

As for Stripped Gear's technology, it's absolutely amazing! A brother of mine, Ratchet Altair, told me the ship I'm on is just over a hundred meters in length, and is made of mostly steel. I'm not exactly sure why he was so proud of its steel construction, but the only other airships I've seen outside of Stripped Gear are two in Equestria, plus my old hot air balloon, so maybe wood construction is the norm outside of our hive.

Regardless, it's time for my "changeling life" report. There are a lot of differences between what I remember, and how life is now. To be perfectly honest, I think I was very fortunate that I lost my memory before hatching. I'm not saying that because I want to forget my past, but because my amnesia sort of... helped me rebuild myself. Looking back on my old memories, how physically different I was, and the whole business with the hive mind; I just don't think I could've handled my transformation if my memories had still been intact. My amnesia gave me the chance to rebuild the foundation of who and what I am, and for that, at least, I'm grateful.

Aside from you, I remember Shining Armor, and… most of what happened in the wedding. If I were still a unicorn, I'd probably have every right to despise changelings, but now that I've been one for almost a week, I can say that Chrysalis doesn't define our species. I hope my visit can address any misunderstandings between our people.

I shouldn't let such musings drag me down. Thinking about my life as a changeling, if I had to choose one thing that stood out above everything else, it'd have to be the hive mind.

I remember not being a part of one, so I can imagine how… unsettling it might be if you take anything out of context, but hear me out on this.

Being one with the hive mind is like being in a restaurant where everyone is having a conversation. Now expand that to encompass four thousand diners, where every one of them is audible to you. What's fascinating is that, if I don't wish to think about the Link, as we call it, then it fades into the background. It never distracts me from the task at hoof, and I find that it's actually very soothing to just lay back, and immerse myself in listening to the hive mind.

Now I know you'll think it's probably maddening to listen to four thousand voices in your head, every waking moment, and it might be to a non-changeling mind. Perhaps that's not the case for us because we're simply built to work this way. Plus, because I'm a royal changeling, I can't be forcibly commanded by the Link to do anything, so you don't have to worry about me being coerced through it.

I'd like to go into more details, but I'd just turn this letter into an essay. Like I said, it's complicated, and I'd rather just tell you face to face when I arrive. It looks like we're nearly at our destination, so I better wrap this up. See you soon!

Sincerely,

Twilight Sparkle

Twilight rolled up the scroll with her magic and detached herself from the ceiling, flying down to a desk where Spike's candle rested. She lit the dragon fire candle and burned the letter. A sigh escaped her lips as she watched the green flames eat through the parchment. It was a three hour flight from Stripped Gear to the Summit, and she was enjoying the accommodations the queen's quarters provided. _I'm kind of surprised a military ship would have such a spacious room. But, I suppose it lends credence to the idiom written above the door; "It's good to be the queen."_

"Cadista said it was Yumia who put that plaque there, but…" Twilight smirked, "she never took it down."

 _Well, if for nothing else, you might as well try to enjoy your lot in life._

Twilight got up and moved towards a porthole to gaze at the view. Despite the queen's chambers being spacious, it did not have a very large window, something Twilight respected. _If it's going to be a warship, then having a large window for a target isn't very sound._

Twilight, Cadista called, We're nearly there, why don't you join me on the bridge?

Twilight cleaned up her writing utensils. Of course, I'll be right there.

A few minutes later, Twilight arrived on the bridge. She glanced at a plaque depicting the name of the ship: _S.G.N. Deception_.

Cadista was looking out the front of the bridge, which had the largest window on the ship. Twilight cantered over to her side and gazed down at the landscape below. While Stripped Gear rested in an extinct caldera, the vast stretches of land below used to be farmlands that had been reclaimed by the jungle centuries ago. Twilight could see sporadic ruins and old monuments proclaiming that civilization used to exist there.

Sitting above it were the ruins of a city on a plateau, with a castle cut from an ebony spire. Over the ages, only the castle had been maintained, and that was the _Deception's_ destination.

Twilight's good mood fell as she laid eyes on the castle. Well this is it. Whether I want to or not, everypony's going to see me as your heir after this.

You'll do fine, Twilight, Cadista said while soothing her over the Link, If I recall correctly, half your education under Celestia was in politicking. I'm sure it'll start coming back to you.

Twilight stopped fidgeting with her hooves. "I hope so," she replied, lapsing into vocalizing her thoughts.

Cadista pulled the younger mare into a side hug while addressing the crew behind her. Captain Silver! We're close enough, drop the cloak; let them know we're here.

Aye, my queen.

Twilight gently nuzzled Cadista so she wouldn't damage her mane style while watching the ship. The bridge sat on the upper hull, in the center, so she was able to see several orange crystals on steel booms. The crystals stood perpendicular to the hull and were constantly pulsing with maddeningly complex magical arrays to form a cloaking sphere around the _Deception_.

With the order given, the crystals stopped pulsing and the booms retracted. The ship's cloaking field dropped, revealing itself to the castle.

Twilight scanned the skies around the plateau. The only things she could see were the distant figures of other changelings and white clouds. Where are the other queens' airships?

I'd be surprised if there were any. We're the only hive with the capability and motivation to build one.

Twilight furrowed her brow. Then how do they get here? Surely they don't fly on their own.

Not the queens, no. Look there.

Twilight moved her head away from Cadista's fur to see an enormous brown behemoth emerge from the dense cloud layer towards the south. At such a distance, all she could make out was the glint of what seemed like dragon scale, a swarm of brown figures around it, and its bloated body being propelled by no visible forces.

That's Queen Kreesus' personal transport. It's bigger than the last time I saw it.

Twilight pressed her snout against the glass before seeing a telescope nearby and switched to it. "What in the world is it?"

Cadista cast a good humored smirk. That, is Kreesus' crowning achievement, Fluffy.

Twilight couldn't help but to stare at her matriarch. "Fluffy? Is she serious? It's covered in scales."

 _I really wish she would get used to speaking solely within the hive mind, if only to safeguard our secrets._ Fluffy is a specially crafted drone. It's been grown over the past fifty years, and has even been completely weaned off the need for love at the expense of its mind being reduced to nothing more than basic instinct. It can carry over fifty thousand drones within its shell.

"So, it's like a living airship?"

Cadista barely suppressed a sigh; Twilight was _still_ vocalizing everything. To put it simply, yes.

Twilight scanned the skies as the _Deception_ closed in on the castle and berthed with one of the northern docks.

The two royals were escorted out onto to the ebony stone by four drones - black changelings with jet black eyes. The tallest dipped his head in respect to them. "Queen Cadista, welcome to the summit." He faced Twilight, who stood silently in a stoic pose. "Who is this?"

"This is my heir, Twilight Sparkle."

The lead changeling eyed the purple mare for a few moments before nodded to her. "Very well. Half of the queens have already assembled. This way, if you please."

He turned about-face, and started walking away. Twilight followed a step behind Cadista. Who do they belong to?

Cadista was glad she had the wits to stay in hive-speak while in the company of others. They are the Home Guard. They do not belong to a queen, and consist solely of drones who are donated to the castle while still in the shell. This castle marks the first known hive to exist, and is considered neutral ground. Any attack upon another while a summit is in session, or three days before or after is tantamount to declaring war on everypony.

Eventually, the pair arrived at a massive throne room, open to the sky above. It was designed like a circular amphitheater, with a small ebony spire towards the northern side with an empty black throne carved into it. Twilight saw only a scant few drones among the sixteen royals, four of whom were princesses.

The Home Guard captain yelled an announcement. "Assembled queens, I present Queen Cadista, and her heir, Princess Twilight Sparkle."

All eyes shifted first to Cadista, whom they expected, and then to Twilight, which drew far more attention than the purple changeling ever wished to have. Cadista soothed her over the Link. Be alert, but also at ease. You will garner a measure of respect if you appear comfortable in your position.

Before Twilight could do so, a moss green queen jumped up from her seat. "What's this Cadista? A former Equestrian? Is this just one more step towards ponifying your hive?"

Cadista narrowed her eyes. "Yeelindrus. What I do with my hive is none of your concern." She sat down, with Twilight to her right. "You should spend less time drowning yourself in nectar and more time improving your alchemy." She glanced at Yeelindrus' escorts. "Their chitin looks rather fragile."

A much older queen hovering over the abandoned throne spoke out before Yeelindrus could retort. "Enough, both of you," she said in a grating voice, eroded by the passage of time. "You can bicker amongst yourselves _after_ the summit."

Cadista nodded in respect to her elder, while Yeelindrus scoffed. Twilight was enraptured by the exchange. _I should get to know who I'll be dealing with in the future._ Who is Yeelindrus and that other queen?

The green one is Yeelindrus, an atrocious waste of space, capable only of breeding brittle, mindless drones. She leaves all the thinking to Chrysalis, her older sister.

Twilight remembered Chrysalis after her memories of the wedding returned in full. She scowled while casting her gaze to the black queen with acid green eyes. Chrysalis was studying Twilight in turn, but held her tongue. While Twilight glared at her, Chrysalis was finding it extremely difficult to hide her shock at the purple mare's very existence, and her appearance only complicated the effort.

Cadista directed Twilight's attention towards the elder queen with magenta eyes and a violet mane. She is Silandrus. The oldest queen alive by far, and has the most powerful hive of nearly one hundred fifty thousand drones. She also holds great respect among those of us who know better, she said while glancing at Yeelindrus.

Twilight balked. How can she lay so many eggs?

I'm not sure. I suspect she has the original version of Chrysalis' breeding drones, or she's found a way to give her drones incredible longevity. It could be neither of those things for all I know, but Silandrus has been the rock of our nation for the past millennium. She's responsible for both keeping explorers from venturing into our territory, and information control. She's the reason we were only myths to Equestrians until now.

Cadista informed Twilight of every queen in attendance, including those that trickled in as the meeting time drew nearer. It took nearly an hour and a half, and by then Twilight was getting rather hungry.

Are we going to be served lunch any time soon?

Cadista tried to search her fellow royals for any unusual glances at Twilight. No. Back when Silandrus was barely out of the shell, Summits used to last for months, sometimes years. Time means rather little to long lived beings such as us. Silandrus however, hated it, and as soon as she could, she forcibly cut down on all the bickering and political maneuvering of the Summit. Part of that plan was to forbid food or drink, so that decisions would be reached in hours instead of years.

Wait, is that why we didn't have breakfast?

Aside from our love requirements, yes.

Silandrus called out as the last of the twenty queens sat down. "The Summit of the Queens is now in session." She glared at the younger royals until they quieted down. "We are here to discuss a blatant violation of one of our most sacred principles and best defense. Not to mention the invalidation of my hive's work for the past thousand years, and that of my predecessors since the times before Discord."

She turned a baleful glare at Chrysalis. "What say you?"

The black queen hovered over the south side of the bowl. "I acted in everyone's best interest with my assault on Canterlot. My plan was to capture the entirety of the city's population and prevent any news of the attack from ever leaving the Equestrian capital. After making off with the ponies, I would detonate an anti-magic bomb to level Canterlot. Not a single soul would have caught wind of who caused it, if it wasn't for a small miscalculation."

Small miscalculation my flank! Twilight growled, barely keeping her thoughts on the Link.

Silandrus shared Twilight's anger, but not for the same reasons. "That doesn't excuse your actions. The two princesses of Equestria know of us now. We can no longer slink into the shadows and let time wash away their memories. As punishment for this, I am severing the bonds you share with Yeelindrus and Jstrul."

A collective murmur of alarm and shock resounded through the chamber before Silandrus silenced it with gesture. "Never would I have imagined that one of our own would be so foolish as to execute a large scale invasion on a national capital! Did you even have a contingency plan, or were you so drunk on stolen love that you never considered failure a possibility?"

Chrysalis smiled viciously. "Actually, the plan I just told you _was_ the contingency plan. I wanted to thrust us into the spotlight."

The surprise from before redoubled at Chrysalis' conceited smirk. Silandrus' tone grew caustic. "Explain yourself, before I have you and your hive declared rogue."

Chrysalis' smug grin fell at the threat. Twilight turned to Cadista, who was wearing a sly smile. Is there something I'm missing about going rogue?

Chrysalis is one step from being declared unfit for her crown. That means her land, hive, and life will be forfeit if the majority agrees with Silandrus' ruling. The problem is, Chrysalis holds sway over many of the queens, and I think the order to sever her bond with her sisters is going to be ignored.

Chrysalis flew into the air. "How long have we shied away from prying eyes? We feed on the love of others like parasites rather than the predators we should be. Even in the short time I held Canterlot in my grasp I gathered enough love to satiate my hive for _five months!_ "

She cast a scornful glare at her enemies in the room, including a particularly nasty one at Twilight and Cadista. "If the Equestrians have done one thing right, it's raising livestock for their omnivorous neighbors. Why shouldn't we do the same?"

Cadista flew into the air to challenge Chrysalis. "You would have us treat sentient life as cattle?"

Chrysalis sneered. "Don't we already? The only difference is that our food is always let out to pasture, when we could be milking them dry for every scrap of love they're worth!"

Cadista glared at the other queen, but Kreesus spoke up from the other side of the room. "You would reduce us to the very monsters they believe us to be!"

"Then we have nothing to lose," Yeelindrus called out from the sidelines. "If we don't act quickly, the nations of the world will start ousting our collectors, and then where will we be?"

"We do the same as we have always done," called out another queen. "Fade into the shadows and pretend we never existed. Even the ageless alicorns will forget, now that they've submerged themselves in the commoners' lives."

It was the safest, most comfortable course of action, and most of the queens voiced their approval. Chrysalis let the others converse for a few minutes before throwing an accusatory hoof at Twilight. "A shame that won't be possible, not with Celestia's prized student posing as a princess changeling!"

Twilight was already fuming at Chrysalis after her memories of the wedding had returned. _She has some nerve!_ "I am not posing!" She barked while her wings buzzed just enough to pick her off the ground for a few seconds.

Cadista flew back to land next to Twilight. "She was reborn into my hive as my heir. She is as much of a changeling as any of us."

Silandrus did not care for Chrysalis' attempt to divert blame. "Cadista is known as one of the few who employs rebirthing, and the chamber's demasking aura would have stripped her of any illusion magic. As such, I recognize Twilight Sparkle as Cadista's legitimate heir." Her tone soured. "She has demonstrated foresight you sorely lack, _Chrysalis_. There's something to be said about Celestia withholding her military."

Chrysalis scoffed. "Equestrian military; it's laughable at best. I was about to conquer their capital with half an expeditionary force. We could crush Equestria before their griffin allies could set one claw in the jungle!"

Silandrus, along with most of the older queens, were unmoved as a tan royal shouted from the right of her. "You do realize that the Royal Guard is nothing more than a police force, don't you? Their military forces have been honing themselves against constant skirmishes with the chaos spawn Discord unleashed upon our world. If your infiltrators had bothered to go a few dozen kilometers north of Manehatten, you'd see where the bulk of the pony forces have been. Equestria is _not_ to be trifled with!"

Chrysalis sneered. "And what makes you think they would pull those forces away from the chaos spawn?"

"Just how far have you fallen," Cadista glowered, "to think that enslaving the world in those barbaric cocoons of yours is justified?"

"I concur," a light olive green queen named Thereena replied. "We take what we need from the other species, and leave them be otherwise. It never harms the other races to siphon love, and as long as our relationship remains symbiotic with them, the better for all of us. If you enslaved the entire pony race, there would be no love left to steal! Your cruelty would be your undoing, Chrysalis!"

"I, for one, am sick of being labeled as a parasite when we could be the predators," one of Chrysalis' supporters shouted back. "Stop being so sentimental; the ponies alone produce enough love for a hundred hives. With them under the lash, our race wouldn't _need_ to hide in the shadows."

After three hours of listening to the queens bicker, Silandrus was too hungry to bear it any longer. She grabbed a large stone gavel in her magic and slammed it twice upon the ebony floor. "I am old and weary of this banter, and I will suffer it no longer. Chrysalis, for the crime of breaking our most ancient and sacred defense, you are to be stripped of half your lands and your hive is to be embargoed for no less than fifty years." She surveyed the gathered royals. "All those in favor?"

Despite her vocal opponents, only half the queens voted in favor. The scant few princesses and proto-queens had no say in the matter, much to Twilight's chagrin. Silandrus hid her displeasure behind a neutral mask. _Just how far has our kin fallen to harbor such disregard for the lives of other species?_ "We are at an impasse."

One of the dissenting queens spoke out. "I believe her methods were out of line, but she brings up critical flaws in our traditional stance towards other nations. A thirty year embargo is more just."

Silandrus felt that was tantamount to a slap on the wrist, thanks to Chrysalis' hive being self-sufficient. This was why she wanted to strip Chrysalis of her territory, but there was nothing she could do. "All in favor?"

More than half, Chrysalis included, voted for it. Silandrus barely hid her disgust in check. "Then it is decided."

"As for our stance towards the other races, we must enact damage control. I will have my drones spread misinformation among the populous, and keep the identity of the real culprits from ever spreading beyond Equestrian borders." She addressed Cadista next. "You and your heir already have the ear of the Equestrian Princesses. Let them know we police our own, and find some way to have them minimize our involvement with the Canterlot fiasco. I don't care how, just make it happen."

Cadista inclined her head. "I have no objections."

"I do!" Yeelindrus shouted. "She'll set up a nice treaty with Equestria for more power. She's already got Celestia wrapped around her hoof after absconding with her former pupil."

Cadista glowered. "Maybe if you hadn't been stupid enough to attack her in the first place."

Yeelindrus returned her hate-filled gaze. "You have no proof of that."

Twilight noticed Chrysalis' spiteful glare shift towards her younger sister. _Interesting..._

"Might I provide a solution?" Kreesus called out before flying into a hover on the south side of the room after Chrysalis returned to her seat. "Cadista's brood already looks fairly pony-ish. I move that she be our public face to the alicorns. She can claim to be the real changelings, while Chrysalis and her ilk are degenerates that have long abandoned the true way. Then we can pass off any future sightings as part of Chrysalis' feral brood. Given that she'll be the only one placating the alicorns, I think it is only proper that she be able to sign whatever treaty is necessary to keep the peace."

Twilight watched as the queens either silently brooded, or murmured to each other about the idea. Her gut churned as Chrysalis' scowl slowly turned into a feral sneer. The ebony queen stood up. "I have no objections."

Silandrus brooded for several seconds. _If both of them are agreeing to this, then there's no need for a vote._ "Then it is decided. I call this summit to a close."

The gathered royals departed quick, if for nothing else than to eat. Kreesus flew over to speak with Cadista. "Darling, it's been _far_ too long!"

Cadista smiled warmly. "That it has. Why don't you join me on the _Deception_ for lunch?"

Kreesus snickered. "Not a chance. You provided the last dinner date we had; now it's my turn. We'll speak again on Fluffy." She leaned in and whispered, "I'd rather not catch up on old times with Sticky Spit's posse still around."

Cadista nodded in agreement. "We'll join you now, then. I'll have my ship brought alongside yours." She turned to Twilight. Do you wish to come as well?

I'd love to see how a different hive lives!

Cadista smiled at Twilight's eagerness. "Then let's go."

* * *

Fluffy's interior was about as strange of an experience as Twilight expected it to be. The floating giant had large gas bladders that were covered in resin to make it easier to walk. Twilight saw no trace of metals, glass, or cloth. In their place was nothing but bone, muscle, and rough scales. Twilight gasped at seeing a large blood vessel the size of her head as she followed the queens to their destination. _I get the feeling that Kreesus doesn't believe in non-organic technology._

The red queen led them into a dining room with chairs made of cartilage, covered in a thick coat of hair, while the table itself was milky white bone. Kreesus sat at the head of the table while her two guests sat across from each other.

"Now, you have to tell me all about yourself Twilight. Ever since I found out about you, I've been wondering how you were turned into a royal."

Twilight paused in the middle of lifting a small bone cup. "Wait, you're surprised I was turned into a royal, not a changeling?" She looked to Cadista, who shrugged, prompting Kreesus to elaborate.

"Well, it's not uncommon for some hives to kidnap an affluent member of foreign society for various reasons, some good, some not. But you are the first to have ever been successfully converted into a royal changeling. Not that there have been many attempts, mind you." She faced Cadista. "It _was_ a complete transformation, right?"

"As far as I can tell, it is. Although, a few pieces of her old self remain: her coat, eyes, most of her hair, and her cutie mark, oddly enough."

Twilight examined a plate of strange looking food that was placed in front of her. "So… I was supposed to look like you?"

Kreesus and her hive were herbivores, but she kept a small store of meat when she entertained Cadista, who dug into the blue steak with a knife. "Well, to be honest, I wasn't exactly sure. Every royal appears exactly like their mother upon hatching. They can make changes later in life if they wish. Unlike drones, we can change a lot about our appearance and abilities, but only through alchemy. These changes happen as quickly as you desire, but chitin needs to be shed before a new color can take its place. The few ponies I know of that have been changed into drones became identical to every other drone in the hive, save for above average intelligence." She cast a snooty glance at Kreesus.

"Pah, one of these days those smart drones will be the death of you. There's a reason no one else uses highly intelligent drones."

Cadista snorted playfully before addressing Twilight. "It's entirely possible that your self-identity was strong enough to prevent all changes, save for the stripe of orange in your hair, and your cutie mark."

Twilight held her tail in her hooves and levitated a lock of orange hair with her magic. _So, the only part of the old me are my memories and my looks? Beneath all that, I'm just as much of a changeling as Cadista is. Is that going to be enough for my old friends and family, or would I have been better off letting my colors go grey and orange?_

Cadista could sense Twilight's dour mood. _She needs time to think. She knows to ask if she needs advice._

The two queens gossiped about various politics while Twilight fretted over her trip to Equestria. By the time she finished her blue steak, she had come to a conclusion. _Everything I remember of them makes me think they'd accept the new me, but will they be able to look past my changes? Well, there's no way to find out until I see them._

"Twilight, dear," Kreesus called out of the blue, causing her to snap to attention. "If you do decide to change your natural appearance, at least try to keep your cutie mark. I think it looks rather becoming on you."

Twilight looked down at her flank, and a smile crossed her face. "To ponies, their mark represents their talent and self-identity. I think a purple starburst lying on top of orange is rather fitting. I won't be changing it at all."

Cadista smiled, while Kreesus scrunched her face in thought. "So, aside from keeping Celestia from warring with us, what do you bring to the table?"

Twilight furrowed her brow as she let go of her tail. "What do you mean?"

Cadista held her peace while Kreesus spoke. "What I mean, darling, is what improvements will you bring to our race? Keeping Celestia from attacking us is all well and good, but you could lounge on your flank all day and do that. What are you going to do to improve your hive?"

Twilight mulled over the question. _She brings up a good point. What_ can _I do?_ A studious look fell upon her face. "Play to my strengths, of course. My hive is already a center of learning and research, and I am no slouch in either respect. Right now, the best thing I can do for the hive is to learn."

"An interesting answer," Kreesus admitted, "but how will learning benefit your hive?"

 _I'm just going to assume she means outside of what's necessary to perform my duties as queen._ "As Cadista once told me, the demeanor of the queen is reflected by the hive, and I think there is no higher calling than the pursuit of knowledge and friendship."

Kreesus acceded the first goal, but laughed at the second. "Friendship? Hardly a need for that when your drones are united under you anyway."

"It doesn't have to be with just drones, why can't friendship be between queens like you and Cadista? I could even expand that to include Equestria as well."

Kreesus leaned back in her chair with an amused grin. "My, don't you have some lofty goals. Well, I would comment on it, but it's not my place to raise another's heir. Nevertheless," she added with playful curiosity. "I will be watching you closely, young one. You ought to prove very interesting, very interesting indeed."

"Uh, thanks?"

Cadista sought to give her a chance to escape Kreesus' questions. "Twilight, why don't you learn how to disguise yourself from one of Kreesus' drones? It would be good for you to learn how another hive functions." She turned to Kreesus. "Don't you agree?"

"How long has she been out of the shell?" Kreesus stared at Cadista with faux indignation. "You've let your priorities become garbled, I'm afraid." She faced Twilight and noticed she was mostly done eating, "Cadista and I have been allies for centuries, it is only fitting that I extend that _friendship_ to you as well. I would be happy to have one of my children instruct you."

Without a noticeable order, a drone with solid cyan eyes approached Twilight from Kreesus' direction. Both its appearance and its voice seemed genderless. "This way, your highness."

Twilight was caught off guard by the lack of self-introduction. "Um… Alright."

The nameless drone guided Twilight through various corridors while she surveyed the interior of the craft. Everything was organic; the walls, the floor, even the doors were muscles that automatically moved by walking near them. The lighting was from bioluminescent pods casting everything in a bright yellow light. Twilight noticed the drones were quite different as well.

She saw massive chimera sized drones, some half her size, others had specialized appendages or spines grown in various places. The one thing she noticed above all else, was that they had no visible irises beneath the cyan glow of their eyes. _It's even brighter than the ones from my hive._ "Why do you guys so vastly differ from each other?"

"We are all bred to specialize in a specific task. Most of the drones you see here live within Fluffy to keep it healthy."

"I see. Like an immune system, of sorts." The conversation lapsed into silence for a few minutes. "Do you have a name?"

"I do not," it replied emotionlessly.

"Why?"

"Names are unnecessary to serve my queen."

Twilight scowled. "Don't you want a name?"

This time, the drone looked back at her with puzzled look. "How would having a name better serve my queen? If she has need of me, she knows how to find me."

"Er— well, serving your queen is all well and good, but what about your personal time?"

The drone's confusion only mounted. "Personal time?"

"You know, when you're not working."

Realization dawned on the drone's face and it turned back around. "We sleep. Frivolous activity wastes energy."

"Did Kreesus decree that?"

"She does not have to. We live only to serve the queen. All else is meaningless."

Twilight's ears drooped. "Sounds… empty."

They arrived in a small chamber that had highly reflective resin on the walls and had been smoothened out to be an effective mirror. A single light hung from the ceiling, but the all-encompassing mirror made it more than enough to leave the chamber well lit.

The drone walked to the side before becoming rigid. A moment later, the glow of its eyed faded to reveal reptilian slits and it spoke in Kreesus' voice. "Ah, my favorite mirror room, always a good place to test new disguises."

Twilight jumped at hearing the high pitched voice. "Kreesus? But-"

The drone smirked playfully. "The look on your face is priceless, my dear, but you didn't honestly think I would leave this lesson to a _drone_ , did you?"

"Well, I thought you were busy talking with Cadista."

The drone puppet smirked. "You _are_ fresh from the shell aren't you? A queen must know how to be in a thousand places at once, directing the hive as she sees fit."

 _Surely she's exaggerating._ "How is it possible to do that?"

The puppet tilted its head in thought. "Well, I have some idea of how your hive mind operates, but with mine, each drone lends their mental facilities to me. With that, I am able to spread my influence across a very large space without being overwhelmed." The puppet seemed to waver a bit before becoming a carbon copy of Twilight. "I believe we came here for instruction."

Instead of the shocked look Kreesus was expecting, Twilight shot forward to inspect her doppelganger. "So that's what I look like to the others." She moved all around until a look of mock indignation crossed her face. "My flank is not that big!"

The puppet let out uproarious laughter, along with Twilight. "Oh, I haven't laughed like that in years. I think you and I are going to get along just fine, Twilight Sparkle."

Twilight was enraptured by the control Kreesus had over the drone. "I didn't know queens could take over a drone like this. The most I've been able to do is direct a group of arguing engineers into fixing the problem with port engine five instead of arguing over whose fault it was."

Kreesus arched a curious eyebrow. "Well, I never have problems with bickering drones, but occasionally some of the smarter drones out there need some more… direct guidance from their queen. Personally, I prefer using simple minded drones to avoid the problem altogether. Now, back to the task at hoof. Go ahead and ask your Link how to formulate your disguise."

"Right." Twilight focused on the hive mind and made her request. The Link eagerly gifted her the information. "Okay, I got it."

"Good. Now, jumping straight into a full body disguise is not recommended. You have the knowledge, but not the experience. As such, you should start your first disguise piecemeal. Begin with your coat."

"Alright." Twilight's thoughts drifted to Flexi and her purple fur wavered before turning grey.

"Now, wait until you're comfortable with maintaining each piece of your disguise before moving on to the next."

Nodding, Twilight changed piece by piece. Her mane turned solid orange; she shrank two inches, and her eyes changed last. She looked at herself in the mirror, twisting and turning to see every facet of her temporary image. "So, this is what I would've looked like as a drone."

"Well done," the puppet praised, making a close inspection. "Utterly flawless. You truly _do_ learn fast, but then again, wearing a disguise comes naturally to all changelings." The drone dropped its disguise, prompting Twilight to do the same. "Now that you can craft and maintain it, try to disguise yourself faster this time. You need to be able to raise it in an instant."

"Okay, here goes." For the next hour, Twilight dropped and crafted the same disguise over a hundred times before the change was so fast it looked like an orange flame engulfed her from hoof to horn as the disguise took hold.

The puppet gave Twilight one last inspection. "Well done. Now it's time to branch out. Try to appear as a pony."

A cloud hung over Twilight. _As a pony…_ Without needing to give it much thought, Twilight turned to the mirror and brought up her disguise. Gone were the holes, wings, and the orange stripe in her hair, while the rounded pupil and familiar spiraled horn returned. Twilight stared into her old pony self.

Pain lanced through her mind as flashes of old memories bubbled to the surface. Standing in front of a mirror while Rarity put the finishing touches on a dress, the simple act of brushing her mane and teeth, propped up against the glass of a candy store as a filly, giggling at a reflective golden trophy depicting her as the winner of a magic contest, and many more memories crammed themselves into her mind's eye.

Twilight sat on her haunches to try and rub the migraine away as her disguise faded. The puppet had never seen such a reaction before. "Are you well?"

"Y-yes, I'm fine." Twilight replied weakly as her highly organized mind quickly filed each memory away. "Just regaining... some of what I've lost."

Kreesus could tell this was a sensitive subject. "Well, you've gotten the basics down, and all you need now is practice. I'll leave the drone outside for when you wish to leave."

"Thank you, Kreesus," she replied flatly.

"Of course," the drone's eyes returned to normal and it departed, leaving Twilight alone with her thoughts.

She looked up at her true reflection and grimaced. _When I go to Equestria, I hope I'll be able to walk around without wearing a disguise. This is who I am now. All I can do is hope my friends and family will accept me this way._


	6. Chapter 6

It's Complicated

It was a pleasant, if windy, evening on the northern edge of the jungle. The trade convoy from Stripped Gear took six days to reach the farthest outpost under Cadista's domain, just south of the Macintosh Mountain range. It was a walled train yard and supply depot resting on the edge of a cliff, where a lone bridge spanned the five hundred meter chasm separating Equestria and the changelings' domain.

The rail yard was manned almost entirely by soldiers, as they had to watch out for both opportunistic attacks by other changelings, and various extremely deadly denizens of the jungle.

While the convoy's goods were being loaded on the train, Twilight was elbow deep in the engine of one of the steam walkers that had broken down. The machinery glowed in an orange light emanating from Twilight's horn.

Ratchet Altair's snout was buried in the other end of the engine. "I'm telling you, it's a faulty piston that let too much steam build up and ruptured the whole assembly."

"No, no, the piston is only a symptom of the real issue. The steam build up was caused by too much steam getting through in the first place. The seals can't handle anything over three hundred PSI. The new boilers were installed without double checking the older construction first."

Ratchet pulled his head out of the engine to get a look at the broken seals Twilight was inspecting. She pointed them out with a hoof. "See? The metal surrounding the seals flex too much, and I bet under working conditions they're bulging out, letting too much steam through."

Ratchet ran the numbers in his head and came to the same conclusion. "Well, I'll be, good catch, Twilight. A few more days and I bet you'll know these engines inside and out."

Twilight blushed, but said nothing. Ratchet marked the faulty seals with bright red tape, while Twilight wrote the problem down on a scroll for the maintenance team to repair later. He sat back, idly pulling off his grease-stained work gloves. "You've really got a knack for this stuff, Twi— I mean, Twilight."

"You can call me Twi', if you want, it's what my friends call me." Twilight hesitated. "… What they used to call me, anyway." She pulled her work gloves off, then flew over to the steam walker's cockpit. "Now I'm wondering if I'll be as close to them as I was before. The hive is like a second family to me… Will I have to choose between two worlds?"

Ratchet frowned while putting his tools away. "I don't see why you would. What's wrong with having two families?"

Twilight caught a glimpse of her reflection. To avoid risking a second attack, she was disguised as a normal drone, indistinguishable from her four-thousand siblings. "It's just, things are so different now. Even with my memories coming back, I feel closer to you than my old friends. What if they don't like me? What if I ruin everything?"

Ratchet flittered over to Twilight and put a hoof around her. "Don't worry about it. If Celestia welcomed you back so easily, I'm sure your friends will too."

"You're probably right, I shouldn't fret about this so much." Twilight sighed, and nuzzled Ratchet. "Thanks for being here, Ratchet."

For several minutes, the two changelings said nothing, content with each other's company. Eventually, Twilight's eyes drifted to two trailers from the caravan being refitted with train wheels. "Hey, Ratchet?"

"Yeah?"

"I thought the caravans only brought one supply car for the love crystals and other provisions. What's the second car for?" She pointed a hoof towards the car in question.

"Oh, that's the mobile incubator. Cadista always keeps one on hoof in case she ever needs to make a prolonged absence from the hive."

Twilight scrunched up her snout. "Mobile incubator? But I don't lay eggs yet."

He shrugged. "That's what was on the manifest. I thought you would have asked earlier if you had any questions."

Twilight scratched her head, and sent a low priority query to her queen.

Cadista, however, placed high priority on any query from Twilight. Yes, Twilight?

I was wondering why you sent a mobile incubator with me. You know I don't lay eggs yet.

Yet, is the operative word. I'll be honest with you, Twilight. Your development is happening faster than I expected. By my original estimations, your integration into the hive mind should have taken significantly longer, so other aspects of your development might have sped up as well. In addition, you were already a full adult before being placed inside the chrysalis. I just wanted to make sure you wouldn't have to cut your visit short should you start laying.

Twilight pressed her hind legs together. You don't really think I'd start laying that soon, do you?

It's unlikely, but let this be a lesson to you. _A queen must leave as little to chance as possible_. But, like I said, don't worry about it. Enjoy your time in Equestria!

Twilight relaxed. Alright, I'll remember that. Thank you for looking out for me.

Cadista's tone warmed. You are more than just my heir, Twilight. I want you to be happy with who you are. Now, go reconnect with your friends and family. The hive will be still be here when you get back.

Twilight smiled. I will, but still, thank you.

Cadista send wordless acknowledgement, prompting Twilight to end the conversation. She did not have long to ponder about the incubation car when a call over the Link echoed in her mind. The train will be departing shortly. All personnel going to Equestria should board within the next ten minutes.

 _Yikes, I'd better go._ Twilight raced through the air to find the forward passenger cabins. The hive mind directed her to the third car where her cot was located. She landed on the roof of the car and jumped inside the trapdoor, into a cramped hallway. After finding her room in the center, she jumped inside and flopped on the bed, dropping her disguise. _The windows are shuttered, so it should be fine as long as I stay here until we're in the tunnel._

* * *

The train arrived in Ponyville three days later in the wee hours of the morning. It was right before sunrise, but Twilight was wide awake, her face plastered against the glass as the town came into view.

 _There it is, my old home._ Familiar thatched houses and stores appeared before her in the distance while the train diverted towards the trade depot. Most of the town was still asleep, but a few lights peppered the townscape. _I have so many friends to visit - who should I see first?_

She anxiously wrung her hooves. _Should I visit them in alphabetical order? That would mean skipping everypony to get to Applejack on the far end of town. What about the order I first met them when I came to Ponyville? Argh, I don't remember the order. Maybe whoever's the closest to the cargo train station? That would be Rarity, then Pinkie Pie, or would that be Rarity, then Rainbow Dash? Gah! I don't even know where Dash's house is!_

Some of her mane started to jump out of place before an idea came to her. _Rarity's boutique should be the closest, so I'll ask her where Rainbow Dash's house is and then I can visit them all in order._ She clapped her hooves in delight. "Excellent!"

Twilight heard Ratchet's voice in the hive mind grow a little louder as he stirred from his sleep. He was having difficulty rousing from a drinking game he played with the other engineers last night. Twilight poured him a cup of water from a pitcher of water she'd laid out last night. "Here, this should help your hangover."

He blearily took the glass in his hooves and downed all of it before gasping for air. "Thanks for that."

Remembering all the times Cadista performed it, Twilight tried to spread some of Ratchet's hangover through the Link, but could only push a little through the changelings nearby. "Happy to help! You may want to, ahh… get cleaned up before we go into town."

He groaned painfully while trying to sit up. "This is what I get for betting against a sister who a makes regular trips outside the hive. She had some seriously hard cider in storage, and a liver to match."

Twilight refilled his glass and gave it back to him as he managed to sit on the side of the bed. "Ponies get into a lot of drinking games too. I remember Rainbow Dash and Applejack would drink themselves under the table at least once or twice a month."

He downed half the glass before his bladder demanded attention. "I'll be back," he yelped while racing towards the lavatory.

Twilight snickered as she trotted towards the washroom. _I should be presentable for my return._

The showers were busy, but Twilight was able to find an empty stall. As she used her telekinesis to scrub away at her back, a troubled thought struck her and she sent off a query to Cadista.

This time, it took a bit for the queen to reply. Yes, Twilight?

I forgot to ask, what sort of reception should I be expecting from the ponies? Can I go without a disguise?

Cadista considered the question for a moment. I actually received a letter yesterday from Celestia, regarding the results of the Summit. She decreed that changelings fitting the description of our hive are to be considered open allies with Equestria, so you should be able to walk about in your true from, but it is my experience that some ponies are slow to accept change. To that end, I would prefer you to go without a disguise, unless there is a serious threat. I'm hoping your friends will be able to make sure any sort of mistrust is short lived.

I hope you're right. Oh, and, do you mind if I take Ratchet with me? I'm sure he'd love to see the place.

Cadista hummed. Well, normally such interaction is reserved for our love collectors, as they've had special training in interacting with outside cultures. Then again, we _are_ trying to form closer ties with Equestria. I think it would be a good experience for him to get acquainted with Ponyville.

Great! I know we'll have fun together. Twilight quickly finished showering and the rest of her morning hygienics.

A few minutes after making sure her mane was perfect, Twilight went to grab her saddlebags and found a scroll bearing Celestia's seal lying on top. _I'm glad I packed the candle near the top, or it might have appeared inside the bag._

Dear Twilight Sparkle,

I apologize for the hasty penmanship of this letter, but I have been debating with my sister about your visit. While I informed your friends and family about what has happened to you, I unfortunately found it best to keep your fate hidden from the populace. They only know that you were attacked on your way to Cadista's hive and that you are recovering your health there.

They do not know you are a changeling yet, so I beg of you to not reveal yourself to the public. This situation is not only untenable, but also grievously unfair to you. It is with a heavy heart that I ask you to only reveal yourself to your friends, for now. My sister will arrive tomorrow. At that time, she will make a public statement in Ponyville, along with you and the rest of the Elements to illuminate the current situation to the citizenry.

With the backing of your friends and my sister, I fully believe that the public will accept you and your kin. It is my dearest wish to smoothen public relations between our peoples.

I hope that you will have time after the declaration to repeat it in Canterlot to clear the air, so to speak, and also so you can visit with your family. Shining Armor and Cadance will be arriving there in three days.

Sincerely,

Princess Celestia

P.S. If the guards try to remove your disguise, show them the royal seal enclosed with this letter. My magical signature will dissuade any guardponies from unmasking you.

Twilight levitated the signet emblem of Celestia's cutie mark away from the paper. Her old mentor's magic clung to it and felt like a hot summer's sun to her magical senses. It was a warm, familiar feeling that eased much of her troubled thoughts about Equestria's political climate. _Looks like I'll have to wear a disguise after all._ She sighed. "I've trusted you with my life before, Celestia, I see no reason to stop now."

She pocketed the seal, and assumed her drone disguise. _I'd better cloak the cutie mark on my bags too._

With her appearance taken care of, she departed the train car to find Ratchet waiting for her outside of the train car. "Mother says I'm off duty for the next few days." He gave her a curious look. "You wouldn't happen to be responsible for that, would you?

She nervously scuffed the ground. "I wanted someone who could lend support in case things didn't go well."

Ratchet's gaze softened. "I doubt it'll come to that, but I'll always be here for you."

"Thanks, Ratchet." Before she could take off, a squad of royal guards entered the train yard. Twilight felt a brief warning broadcast spread throughout the local changelings. _So, having the guard show up like this is unusual._ She opened herself to her gathered kin. Let me handle this.

Several changelings watched Twilight and Ratchet march up to the Guard, while most of them went back to work with the local pony yard workers. Twilight wasn't sure if a smile with fangs would look friendly or not so she opted for a neutral expression and a warm tone. "Good morning, officers, can I help you?"

"We were not expecting a shipment until this afternoon. We need to verify that none of you are from Chrysalis' swarm."

Twilight remained cordial. "How do you plan on doing that?"

More guardponies arrived as the sergeant answered. "Standard procedure. All of you line up and submit to an illusion disruptor. If you stay grey, then you are free to enter town, as per the most recent decree by both Princesses."

Twilight fished out Celestia's seal. "My kin have no objections to that, but I'm afraid I am on business for the crown. I need to be going." She levitated Celestia's seal, and the sergeant's brow arched. Evidently, it was not common for a changeling to possess one.

The unicorn scrutinized the seal with every method he knew of, and each one came back clean. He didn't like it, but returned it without question. "Very well. I'll still expect full cooperation from the rest of you."

Twilight inclined her head. "Of course, good sir." Alright guys, line up for presentation. Let's not give them a reason to do more than a simple sweep.

The forty odd changelings responded instantly, and lined up on the west side of the train. By the time the Guards had started their sweep, Twilight was already in the air and headed towards Carousel Boutique.

 _Ponyville looks so different from the air._ Fortunately, Rarity's business stood out almost as much as Sugar Cube Corner, and Twilight found it easily. Ratchet landed next to her, near the front door. _Here goes nothing._

The door chime rang upon Twilight's entry, prompting a coy accented voice to call out from the back room. "Just a minute."

Ratchet stayed by Twilight's side while gazing at the multitude of dresses with an appraising eye. _Such fascinating designs. The proprietor must have discovered a good aesthetics formula._ He saw a rich blue dress with silky lace on the far end. _I wonder how Twilight would look in that._

Twilight checked to see there were no other customers and dropped her disguise to wait out Rarity's arrival. _What do I say to her? Sorry I worried you? No, that's too—_

Her musings were interrupted by Rarity leaving the back room. "So sorry about that, dear, I was—"

Twilight grinned sheepishly while waving at her friend. "Um, hey Rarity… I'm back!"

"Twilight? Is that really you?" Rarity whispered while racing over to see her friend up close. She ignored Ratchet and tried not to flinch at the purple mare's fangs, slitted eyes, and prominent butterfly-esque blood red wings. "Even with the Princess's letters, I was beginning to think I'd never see you again." She used her magic to quickly lock the door and flip the closed sign.

"Yes, Rarity, it's really me."

Rarity threw her hooves around Twilight and tried to squeeze the life out of her in a silent hug, as it was the only way for her to maintain her composure. Twilight didn't need to hear any words, as the love she received from her friend was all that needed to be said. Twilight hugged her back, and both mares stayed that way for an entire minute.

Ratchet was rather interested in the exchange. _Strange. Rarity's mind is completely mute to me, and yet her care for her friend is obvious. No wonder Twilight uses physical displays of affection so much._

Rarity eventually pulled away, much to the love hungry Twilight's disappointment, to carefully wipe away a few tears. "I'm so happy to see you're alive and well Twilight, even if it cost you…" She trailed off before her mouth could get her in trouble.

"I'm happy to see you too. How have things been since I left?"

Rarity averted her eyes from Twilight. "Well, the town's been relatively quiet. Spike took over as town librarian. Applejack has been rather distant lately, throwing herself into her work again." She perked up and faced her friend. "But Rainbow Dash took it the hardest. Why don't you visit her while I round up the girls in the library?"

 _I really wanted to spend some time one on one, but I guess grouping up would be faster._ "Okay, Rarity. But you can't tell anypony else I'm here yet. Luna's coming over tomorrow to make a public declaration."

Rarity scoffed and waved her hoof. "Oh, don't worry darling, my lips are sealed." She started pushing Twilight out of the door who barely had enough time to don her disguise before being tossed out. "Now, hurry up! You know how Pinkie can be if she's stuck in one place for too long."

Ratchet left the building after Rarity followed Twilight outside. "See you soon, dear."

Ratchet saw Twilight was currently unable to speak and raised a hoof towards Rarity. "Could you point out Rainbow Dash's home? Just so we know where to look."

Rarity gave him a slightly chilly look. "It's the cloud home just south of the park. You can't miss it."

His first reaction was to give thanks over the Link, but he quickly remembered she wasn't part of it. "Thank you, Miss Rarity."

"Of course," she replied flatly before cantering off.

Ratchet stepped towards a perplexed Twilight. "I was under the impression she would have wanted to talk more."

Twilight blinked as she regained her wits. "Y-yeah, I thought so too. Maybe she just doesn't want to lose her composure."

"In that case, should I stay outside while you speak with Rainbow Dash?"

One thing stood out about Rainbow Dash in Twilight's memories, and that was the pegasus' old friendship with Gilda. "No. I don't think it'll come to that."

He glanced around at the morning crowd of ponies making their way through the streets. Some of them had semi regular contact with Cadista's hive by virtue of the regular shipments in and out of Ponyville, and were largely unfazed by the two changelings in front of Rarity's store. Others however, gave the pair a wide berth, but otherwise tried to ignore them. _To have so many minds closed to you. It's a wonder how they get along so well._

Twilight took to the air with Ratchet close behind. If I remember correctly, Rainbow Dash is a really late riser, so she might still be asleep.

Should we visit one of your other friends then?

Twilight spotted the cloud home quickly enough. Maybe—oh, there's a light on, nevermind.

The pair alighted to the front steps. _Never thought I'd be able to walk on clouds without a spell,_ Twilight mused as she knocked on the door. Several seconds passed with no response before she knocked a second, and then third time.

Twilight scrunched her face. Why won't she answer?

Perhaps she fell asleep with the light on.

Argh, she would do something like that. Twilight grumbled as she took flight and flew around the house until she found Rainbow's bedroom window. Sure enough, the lamp was on with the cyan pegasus sprawled out on her bed with a book covering her face. I knew it! She's wasting lamp oil leaving it on all night like this.

The disguised changeling poked her head through the open window. "Rainbow Dash." No answer. "Rainbow Dash!" The only response was a loud snore, prompting Twilight to shout even louder. "Rainbow!"

Rainbow Dash jolted up at the noise, and blearily looked up at the changeling hanging in her window. "Uh, hi Rainbow."

The cyan pony's brain finally registered that there was a changeling trying to enter her house, and the sleepy fog over her mind was burned away by an adrenaline rush. She leapt up on all fours, flaring her wings menacingly. "Are you a thief, or one of Chrysalis' assassins!?"

"Actually," Twilight wiggled inside before dropping her disguise, "I'm here to turn your lamp off, and say hi."

Rainbow remembered Celestia's letter informing her of Twilight's new appearance, and her arrival today. The pegasus' snarl was replaced by a joyful smile. "Twilight!"

She raced forward and grabbed the changeling into the air and squeezed her even harder than Rarity, and the flowing love felt less forced. Twilight warred with her desire to breath and her hunger for more love. Eventually, Rainbow decided for her and let Twilight catch her breath, but the love kept flowing, although Rainbow's expression and tone was that of anger. "Why didn't you let me come with you! I could have protected you from those jerks and this whole thing wouldn't have happened!"

Twilight didn't remember the original reason, but she could guess. "Sorry, Rainbow, it was dangerous, as I found out all too well."

"I know that! But I—" _I should have tried harder to convince you to let me go._ She couldn't bring herself to say it. She wrapped Twilight in a softer hug. "I'm glad you're okay, Twilight." Before Twilight could reciprocate, Rainbow pulled away. "You're still you, right?"

Twilight averted her gaze while rubbing her foreleg. "Well… I still haven't recovered most of my memories and… I _am_ a changeling now."

Rainbow moved her head to look Twilight in the eyes. "I don't care about the changeling bit, all I care about is it is still you on the inside." She poked Twilight's nose for emphasis.

Twilight saw the lamp in the corner of her eye and idly used her magic to shut it off. "I think so."

Rainbow heard her discarded book being closed, and laid neatly on the nightstand. She grinned and crushed her friend again. "That's the egghead I know!"

 _How does my need to clean up have to—oh forget it. I'm just glad she accepts me._ Rainbow let go and pulled Twilight to her hooves.

"I have to get a good look at your new duds."

Twilight watched as the pegasus poked and prodded the changeling's dark crimson wings, curved horn, fangs, and holes. "You really don't care that I'm a changeling?"

"I don't know, " she said mockingly. "Depends on how well you can fly."

Twilight giggled. "Well, I've barely had my wings for two weeks, so I don't think I'm 'on your level', so to speak."

Rainbow hovered in the air with a smug grin. "Maybe in a decade or three, but seeing as you're still the same purple egghead I know, I wouldn't care if you were a hydra. 'Course, that'd be kind of awesome, too. So, yeah, have you told the rest of the girls?"

"Rarity was the closest to the train yard. She's rounding up everyone else, and we're all meeting at the library soon."

"Cool. Spike's been running the place since you left. He isn't half-bad, but he can't get early copies of Daring Do books like you can, so I had to settle for something else."

"Really?" Twilight arched an eyebrow and levitated a book lying on Rainbow Dash's nightstand over to her.

"Hey! That's private!" Rainbow tried to grab the book as it flew over her head, but it nimbly dodged the pegasus' flailing hooves.

" _Slammed?_ " Twilight was so confused by the title that Rainbow managed to snatch the book away and hide it under the bed. A brief moment later, Twilight's eyes lit up. "Waaait a second, that's a romance novel." She gave Rainbow Dash a coy grin. " _Some_ pony's been branching out, I see."

Rainbow's cheeks burned bright crimson. "It's just to tide me over, that's all. Really!"

What is a romance novel? asked Ratchet, still hovering by the window.

Twilight balked. "You don't know what romance is?" She started sending him the basic concepts behind romance via the Link.

Rainbow looked between both changelings. "Wait, where did he come from?"

Twilight waved Ratchet inside. "This is Ratchet. He's my engineering guru."

"Egghead. Got it." Rainbow shook his hoof after he landed in front of her. "Wait, why are you shorter than she is? Actually, why are you taller than me?"

Twilight took stock of her height for the first time, now that Ratchet and Rainbow Dash were standing right next to each other. "I thought that drones were shorter than ponies."

Rainbow looked at Ratchet who was roughly the same height she was. "No, you're the tall one here. Almost as tall as Princess Luna."

Twilight stumbled backwards at the revelation. "I…I never noticed. How did I not notice?"

"Perhaps you've been too stressed out about how your friends would react?" Ratchet offered.

"Yeah, that sounds like you, all right. Remember the 'Want it Need it' incident?" Rainbow teased.

Twilight groaned. "That's one memory I could have done without."

Rainbow Dash snickered. "I hear Big Mac kept Smarty Pants."

"Oh, was that the name of my old doll?"

The cyan mare tilted her head. "You forget some random stuff, but yeah. Anyway, why don't we head down to the library, Spike's been dying to see you ever since we got word of your visit."

Of them all, Twilight remembered Spike the least. "I'm sure he does," she replied flatly. "Let's get going."

After replacing her disguise, Twilight and Ratchet followed Rainbow Dash to the Golden Oaks Library. As Rainbow lead the way, Twilight glanced around at the various hauntingly familiar sights and sounds of Ponyville.

Twilight hesitated in front of the large tree home. A powerful wave of nostalgia heralded a migraine and she fell back on her haunches. Rainbow and Ratchet quickly came to her side.

Years of memories surrounding this tree were finally recovered. "What's wrong—" Rainbow remembered just in time not to say her name in public, yet.

"I-I'm fine." Twilight got back on all fours and shook her head to clear her thoughts. "I always get headaches when memories come back."

Rainbow's eyes glinted with predatory delight. "Oh? So did you remember that one night stand with Lucky?"

Twilight wracked her recovered memories. "I-I didn't do anything like that, did I?!"

She looked to Ratchet, who shrugged, then to Rainbow, who abruptly burst into uproarious laughter and fell on her back. "You should see the look on your face. Priceless!"

"So... I never did any of that?" Twilight asked cautiously.

Rainbow's laughter died. "Ah, no you didn't. I was just kidding."

"So I don't have to worry about anypony claiming to be my coltfriend?"

"Are you kidding? You were too busy sticking your snout in books to get a coltfriend."

Rather than feel indignant, Twilight mulled sullenly over her friend's words. _I almost died not knowing what it's like to fall in love._ "I'd rather... avoid doing that again."

Rainbow Dash watched her friend walk into the library. _What does she mean by that?_

Twilight entered the library only to be grabbed inside by a pair of pink hooves. "Twilight! You're here, you're actually here!" The purple changeling was being shaken so bad she could barely make out the pink blur in front of her. "You're alive again, so that means you need a party for that, but you're also a changeling, so I need a party for that too, oh, and you're tall too!"

Applejack dragged Pinkie away from Twilight. "Simmer down Pinkie. Last I checked, changelings still need air."

While Ratchet sensed no serious distress from Twilight as she flopped on the floor without a disguise, he felt compelled to at least ask. Is… Is this normal for ponies?

Well, maybe for my friends.

Applejack studied Twilight's appearance while Fluttershy and Pinkie did the same with more enthusiasm. The shy pegasus meekly pulled Twilight to her hooves. "It's so nice to see you're okay."

Applejack frowned at Twilight's fangs and slightly intimidating crimson gossamer wings, but it was Twilight's altered cutie mark that turned it into a scowl. "So, Twi, how much of us do you remember?"

The purple changeling was a little put off by Applejack's curt demeanor. "Well, I don't know if I remember most or just a little bit of it all but—"

Scampering feet ran in from the basement and Spike plowed his way through the crowding mares to jump at the purple changeling. "Twilight!" He latched onto her and held on for dear life. "I thought I'd never see you again!"

 _I think I'm going to have some cracked ribs after this._ Twilight cringed painfully while hugging him back. "I missed you too Spike." She knew what to say, but couldn't attach any real feelings behind it.

Spike looked pleadingly into her eyes. The fangs and reptilian slits meant nothing to a dragon. Hearing his voice and seeing his face almost made her drop Spike as a storm of memories nearly overwhelmed her. Twilight grimaced as she started hissing in pain.

The other mares forgot their misgivings immediately, and Fluttershy voiced a shared question. "What's wrong? Did we hurt something?"

Ratchet moved in to try and comfort her, but Applejack intercepted him. "Who are you supposed to be? Did you do this to her?"

He tried to keep from matching her hostility. "Twilight has pain whenever she recovers more of her memories; it will fade shortly."

"That still doesn't explain who you are. You here to keep her on a leash?"

Rainbow forcibly separated Applejack from Ratchet. "Take it easy, AJ. Ratchet is like, Twi's bodyguard, or something. He's cool."

When Twilight blinked away the spots in her eyes, she saw a fretful baby dragon waiting for her. This time, however, he was met with a sisterly smile. "Spike!" She squashed him in a hug and nuzzled him. "I can't believe how much I'd forgotten about you."

Pinkie Pie saw this as a great opportunity and pulled all of the mares into a big group hug. "We are so totally having a 'Twilight's back' party!"

Applejack's expression softened, and she slowly let herself get pulled into the hug.

Twilight was content to soak up every last drop of freely given love. She felt a few faint cramps in her gut, but ignored them. Pinkie Pie raced to the kitchen and pulled out all kinds of party streamers, a filled punch bowl, and several party games.

"Come on, everypony, we've got a reunion to celebrate!"

The hug broke up with everyone except Rarity and Fluttershy trying to pull Twilight towards a game. With Twilight being forcibly preoccupied by everyone, Ratchet stayed out of the way, and gave the six mares (and one dragon) a chance to catch up on lost time. The next two hours gave him a fascinating looking into Equestrians. _Now I know where Twi gets that penchant for physical affection. It's good to see her fears of rejection were unfounded._

However, he noticed that Rarity always kept her distance. _Not too surprising, I guess. Mother's report on Equestrians said they can be slow to adapt to new species._

One thing that took him by surprise was the sheer amount of love being directed at Twilight. There was so much, it was spilling over the Link. _Astounding, they are clearly not romantically inclined, and yet their love seems just as potent._

He sent a query to the local love collectors. _So, the collectors focus almost exclusively on romantic love. Perhaps we've been neglecting an entirely different flavor of love this whole time. I must tell the queen immediately._

While Ratchet shared his findings with Cadista, Twilight was in the middle of a game of truth or dare, and the bottle pointed at her. Applejack grinned. "Okay Twi, truth or dare?"

Twilight was scared by the farmer's sinister grin, and the bloated feeling she was getting in her abdomen was only making it worse. "Truth."

"What's the deal with grey and silent over there?"

Ratchet suddenly found himself at the center of attention. Twilight sent him a good humored laugh over the Link. "He's Ratchet, didn't somepony tell you?"

"That's not what I meant. Is he your bodyguard or just somepony who just likes to study us all night?"

Ratchet, come over here. You don't need to stay away for my benefit. "He's my engineering instructor, and companion."

I don't know how to play pony games. "You do me too much honor, Twilight. I'm just a simple engineer."

Twilight smirked and sent him all of the rules to the various games Pinkie had planned. You do now. "Nonsense, you're a great instructor."

Rarity raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. Pinkie Pie was up in a flash and dragged him into the circle of friends. "If you're Twilight's friend, you're my friend too!"

Rainbow Dash placed the bottle in front of him. "Do changelings know how to play truth or dare?"

He glanced at a grinning Twilight. "I do, actually."

He spun the bottle with his hoof and it landed on Rarity. "Truth or dare?"

She suppressed a shudder. "Truth, darling."

"Why do you keep giving Twilight and I strange looks?" he asked evenly.

"I-I beg your pardon? I most certainly do not," she hastily replied.

Twilight was about to give him a dirty look when Applejack spoke. "That's the biggest lie I've heard all week. Spill it."

Rarity was doing an admirable job keeping an insulted mask on her face while her friends bore down on her. Suddenly, Twilight felt something large shift in her gut and an urgent need for privacy. "Um, guys, I need to go to the little fillies' room. I'll be back in a bit."

Twilight's excursion gave Rarity only a brief moment of respite from the intense scrutiny of her friends. "W-well, you see…"

* * *

Twilight found the bathroom and locked herself inside. She felt cramps between her legs and started to panic. _W-what's happening to me?!_

Something shifted inside a part of her anatomy she didn't know existed, and she was overcome with the urge to push whatever had lodged itself in her abdomen _out_. Oh Celestia, this doesn't feel right, what's going on? Why does it feel like something's about to—

At that moment, after a short period of undignified grunting and whimpering, the object of her discomfort was expelled onto the washroom throw rug. _Oh Celestia_ it came out of my vagina _WHAT IS GOING ON?!_ Twilight's distress was so extreme, every changeling in town could hear her frantic thoughts. Unfortunately, before she could see precisely what she had ejected from her nether regions, a second object started pushing against her abdomen, and then a third, and a fourth.

* * *

"… you have to let me explain. I was simply trying to see what kind of alterations I would need to make to Twilight's wardrobe, that's all."

Rainbow Dash saw disbelief in Applejack's eyes, and turned back to the fashionista. "It's called _Truth_ or Dare, Rarity, fess up!"

Ratchet's concentration was broken as he sensed a sharp spike of distress emanating from Twilight. Trying to stay calm, he excused himself from the group and flew towards the bathroom.

Naturally, the moment Ratchet left the room, all it took was a silent nod from Rainbow Dash for the rest of her friends to follow suit.

Ratchet followed Twilight's presence in the Link, and was about to knock and ask if she was all right, when he heard her screaming over the Link: ... it came out of my vagina _WHAT IS GOING ON?!_

The implications of that phrase hit Ratchet like a lightning bolt. _Twilight's going through her first laying!_ Not knowing what to do, he decided it would best for everyone to leave her alone until she finished. Bolting back to the stairs, he nearly collided with Rainbow Dash. "Where are you going in such a hurry, huh?"

He was a second too slow in responding. "I-I just thought that Twilight was distressed about something, but she assured me it was nothing serious."

"Is that right? Then why don't we go check on her, huh?"

Applejack pulled Rainbow Dash back to the ground. "Dash, do you really want to walk in on her while she's taking care of business?"

Rarity stepped up before the pegasus could respond. "Honestly darling, let the poor girl have some privacy."

"Okay, okay, gosh! I just wanted to make sure she was all right."

Fluttershy came forward and started leading Rainbow Dash back down stairs. "Don't be upset, Rainbow, we're all still getting used to Twilight being back."

* * *

Twilight bent forward to catch her breath, having finally rid herself of the four objects that had caused her so much distress. _Please no, please please_ please _don't be what I think this is._ She slowly turned around to find four grapefruit-sized semi-transparent purple eggs resting on the formally off-white rug. A primal fear coursed through her veins as she finally realized what she was looking at. RATCHET!

* * *

The drone fell over, the intensity of the summons catching him off guard. The group had trotted back into the living room, and had nearly sat down when Ratchet abruptly reversed course. He sped back towards the bathroom and collided with Pinkie Pie at the foot of the stairs. Scrambling to his hooves, he raced back upstairs.

Pinkie rubbed her sore flank while yelling at him. "Hey! What was that for?"

Applejack scowled. "Okay, something weird's going on. Come on y'all, we're gettin' some answers."

He burst into the bathroom to find Twilight frozen, staring at four purple eggs resting next to her hooves. Her mouth hung slightly agape, as though she was having trouble processing what had just happened.

 _Bloody Tartarus, how do I speak to her after she just transitioned into a proto-queen?_ "Twilight? Are you okay?"

She slowly looked up at him with bewildered eyes. "I… I laid eggs, Ratchet. Wh—what do I do?"

Before he could reply, a chorus of voices called out behind him. "She did _what?!_ "

Pinkie arrived last, but couldn't see anything from behind the wall of bodies. "Why do I get the feeling Twilight needs a second party?"


	7. Chapter 7

Friendship

Twilight's mind was frozen from sensory overload. Between the shock of laying four eggs, her friends clamoring to see what had happened, and every last local drone sending her queries to see if she was alright made it impossible for her to think. Wild hairs were popping out of her mane and tail so quickly she looked like an electrocution victim as her panic spun out of control.

 _I can't—I can't do this… no no no no!_

Twilight's downward spiral continued until Cadista's powerful voice silenced the alarm across the hive mind, and jolted Twilight back to her senses. Twilight, speak to me. Are you alright?

At the same time, Rainbow Dash pushed her way past Ratchet and stopped dead at the four purple eggs. "Twilight, what the hay are those!?"

Twilight's burgeoning ability to hold two conversations at once kicked in. Cadista, I… I laid eggs! "M-my eggs."

Listen very carefully Twilight, I want you to get to a room somewhere quiet where you can calm down. There is much you need to learn about caring for your eggs.

Rainbow Dash was bowled over by Fluttershy as she rushed in to inspect the eggs. "Oh my, so I wasn't imagining things. You really _were_ about to lay eggs. Isn't nature just marvelous?"

Twilight went slack jawed. "Wait, you _knew_ I was going to lay eggs?!"

The same question was mirrored by the others outside of the bathroom, making Fluttershy cower under the scrutiny. "W-well, I take care of a lot of oviparous animals. I'm just not used to seeing the signs in a pony."

Cadista soothed Twilight as much as possible through the Link. I know this is a momentous event, but try to remain calm. Let me know when you have a chance to speak at length. The caretakers from the mobile incubator are en-route, but for the moment, you need to keep the eggs with you.

Twilight's thoughts slowed down, and her hyperventilation returned to normal. I will, thank you. _This is big,_ really _big, I have to get the girls to not freak out about this._ She raised her voice a little to stop all of her friends' frenzied chatter. "Girls! Please. I just _laid four eggs_ , I'm sticky, I don't know what to do, please just give me some time to think."

Fluttershy squeaked, and started pushing Rainbow Dash out of the cramped bathroom. "Come on, Rainbow, you wouldn't want a bunch of gawkers staring at you if you laid eggs, would you?"

Rainbow blushed. "Well… no. Yeah, let's get out of here."

Twilight sighed in relief as Ratchet closed the door. Please tell my friends everything Cadista will allow.

You have my word Twi, he replied.

With her privacy finally obtained, Twilight promptly fell onto her haunches, erected a sonic barrier around her head, and screamed for a whole minute. Believing that wasn't enough, she screamed for another two minutes before she expelled enough emotional chaos to think clearing again. _Okay, Twilight Sparkle. Keep it together. Keep. It. Together!_ Marshaling up her courage, she faced the eggs. Cadista. These… eggs of mine. They're just blanks, right? I don't… have relations with anypony.

Cadista was glad to hear Twilight was much more collected. You self-fertilize your eggs in the absence of a mate.

Now Twilight was even more confused. Self-fertilize? But… doesn't that mean they'll be clones of me?

Yes, but that's what alchemy is for - genetic modification. I'll teach you about it later. For now, it seems that Ponyville is in the middle of summer, so temperature shouldn't be a problem, and the shells will be hardened for the next three hours. So, you have time for a quick shower, but afterwards you will need to feed your eggs a large amount of love.

Okay, I think I can handle that. Twilight grabbed a towel and cleaned her eggs with warm water, then dried them off and wrapped them in another towel, before tending to her own needs.

During her shower, Cadista continued. Because of how our hive mind works, you will need to saturate them with love before they can be placed inside an incubator.

What happens while they're in there?

A problem Yumia and I ran into is that our eggs simply don't contain enough nutrients, due to our children requiring such a heavy investment of resources. So, rather than perform risky improvements on ourselves, we turned to technology. Our scientists developed incubators to provide a constant supply of food and love via the crystals. This allowed the much simpler task of re-engineering our eggs to be semi-permeable. Each egg has a three hour period where the shell is extremely durable, so transport to an incubator is not hazardous. Cadista paused, One more thing: by being the first to give your unhatched children love, it will permanently link you to them via the hive mind, just as I was the first to give you love in the chrysalis.

Twilight ended her shower and unwrapped the towel around her eggs, looking at them with trepidation. _This is really it. My first clutch of eggs._ Will that cause problems with our hive mind?

No. So long as you remain within our Link, all of your children will as well. However, should you or I be severed from the Link at any point, your children will remain with you in a new hive mind. This is how each new generation of queens rise from the old.

The implications hit Twilight like a truck as she laid down to get a closer look at her eggs. The future changelings within were barely a lump of cells, but to Twilight, they represented a point of no return. I understand. How will I know when I've given them enough?

You will know.

Twilight tried to lick her lips, but her tongue was just as dry. _I… I…_ She swallowed the lump in her throat. _I'm not going to let them starve just because I'm scared._

Steeling her nerves, she bent her head down to point her horn at the eggs, dipped into her exorbitant reserves of love, and poured a large amount into each one. As the transfer progressed, the eggs started glowing with a pale lavender light. The orange-colored magical bridge between her horn and the eggs developed faint flickers of purple, but it went unnoticed to Twilight.

Slowly, the glow intensified, and Twilight stopped after she felt the love was no longer being absorbed. Each egg radiated a gentle purple light. Are they supposed to glow like that?

I cannot see through your eyes, but yes, they will glow for a few hours before the light fades. Do you notice their presence on the Link?

Twilight didn't understand. They're too underdeveloped to have a brain yet, how can they be in the hive mind?

Instead of trying to find their voices, find the spots that have been reserved for them in the Link.

How do I do that? Twilight had barely finished asking the question when Cadista gave her the answer over the Link. Armed with this new knowledge, Twilight quickly found four empty holes within the hive mind. So, each drone has a place reserved for them within the hive mind?

Cadista was pleased with Twilight's rapid comprehension of new information. Yes, and once their minds have developed enough to link with you, they will do so automatically.

Twilight had calmed down considerably, and her maternal instincts began to take hold. She smiled weakly at her eggs, and carefully rubbed one with a fetlock. How long until they hatch?

Thirty days, but they will spend nearly three years as nymphs until they molt into what you would know as pony adolescents. After that, they will age as normal ponies. For the time being, you should let the caretakers handle them. Right now, I think it would be wise to save Ratchet. Your friends are very worried about you.

Twilight stood up and wrapped the eggs back in the towel, and levitated them between her wings as she left the bathroom. Knowing Rainbow Dash and Applejack, one of them probably have Ratchet in a headlock by now.

Twilight felt a much more familiar grumble in her gut. Guess laying eggs works up quite an appetite. She cantered towards the stairs with a little spring in her step.

Understandable. Not only is your development towards a full queen commencing, but you need to sustain your laying rate.

Twilight's canter slowed into a walk. Rate? How often am I going to lay?

Cadista was hesitant to answer. As a proto-queen, you have little control over this beyond starving yourself. I laid a clutch every day.

Twilight froze halfway down the stairs. Every _day?!_

Until you mature into a full queen, yes. It's not pleasant, but it's part of a queen's lifecycle, and nopony has dared tamper with it. You'll just have to bear with it.

Twilight groaned. _Ok, whatever, that'll be future Twilight's problem. Right now I have to make sure my friends stay my friends._ I'll do my best. Thanks for helping me.

Your gratitude is not necessary, Twilight, but it is appreciated. If you have further questions, you can speak to me at any time.

Twilight took four slow, deep breaths after Cadista severed communications. _I have tons of questions, but I can't make my friends wait anymore._ After making sure her eggs were secure on her withers, she ventured downstairs.

Twilight heard Ratchet speaking as she made her way to the ground floor. "…And that's why Twilight is a proto-queen."

Rainbow Dash spotted Twilight first, and flew over. "So it's true? You're like a bug queen?"

 _Bug queen?_ Twilight frowned. "I am a _changeling_ proto-queen, yes. I was _hoping_ we could just drop this whole egg thing. I haven't seen you guys in months, and I just want us to be normal friends again."

Rarity tittered at the thought. "Darling, we've been anything but normal since we became the Elements of Harmony, but I'm willing to ignore this… unpleasantness, for your sake."

Twilight wasn't sure of Rarity's wording. _I'll take what I can get, and build from there._

Applejack gave Rarity a critical eye before turning back to her friend. "Well shoot, Twi, this is all a bit over my head, but I can appreciate you and Ratchet being honest rather than trying t' hide everything from us. I don't see any reason we can't still be friends."

Pinkie barely managed to let her friends speak their minds before exploding from her seat to try and peek at the eggs as Twilight made it to the ground floor. "Ohh ohh ooohhhhh! If you need a foalsitter I can totally do that!" Pinkie frowned, and then sat on her haunches. "Wait, they're eggs, not foals. Would that make me an eggsitter? Do I have to sit on the eggs to keep them warm? Is that the only way to be an eggsitter?"

Twilight took a step back from Pinkie while flaring her wings. "We don't sit on our eggs, but thanks for the thought, Pinkie."

Twilight spied Fluttershy whispering with Ratchet before she ran out of the library. The purple changeling wanted to ask Ratchet what was going on, but Rainbow Dash got in her face again. "How can you be so okay with _laying eggs?_ "

Twilight frowned again. "I'm _trying_ to be okay with it, and you _aren't helping_."

"Yeah. Well, you seem _awfully_ protective of a bunch of eggs you never knew were coming. How do we know you're not being brainwashed into some super bug mom or… something?!"

"I am not being brainwashed, Rainbow Dash!" protested Twilight, "how would you feel if you had a foal, huh? Would you just leave her on the side of the street?!"

"That's different! At least I'd know if I had a foal coming. You were waaaay too shocked to have known you were gonna lay eggs."

Twilight was almost against the wall. "I was told, Rainbow, _repeatedly_. Practically every day since I hatched; I just didn't want to think about it! I thought it might be years, or at least a few months, but no, it happened _today_ , okay?!" Twilight's eyes watered as her voice cracked. "So now I have to deal with it, because that's what I am. I'm a _changeling queen!_ I _lay eggs!_ If that's such a problem for you, Rainbow Dash, then I'll just _leave you alone!_ "

She pushed past the mortified pegasus, and was briefly surrounded by orange flames as she donned her drone disguise before turning back to the group. "Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go to the train yard." Twilight sent a command to the nearby caretakers to return to the mobile incubator as she left her friends behind.

Applejack glowered at the sullen pegasus. "Expected or not, Rainbow Dash, those eggs are her family. I would have thought you'd know better than to attack somepony's family like that." Rainbow Dash stood there, silently, and AJ turned to the others. "Come on, y'all, we need to show Twilight that _most_ of us are more understanding."

Rarity lingered long enough to speak to Rainbow where the others couldn't hear. "You bring up a good point, Dash, but you need to learn some tact."

She angrily kicked at the ground. "Yeah, I'll work on that, right after I learn how to keep my hoof out of my mouth."

Rarity opened her mouth, but thought better of it, and chased after Applejack.

* * *

Spike rode on Applejack's back as they chased after Twilight. Even with her drone disguise, she was easy to spot with the towel on her back. Before long, spike spotted the purple changeling. "She's over there, AJ."

Applejack bolted towards Twilight, who was trotting along on the ground at a slow pace. Her wings were flared to keep her eggs from falling. "Hey, sugar cube, wait up a sec'."

Applejack had half expected Twilight to lash out, but all she got was a depressed look. "Hey, AJ."

"Listen, you know how Dash can get, she's just looking out for you."

"Yeah," Spike chimed in, "Dash is too dense for her own good, sometimes." Applejack shot him a sour glance.

"Thanks guys. I was really hoping to spend some time with you, but then this happened, and now you guys think I'm weird."

Rarity moved to Twilight's other side. "I'll admit I was… put off by the whole thing, and for that I must apologize. I told myself after that catastrophe with Zecora that I wouldn't let such preconceptions color my actions, but there I was, doing precisely that. Can you ever forgive me?"

Twilight gave a weak smile, and nuzzled her alabaster friend. "Of course, Rarity. I'm just glad to have my friends back."

Pinkie leapt forward to start bouncing backwards in front of Twilight. "And we really need to throw you a 'New Mommy' party. It'll be even better than the one I threw for Mister and Missus Cake because you have four instead of two!"

Twilight inwardly cringed. _Yeah… four, for now. No, think about it later. Right now I need to spend time with my friends, I don't know when I'll get another chance to come back to Ponyville._

If you wish, I can take the eggs to the incubator, interjected Ratchet. That'll give you time to catch up.

No, I want to bring my first clutch to the incubator myself, but I appreciate the offer.

Twilight spent the long walk to the train yard catching up with her friends. Most of the townsfolk cast the mixed group a curious eye, but largely left them alone. The six mares were known to have unusual acquaintances. The scant few changelings kept a respectful distance as well.

Fluttershy returned around the same time the group arrived at the first set of tracks. "So sorry about that, but I needed to do a bit of grocery shopping."

Spike voiced the shared question. "Kind of an odd time, don't you think?"

"Well, it's just that, I thought it would be difficult to-"

Pinkie interrupted by pointing at the train car they were closing in on. "Oh, oh! Is that it?"

Two female caretakers approached the group. The one on the left felt it would be rude to speak via the Link with so many non-changelings around. "I can take your eggs off your hooves for you, Twilight."

She waved her off. "I'd rather do it myself, for the first clutch, at least."

Her friends, save Ratchet and Fluttershy, raised an eyebrow at the word 'first'. The lead caretaker nodded her compliance, and gestured towards the incubator. "I must ask that everypony else remain outside."

Twilight's friends looked miffed as Fluttershy cautiously walked up to Twilight's side. "Um, I can be really gentle and out of the way. Could I please see? B-but if you don't want to, that's okay…"

Twilight wrapped a foreleg around her canary yellow friend. "Fluttershy is one of the best caretakers I know. I think it would be a great idea if she could tag along."

The female drones were wary. "Twilight, an incubator is sensitive technology. Only caretakers and royals are ever allowed in."

Fluttershy squirmed under the pressure. "Oh, okay then."

Twilight narrowed her eyes. "I trust Fluttershy with my life, and the life of my children. Is that not enough?"

The second caretaker sent her companion a request to be silent as she took over. "Of course, Twilight. We're just not used to letting anypony see an incubator from the inside."

Twilight followed after the second caretaker. "I understand, but we _are_ trying to become stronger allies with Equestria, are we not?"

"Absolutely," the second caretaker agreed.

The interior of the mobile incubator was clean and well lit. The entire front third of the compartment was composed of machinery while the rest of the car was filled with empty glass tubes that had more than enough room for an egg. The first four tubes were being filled with an orange liquid solution. Fluttershy was surprised by the complexity of it all.

The first caretaker pointed towards the machinery. "This is the primary environmental control suite that takes care of temperature and supplies nutrients via pipes along the floor and ceiling. This model even allows mass love feeding by either crystal, or through your horn, if you wish." The second caretaker manipulated several levers and dials to make the machine stop filling the four tubes.

"Each egg will remain here until it is ready to hatch, or can be moved to the hatchery in Stripped Gear. During which time you can employ alchemy to change the drone to your liking."

Fluttershy gave a quizzical hum while Twilight spoke. "Is that necessary for every egg?"

"I don't believe so, but it is not my place to say. Regardless, your first clutch will be very capable as they are," the second caretaker explained while she removed the lid on the filled incubator tubes. "Everything looks to be in order. All that's left now is to place each egg in a tube."

Twilight craned her head around, cradled her four eggs in her magic, and gave one to each mare present while keeping one for herself. "Fluttershy, would you like to place one?"

Fluttershy gently grasped the small purple egg. "I'd love to, Twilight, but I think you should be the first to place an egg."

Nodding, Twilight carefully levitated her egg and placed it inside the incubator. The painstakingly tailored solution suspended the egg right in the center of the liquid. Twilight was barely aware of the others doing the same as she glanced around the rest of the room. _There are over two hundred incubators in here. I can't believe Cadista thinks I'm going to lay every day._ She gazed back over all of the glass incubators with renewed panic. _Then again, there wouldn't be so many incubators if it wasn't true._

It was in that moment, when the ramifications of there being four thousand drones within the hive struck her. _By Celestia, Cadista laid that many, plus no telling how many more since her first time. I-I'm going to be like her one day… A mother to thousands, tens of thousands._

The caretakers could feel Twilight's distress, and Fluttershy noticed it too. She rested a comforting hoof on Twilight's withers. "I have a feeling you're going to make a great queen, Twilight."

"You… really don't mind? Even if I'm so… alien, now?"

The caretakers backed away to let them have some space while Fluttershy wrapped her friend in a hug. "Oh, Twilight, your body may be different, but you're still you where it counts. You're still a good pony. It doesn't matter if you're a changeling, or a parasprite, or a mule. I'll always be your friend."

Twilight's eyes misted over and she returned the hug. "Thank you, Fluttershy, I… I needed that."

Fluttershy let Twilight cry away the stress and anxiety while gently patting her purple friend on the back. While silent, the two caretakers watched on with bemusement. Intriguing. She's able to comfort Twilight without use of the Link. Do you think this technique might make raising nymphs more effective? Especially if they're Twilight's?

It is certainly worth investigating. I'll notify the hatchery staff in Stripped Gear at once. In the meantime, we should tend to our duties. This is a critical time for her, and we can't afford a single failed egg.

Right, of course. As the younger caretaker began to work, she kept stealing glances at the two friends embracing each other. _These Equestrians have such a strange power, and they don't even seem to realize it._

* * *

Twilight sobbed into Fluttershy's fur for five minutes before her stomach growled loudly enough to startle the pegasus. Twilight's cheeks flushed and she rubbed the back of her neck while glancing at her eggs. "Sorry, I guess I worked up an appetite."

"Oh, I understand. In fact," She started rooting around in her saddlebags and withdrew a lumpy mound wrapped in brown wax paper. "Ratchet told me your hive are omnivores, so I went down to the local griffin merchant, and bought some choice cuts for you and Ratchet. I was going to cook my mother's famous De' Magnavious recipe, to celebrate."

"I didn't know you knew how to cook griffin dishes."

Fluttershy put the meat back in her bags. "Well, Rainbow Dash's mom and my mother always got along with the griffins who came to visit Cloudsdale, and… they're carnivores, so she learned how to cook for them. She taught me some basic recipes."

Twilight smiled. "I'm sure it'll taste wonderful."

They hugged one last time before departing, and found Rainbow Dash standing outside, alone. Were it not for the apologetic look on the pegasus' face, Twilight would have brushed past her.

"I'm sorry for jumping on you Twilight," blurted out Rainbow Dash before Twilight could speak, "I didn't mean to put you on the spot like that."

Twilight pointed towards a nearby passenger car. "Why don't we talk in there so I don't need my disguise." Rainbow nodded slowly, and flew over while Twilight told the nearby drones to give them some space. "Fluttershy, I'll see you at the library later okay?"

"Okay, I need to get some spices from home, anyway. See you later, Twilight."

Twilight followed Rainbow Dash inside before dropping her disguise. "Look Twilight, I'm sorry I called you a bug, and razzed on you for the whole egg thing. It just weirds me out to see you laying eggs and all, you know?"

Twilight's face fell, and she pawed at the floor. "It's alright, Dash. It's not easy for me to accept, either. But, brainwashed or not… those eggs came from me, and I'm responsible for them."

 _Get to the point Rainbow!_ she growled at herself. "No, it's not alright! I'm better than this! I was friends with all kinds of non-ponies before moving to Ponyville, this shouldn't work me up so much."

"Rainbow," Twilight said cautiously, but the pegasus was beginning to rant.

"All that should matter is that you're still you, but…" She hung her head in defeat. "It isn't. I can't just look past it." Twilight bit her lip as tears started falling from Rainbow, as she looked at her with steel in her eyes. "That's why I'm going with you."

Twilight's plummeting mood halted in an instant. "W-what do you mean, going with me?"

"You're my friend Twilight, and I can't _stand_ having… prejudice towards you just because you're a changeling."

"Rainbow, you can't help that—"

She ignored Twilight's justifications. "No, you're wrong. Just because you're different on the outside, and what Chrysalis did doesn't excuse it. Not to _me_. That's why I'm going with you, when you return to the hive."

"Y-you would really come back with me?"

Rainbow puffed her chest out at seeing Twilight's hopeful expression. "Of course I would. I'm the Element of Loyalty, remember?"

"What about everypony else in town?"

Rainbow's ego flattened a little. "Twi, when I heard about what happened to you, and how the only way to save your life was to turn you into a changeling, it made me realize something. My dream to become a Wonderbolt would take me on tours all over Equestria. I might not see you guys for weeks or months. Rarity always wanted to open a shop in Canterlot one day, and she'll be gone for most of the time when that happens. Even if you were still a unicorn, there's no telling where your studies with Celestia would have taken you."

"What are trying to say Rainbow?"

"I don't know!" Dash replied, frustrated. "All I know is, at some point, you're going back to with the rest of the changelings, aren't you?"

Twilight nodded slowly. "I'm a proto-queen now, and I won't be able to stop laying eggs until I've fully matured, and I can't care for hatchlings in Equestria."

"Then that's just another reason for me to go. I need to get over my prejudice, and you need somepony around to let you know you always have a home back in Equestria. It's win-win!"

"You would really do that for me?" With a huge smile and tears of joy, Twilight wrapped her friend in a tight hug. "Thank you, Rainbow, thank you."

Rainbow felt this was a time she could indulge in a sentimental moment, and hugged her friend in return. For a little bit, anyway. "Yeah, yeah, enough of the sappiness already. I need to tell the weather team I'll be leaving for a while and all that. I'll see you at dinner, right?"

Twilight wiped a stubborn tear away. "Yeah, Fluttershy's going to be cooking dinner tonight at the library."

"Awesome! I'll help her out if she's dishing up something good. See you then."

Twilight sat on her haunches as Rainbow left. "They're…" She let out a shuddering deep sigh. "They're still my friends. Thank Celestia."

Twilight gave herself some time to calm down while a drone brought her lunch. She returned the love crystals, having fed far more than she needed.

 _I still have a few hours before dinner gets started, so I might as well visit one of the love collectors._ She sent out a general query. Can any local collectors take a few minutes to talk?

Over twenty replies answered her, but one stood out above the rest. I'm not busy, Twilight. You can visit me in my home, if you wish.

The hive mind gave Twilight the identity of the speaker. Rose? I never knew you were a changeling.

The drone gave a weak laugh. Well, if you had, I wouldn't have been doing a very good job.

Touché.

Please disguise yourself as a normal pony. Until Equestrians are more welcoming of us, I'd rather not raise undue alarm.

Twilight scowled as she conjured up a green furred pegasus disguise. _That shouldn't be necessary, but I won't put one of my sisters in the spotlight._ Of course.

* * *

Twilight found Rose's home easily enough. Rose ushered her inside as if she were an old friend. The house was much like any other in Ponyville. _Now I know why she used mirrored windows._

Rose dropped her disguise. "Would you like some tea, or a snack?"

Twilight was transfixed by Rose's appearance. "You look just like your pony self, only with-"

The pseudo earth mare possessed the multitude of changeling attributes: holes, wings, horn, and the eyes. What gave Twilight pause was that her mane, coat, and cutie mark remained. "Oh, did mother not tell you?"

Twilight followed Rose into the kitchen. "Tell me what?"

"The collectors of our hive live most of our lives as a pony of our creation. As a result, our disguise ends up permanently marking our fur and hair. This has been my normal appearance for years, now."

"Have you tried different disguises to keep that from happening?"

Rose started boiling some water. "That becomes impossible for us collectors. During our training, we condition ourselves to be able to maintain our disguise around the clock for potentially years at a time. It reaches a point where my pony guise feels as natural to me as my true form. A side effect of that conditioning is that it is impossible for me to assume any other disguise, which makes escape quite difficult if I'm discovered."

Twilight mulled over the information when a stallion's voice called out from the lounge. "Honey? I didn't know you were bringing guests."

Twilight frantically gestured for Rose to put her disguise back on, but Lucky trotted inside too quickly. Twilight was stunned to see he was completely unfazed by Rose's appearance. The drone smiled, and pecked him on the lips. "Well it was sort of a last minute thing. Twilight wanted to see how I did my second job."

Lucky turned to the disguised proto-queen. "Twilight? You don't mean _the_ Twilight Sparkle, do you?"

It's okay, Twilight, Lucky's quite comfortable with our kind.

Trusting her sister, Twilight flared orange, and revealed herself. Lucky whistled in surprise. "Well, I'll be a hydra's uncle. Who would'a thought the Princess's star pupil had been a queen all along."

Twilight nervously tapped her hooves together and sunk in her seat. "Actually, I've only been a changeling for two weeks."

His face fell. "Oh… _Oh_. Well… huh. So wait, that's what the Princesses meant by you convalescing at the hive?" Twilight nodded weakly, making him glance between both mares. "This isn't the culmination of a ten year plot to have a three way with me, is it?"

Everyone burst out laughing, and it took several minutes for Rose to catch her breath. "You scoundrel!" she protested.

"Come on, you can't tell me she's really Twilight Sparkle," he mocked playfully before looking back at Twilight. "You must be one of the other changelings in town."

She averted her gaze with a frown. "Afraid not."

His playful grin quickly fell into a frown. "I…see. Do the Princesses know?"

"They do," Twilight replied reassuringly, "Luna's going to reveal what happened to me tomorrow morning."

Lucky's tension eased up. "Well if the Princesses are okay with it, I see no reason not to be."

The three of them settled down as Rose brought the teapot over. She was about to grab the cups when the front door slammed shut. "Mom, I'm home!"

Rose gave Twilight a reassuring look before yelling out. "We're in the kitchen, Scootaloo!"

Twilight watched the familiar orange filly race over, and happily tackle Rose. "You gotta hear what-" She stopped talking as she noticed Twilight in the room and stared at her for several seconds as her brain froze.

Twilight waved a hole riddled hoof at the filly. "Hello Scootaloo."

The filly's face scrunched. "Wait a second, you've been a changeling all this time!?" She turned to Rose. "I thought you already told me about all of the local changelings from your hive."

"I did, Gumdrop," Rose said while tousling the filly's mane. "Twilight became a changeling two weeks ago."

Scootaloo studied Twilight. "The Princesses couldn't have been very happy about that."

Twilight was too distracted by the filly still cuddling with her undisguised mother. "They weren't, but we'll get over it. I didn't know non-royals could have foals."

Rose lovingly squeezed Scootaloo. "We can't. Lucky and I adopted my little gumdrop here last year."

Scootaloo nuzzled her adopted mother. "I've got the coolest mom ever! 'Course, I'm just glad to have parents."

Twilight felt a surge of hope as Lucky held his wife's hoof in his own with a caring smile on his lips. _So it really is possible. My hive and Equestria might be able to be not just allies, but close friends. If a filly and stallion can love a changeling, anypony can._ "Thank you for having me over for tea, Rose. This has been most enlightening, but I must say I'm surprised. Scootaloo, isn't it hard to not tell anypony you have a changeling mother?"

The orange filly's ears flattened. "Sometimes. I find it easier if I just don't bring her up, but I'm glad she trusted me with her secret. And I'll keep it forever."

Rose stroked her adopted daughter's mane. "You're a wonderful little filly, Scoot. Why don't you go ahead and grab your spare crusader cape," she said with a knowing grin, "I know that's why you came home so early."

Scootaloo's cheeks flushed. "I don't go through _that_ many."

Rose raised an amused eyebrow. "Sure you don't. I left your cape on the bed, try not to get so much tree sap on it this time."

"No promises," the filly replied teasingly as she nuzzled her mother, before bolting for her room.

Lucky chuckled, and checked the clock. "I better get down to the shop. The guys will give me grief if I make them wait any longer." He kissed her before leaving.

Rose was practically glowing from his affection, a fact Twilight noticed quickly, but she didn't speak of it until Lucky left. "You're really lucky to have such a great family."

"Thank you, Twilight. I'm so glad mother allowed me to be a collector. Stripped Gear will always be in my heart, along with my brothers and sisters; but my home is here with my second family. I risked a lot with Scootaloo," she shed a few tears of joy, "and she's proven herself to be a wonderfully loving and understanding child. I can't express how guilty I felt about hiding my true self from her, but she hasn't told a soul."

Twilight sipped from her tea. "Kids aren't known for their discretion. That's why so many don't adopt, right?"

Rose nodded while staring at her reflection in the still liquid. "Yes. Adoption is the only way we drones can have children, and not every collector has been as lucky as I have. I can't tell you how much I worry that it might slip one day. I am ashamed to admit that the first few months after I revealed my true self to her, I was terrified that she might use it as blackmail if I didn't let her have her way. Over half of our collectors are too scared to reveal themselves to their partner, let alone a child."

Twilight reached over to hold her sister's hoof. "Scootaloo seems to be happy just having a mother at all. I don't think she'd ever do that."

Rose jittered with her teacup. "I know. She's such a great little filly. Gets into trouble, and comes home with bruises and sores from crusading all day, but I wouldn't change a thing about her. Even with her dedication to keeping my secret, that fear is always in the back of my mind. We've hidden in the shadows for so long; it's difficult to be so open with non-changelings."

Twilight got up and gave Rose a sisterly hug. "I want you to know I'm going to fix that. I don't want us to have to hide what we are from Equestrians anymore."

"If anypony can do that, it'll be you, sis." Rose felt Twilight's sincerity over the Link, and returned the hug. "I'm so glad you're one of us now, Twilight."

"Yeah, me too."

* * *

It was dark out by the time Twilight headed back to the library. The moment she opened the door, the drone of conversation filled the air, along with the tantalizing scent of Fluttershy's cooking.

Rarity was trying to get Ratchet to open up more about Stripped Gear while the rest of her friends, minus the two pegasi, swapped banter. Pinkie saw Twilight close the door, and drop her drone disguise. "Heya Twilight, you're just in time for the party!"

"Party for wh-" was all she could say before a party cannon blasted her with confetti and pastries. She was barely visible under all of the brightly colored paper falling all around her when she noticed the banner on the far wall.

Happy New Momma Twilight Party!

Were it not for the cake plastering her face, Twilight might have chuckled at it. "Pinkie…! Why do I even bother?"

The party pony ignored Twilight glowering at her as she pulled her over to the dinner table where cakes and a punch bowl were located. Yet it was the dark sapphire blue alicorn standing on the other side of the table that caught her attention. Twilight jumped out of Pinkie's grasp. "P-princess Luna!"

The alicorn gave Twilight an appraising glance. "Twilight Sparkle. It seems you have need of a bib."

Twilight hastily bowed before her princess. "I wasn't expecting you until tomorrow."

Ratchet watched the exchange with interest as Luna weaved a spell to cleanse Twilight of frosting. "Rise, Twilight Sparkle. I would not have you, of all ponies, bow to me, when I owe you so much." Twilight climbed back to her hooves to find a humored expression on Luna. "Especially when you technically outrank my title, _proto-queen_."

"Ugh," Twilight groaned while rubbing her head. "Don't remind me. I may be one in body, but I hardly feel that way in spirit."

Luna guided Twilight towards the stairs with a wing so they could have some privacy. "Give it time, Twilight. I too was ill prepared for my role in things when Tia and I assumed the throne."

Twilight stepped fully into the study with Luna right behind her. "You're taking my new look better than I imagined."

Luna gave the younger mare a haunted weak smile. "It may surprise you, Twilight, but I was friends with a few queens before my… episode with the Nightmare."

" _Really!?_ What were we like back then?"

Luna picked up on Twilight's acceptance of no longer being an Equestrian. "They certainly did not look as pony-like as you, or Ratchet, and I find that rather peculiar. They were more akin to Chrysalis' brood, but not in their actions. At the time, my night guard were extremely adept at sniffing out their infiltrators. After three months of inadvertently starving the hives, their queens came forth and offered a deal after explaining the purpose of their infiltrators, which is when I found out they were love collectors.

"I struck a deal, without Tia's knowledge, that allowed them to harvest the love they needed in complete secret, provided no harm came to our subjects, and they would guard Equestria's borders from the great many external threats we had at the time. Most notably the chaos spawn, which still exist today, much to my dismay. Unfortunately, that all fell apart after I was consumed by the Nightmare. All of my old contacts either no longer answer, or are long dead."

Twilight scuffed the ground. "Oh, sorry to hear that."

Luna was able to keep a weak smile on her lips. "It was my mistake, not yours. In any event, I am glad that you are well. I feared the worst when I heard of the attack upon you, but in the end, your transformation will provide a great boon to both of our peoples, don't you think?"

Twilight perked up in an instant. "You really think so?"

"I do. I was greatly troubled by Chrysalis' actions during the wedding. I feared my lost allies had fallen in the same manner I had all those years ago, but between you and Cadista, I have hope that Equestrians and changelings can coexist, perhaps more openly this time."

Twilight grinned awkwardly. "I don't think we _can_ hide anymore, thanks to Chrysalis."

"Nor should you have to." Luna's horn lit up with magic. "Now, I might have a gift for you," she said with a stern expression, "but that depends on how this gift reacts towards you."

Twilight arch an eyebrow. "Reacts?" A dark blue mist materialized and swirled beside Luna until it solidified into a jeweled box. "Why does that look so familiar?"

Luna tilted her head in amusement. "It should." She opened it to reveal the Elements of Harmony.

As Luna took the Element of Magic out of the box, Twilight's perception of the world around her vanished with only the golden tiara remaining, even the voices of the hive mind dimmed to be nearly imperceivable. Luna's voice was little more than a muffled echo as the changeling stood transfixed by her Element. She raised a trembling hoof towards it, causing Luna to stop talking as she felt Twilight's magic instinctively attempt to wrestle the Element out of her telekinesis.

The princess let the artifact go, where it was quickly enveloped by Twilight's aura and dragged into her hooves. While there was no visible trace of magic between the artifact and its bearer, Twilight could feel the Element resonate with her very being.

Twilight found her voice as the world around her came back into focus. "W-what is this?" She looked to Luna while clutching the Element tightly to her chest.

"That is the Element of Magic." Luna carefully probed both the artifact and Twilight with her magic. "It seems the Element still recognizes you as its bearer."

Twilight tore her eyes from the princess to stare at the tiara. "It feels like it's part of me. Just as much as the hive mind is."

Luna recalled reading Twilight's letters about the Link. "I believe you are correct. Only, the Element is tied to your strong natural affinity towards magic and friendship. Rather than being one with your mind, it is one with your spirit. To put it poetically, you and the Element are one and the same. It is for that reason my sister and I have agreed that it should stay with you."

Twilight held on to the golden tiara as memories of standing against Nightmare Moon with her friends, and the short-lived return of Discord returned to her. The Element protected Twilight from the usual pain that accompanied her bouts of memory recovery.

Luna watched with interest as the changeling stared off into space for well over a minute before snapping back into focus. "Luna… I can't take this back with me. This belongs with Equestria."

Luna shook her head. "Nearly all of the artifact's power rests with you, just as the other Elements' power resides in your friends. The physical embodiments of the Elements simply act as foci for the power gifted to each of you."

Twilight kept the tiara close to her chest. "I promise you, Princess Luna, should Equestria ever have need of me and my Element, I'll stand to defend it."

Luna smiled to hide her uncertainty. _She is a pony of two worlds, and she wants to remain part of ours. May nopony give her cause to leave it._ "Glad to hear it. Now," she swept a wing towards the loud chatter spilling out from behind the door, "I believe we're missing a party downstairs. An event I do not get to attend often."

Twilight placed the Element of Magic upon her brow. "I wouldn't want to miss it either."

* * *

Twilight awoke late the following morning to the sound of birds chirping outside her window, and the thunderous snores of Rainbow Dash who was sleeping on a cloud she had dragged inside last night. She flattened her ears, but that did little to save her from Ponyville's champion snorer.

Twilight was struggling to work up enough cognitive willpower to erect a sound dampener spell when she felt an egg shift in her abdomen. She sat bolt upright as the familiar need to push returned. _So early!? At least this didn't happen during the speech today._ With the library filled with her sleeping friends, Twilight groggily made her way to the bathroom, and went about laying her second clutch of eggs with only slightly less difficulty than the day before.

Afterwards, she cleaned herself up and scowled at the poor rug. _If I'm going to stay here much longer I'm going to need something I can lay on that won't get stained._

Twilight's magic enveloped the four purple eggs so she could clean them in the sink before feeding them all the love they could handle. The orange bridge between her horn and the eggs flickered with slightly larger traces of lavender as Twilight felt the Link grow to accommodate the four new eggs.

Twilight levitated the purple orbs in front of her. _To think I'm going to be doing this for the next seventy three days…_ She turned to her reflection above the sink. _Who am I kidding, I'm not going to stop laying after I become a full queen, it just won't be every day anymore._

She cradled the eggs in her hooves with a faint smile. _Still, I can't wait for you to hatch. I'll do my best to be a good mother to all of you like Cadista is to the rest of us._ She wordlessly summoned the caretakers while wrapping her eggs in a towel. _If the three tribes could unite under one banner despite generations of animosity, perhaps my hive can be the fourth._

Twilight crept past her sleeping friends and cracked the front door open to find one of the caretakers already waiting for her. You got here fast, she said, ushering the drone inside and levitating the towel bound eggs to the caretaker's possession.

To be perfectly honest, sis, tending to the needs of a proto-queen is an extremely rare honor. My partner and I are happy to help.

Twilight nodded. Please, take good care of them.

The drone made sure each egg was tied down inside her specially modified saddlebags before stepping outside again. Of course, Twilight. I hope your announcement goes well today.

She watched the caretaker fly off with her progeny, and slowly closed the door.

 _Yeah, me too._


	8. Chapter 8

Public Relations

An undisguised Twilight chewed on her lip as she paced back and forth behind the main doors of the town hall. She could hear Princess Luna making her opening statement. All of her friends stood off to the side with their respective Elements.

"Do you think wearing the Elements is a bit much? I mean, they're basically the symbol of Equestria."

"That's the point, darling," Rarity answered with measured poise. "You _want_ your hive and Equestria to be allies, don't you?"

"Of course I do." _And hopefully a single nation, one day._ "But wouldn't the Elements make it seem like we're pushing too fast?"

"Shoot, Twi, hidin' the fact that you're still the Element of Magic wouldn't sit right with me. Besides, ain't nopony going to argue with the six of us and the Princess."

Twilight stopped pacing to give Applejack a weak smile. "I hope so."

Twilight tried to take several calming breaths, but her growling stomach made it somewhat difficult. "Anypony have any snacks?"

"I do!" Fluttershy announced meekly while she flew over to rummage around in her saddlebags.

Spike gave Twilight a sardonic look. "How can you possibly be hungry? You ate a whole day's worth of food for breakfast."

"Sorry," Twilight whined, "It's just that my appetite's been huge ever since I started laying."

I don't know if I should say it aloud, Ratchet began, but between developing the next three days' worth of eggs, and that you're also growing to reach Cadista's height, it's no real surprise you need to eat so much.

I can't believe I'm changing so much so quickly.

Well, we are called _change_ lings for a reason.

She rolled her eyes. Hardy har har.

Rainbow Dash noticed Twilight reacting to a silent speaker as she hovered above the group. _How can she stand having somepony else's voice in her head?_ Rainbow was about to ask her what she was talking about when Mayor Mare poked her head through the doors.

She did an admirable job not visibly reacting to Twilight's appearance. "Five minutes, Miss Sparkle."

With the doors cracked open, Luna's voice carried into the chamber. "Twilight Sparkle has been healed, and has returned to Ponyville. Show your fellow citizen of Ponyville that Equestrian ideals are more than just words."

Luna glanced behind her to the slightly open door, prompting Twilight to emerge with a nervous canter to the princess' side. Ratchet stayed behind the door as everyone else followed Twilight. The Element of Magic rocked slightly on the quaking mare.

Twilight walked out to find the crowd watching her intently. Their faces ranged from curious to pensive. _Well, no pony's booing me off the stage, so that's a start._

She stepped up to the podium as Luna stepped aside. "Greetings, Ponyville, I want to thank you all for coming. As you can see, I am not quite what I used to be.

"I know many of you have heard rumors about who almost claimed my life nearly three months ago on that fateful day. Many claim that it was changelings who attacked me." She singled out those who faced her with mistrustful faces and narrowed eyes and matched their gaze with graceful poise. "It's completely true."

Twilight saw many whisper and gasp. _You didn't think I would lie, did you?_ "It was changelings that attacked Canterlot with malicious intent, and it was changelings who tried to claim my life."

She surveyed the crowd, seeing uncertainty in their eyes. "And yet, it was changelings that saved my life. I asked myself: why would a race capable of such horrid actions, spare me from death? The moment that question left my lips, I already had the answer."

Twilight's heart raced as her passionate words continued. "Changelings are not the monsters Chrysalis would have you believe. They are scholars, bakers, farmers, teachers, and factory workers. The changelings I have seen, spoken, and dined with, are just like anypony else. Everypony is capable of good, evil, and everything in between.

"Mistrust and fear has been allowed to fester in our hearts because of Chrysalis' unconscionable actions. I know that all of you have it within you to show historians for generations to come, that Equestrian ideals are more than just pretty words we tell ourselves to feel better."

As Twilight spoke the next words, her friends stepped forward one by one. "Kindness, honesty, loyalty, generosity, laughter, and friendship. These have always been Equestria's watchwords. The _true_ changelings of my hive live by these very same virtues." Her gaze swept across the crowd. "Those of my hive wish to extend the hoof of friendship. It's up to you to accept it."

It was slow at first, with a few individuals needing to prod the others, but soon the crowd started cheering and stomping their hooves with a fervor Twilight didn't expect. Her relief, and that of the collectors in attendance, reverberated throughout the local changelings who expressed their gratitude over the Link.

Luna grinned at the display. _It still amazes me how accepting the ponies of this era can be, once they get over their initial fear of the unknown._ As much as they wanted to bombard Twilight with questions, most of the townsfolk regrettably returned to their livelihoods with only the scant few news reporters remaining behind.

Luna paid close attention to the reporters as their questions ranged from innocent to conspiratorial. Few piqued her interest, until a slick-maned, violet unicorn stallion stepped forwards.

"Miss Sparkle, you claim that you were attacked by feral changelings, correct?"

"Calling them changelings is a bit generous, but yes."

"Yet you were supposedly saved by the changeling hive you are currently a part of, correct?"

Luna glanced at Twilight who had a slightly raised eyebrow. "Yes, that's right."

"So tell me, why was it necessary to convert you into a changeling to save your life? Doesn't that sound rather suspicious to you?"

Twilight's tone remained definitive. "The feral brood used poison from a ghast spider, a denizen of the jungles around changeling territory. That poison makes magic based healing impossible. Even if I had been brought to the best medical minds Equestria has to offer, I was too badly injured to survive."

"I understand the changelings had a method to heal you, but my question is: did it necessitate you becoming one of them?"

Twilight's mouth hung slightly agape, and she broke eye contact with the questioner. "I—I," Her eyes hardened and faced the reporter with steel in her voice. "Yes. The method was designed to repair a _changeling's_ life that was near death. It worked in the only way it could, by remaking me into a changeling. Could the process have been redesigned so that I remained a unicorn? Possibly, but not in time to save my life." She shifted her eyes to the rest of the reporters. "Now is not the time to pass blame or fabricate conspiracies when none exist. The changelings of my hive are _not_ Equestria's enemies, and as long as I draw breath," her determined eyes centered on the original reporter, "we never shall be."

A scowl pulled at the edges of the stallion's neutral expression. "Thank you," he replied coolly. He tilted his head towards Luna. "Your Highness," he said respectfully before leaving.

Luna watched him go out of the corner of her eye. She let the reporters have a few more minutes before stepping forward. "I believe that will suffice for now. There will be time for more questions in Canterlot."

She gestured for Twilight to re-enter the town hall, an act she was all too eager to obey. Twilight leaned against one of the pillars while trying to rub a headache away. "That could have gone better."

"Canterlot will be difficult on you," Luna warned. "Tia's words carry a lot of weight, but the invasion is still fresh in people's minds."

Twilight looked around to find no one was within earshot. "I wish I didn't have to lie to them."

Luna's brow furrowed and she drew closer while casting a spell to keep their voices from carrying. "About what?"

Twilight stared at the wooden floor for several seconds with pensive expression. "I don't honestly know if rebirth was necessary, or that it had to change me to work."

Luna hummed contemplatively, and a long silence echoed through the hall. "Celestia said you were fully aware of what would happen to you if you underwent rebirth, and of what it would cost you."

Twilight nodded, but couldn't look away from the floor. "I remember…"

"For what it's worth, Twilight, the fact that you are capable of questioning this is a good sign. Find out more about the rebirthing process if you can. I assume Cadista is grooming you as her heir, so I doubt she would hide the specifics about rebirth."

Twilight gave Luna a weak smile. "I really hope my lie is the truth."

"As do I. For now, spend the day as you wish. The train for Canterlot leaves this evening. We need to be there before the tabloids have too much time to paint a bad image."

Twilight gazed through the walls towards the train yard and stifled a yawn. "I'll ask her when I'm in Canterlot. In the meantime, I think I'll just take a breather. I don't think I'll get a chance to do that much in the near future."

Luna nodded slightly. "Such is the life of those in power."

 _And those that give birth to an entire hive,_ Twilight brooded. "Are you going to be riding with the rest of us?"

"I will, actually, I felt it was best to arrive with you so the public knows you have the trust of the crowns."

"Thanks, Luna."

"Naturally." She paused to watch as Twilight's friends started breaking up to tend to their jobs. "Twilight, this may come across as rather opportunistic, but I'm looking forward to reconnecting with the changelings on a more personal level."

The proto-queen tittered at the sentiment. "I was hoping we could do more than just _reconnect_."

Luna's reply was interrupted by Rainbow Dash. "Hey, Twilight, Princess, the rest aren't going to be able to go to Canterlot, but I'm still coming with you. What time does the train leave?"

"Seven PM. What about Spike?"

"Come on, Twilight, everypony can tell Canterlot's going to be two things: a reunion with your family, and a media circus. None of us want to intrude on the reunion, or be anywhere near the paparazzi."

Luna let a playful smirk break through her regal poise. "So, why are you going then?"

Rainbow flexed her forelegs. "Because somepony needs to represent the Elements who are still ponies. Uh, no offense, Twi."

She waved off any insult. "Just admit it, Dash, you'd do anything to get your name in the paper."

Rainbow grinned. "Hey, if I can support one of my best friends, _and_ get in the paper at the same time, then why not? Anyway, I better get ready. See ya later Twilight, Princess Luna."

Twilight couldn't help but snicker as Rainbow Dash departed. Eventually she turned to Ratchet, who was staring off into space. Sorry to keep sidelining you like this Ratchet, but could you make sure our stuff is transferred to the other train. I'll inform the caretakers to make sure the incubator car is moved over as well.

Think nothing of it, Twi. You're here for your pony friends and family, after all.

As Ratchet flew off, Twilight's stomach growled. "Princess, I need to head down to the train yard as well."

"Then I'll leave you to it… Actually, there is one thing I'd like to ask before you go. What do you mean by more than reconnect?"

Twilight pawed the ground as she searched for the right words. "Luna… I know what I am, and I know that my place is with the hive now. However, I don't want the hive to be mutually exclusive from Equestria."

"What do you mean?"

Twilight sighed. "Luna, Equestria was founded by the three pony tribes. Do you think there's room for a fourth?"

A sly grin crept over the lunar alicorn. "There is if I have anything to say about it. Although," she said with a short titter. "You would technically be the fifth behind my bat ponies."

Twilight giggled. "How could I forget them?"

"The fault lies with both of us. Like myself, they are nocturnal, and a bit reclusive. Much of that was from my prolonged absence."

A smile crossed Twilight's face. "Then that'll give us some common ground."

"Aye, that's always a good first step."

* * *

After talking with Luna for a few hours, Twilight traveled to the mobile incubator. She announced herself over the Link before entering with five steaming shish kabobs hovering by her face as she bit one of the pieces of smoked meat. The Element of Magic swayed back and forth as its bearer tore through her meal. "I have to say, being an omnivore has opened up so many wondrous foods."

The nearest caretaker sighed in relief that Twilight had the presence of mind to keep a plate under her dripping lunch. "I see you found Hot Spice's kitchen. I'm sure he gets rather busy in herbivore lands."

Twilight hungrily took two more bites before answering. "He isn't the only place around here that serves meat. Servin's Galley caters to all sorts of patrons. The restaurant's only a block away from Sugar Cube Corner."

The second caretaker wrote a mental note to make sure to mop up any juice that dripped off Twilight's plate. "The traders don't normally venture far from the train yard. Less likely to spook the ponies that way."

Twilight polished off her first skewer and started on the second. "I think that needs to change. We would be stronger allies if we were friends as well." The caretakers could only shrug in response. _Fine, I'll bring it up with Cadista later._ "Anyway, I'm here to check on my eggs, and start learning alchemy."

The caretakers' cheered before scrambling to work. "Ah! I wish you had told us ahead of time, we would have had everything ready to go when you got here."

Twilight waved her hoof. "I need to learn the basics before I go anywhere near one of my eggs with this." _Speaking of which,_ she thought while gnawing on her food, Cadista, is now a good time to learn some alchemy?

Absolutely, Cadista replied. Prepare yourself Twilight, the information I'm about to share comes only from me, rather than everypony on the hive mind. The transfer can be… jarring.

Twilight swallowed the last of the second kabob, and lowered the plate down to the floor. I'm ready, I guess.

Cadista's closely guarded secrets of alchemy poured into Twilight's mind, but the Element of Magic eliminated most of the pain that Cadista had warned about. Cadista took the lack of distress from Twilight as a sign that she could handle a faster influx.

Twilight, are you alright? She asked after passing a week's worth of study material. That was far more information than I thought I could safely share with you.

The purple mare's mind was buzzing with ideas and possibilities. So much knowledge so fast! Is there any more to it? I want to learn everything!

 _Why did she experience no pain? Am I underestimating her again, or am I missing something? Knowing her, I better focus on the task at hoof for now before she accidently over-engineers an egg._ Twilight, I have only given you what is necessary to screen out any birth defects, and decide your children's gender.

Twilight's rampant train of thoughts slowed a little. Why gender?

Because, as of right now your eggs are near genetic copies of you. All of your children will be female, and while that in and of itself is not an issue, I suspect you would like to have sons as well.

Twilight sat down, and started gnawing on her still hot food. Gosh… I didn't really think about that.

Whatever gender ratio you decide on is entirely up to you Twilight. They are your brood, after all. For now though, you should screen your eggs for any defects, and fix them accordingly.

Twilight walked over to the eight purple eggs suspended roughly at shoulder height. Magic flowed out of her horn as she swept the eggs for defects, the act coming to her as naturally as breathing. She didn't notice faint traces of lavender weaving through the stream.

I don't see anything that stands out as a defect. Is that normal?

Cadista hummed approvingly. Be mindful that eight eggs are hardly sufficient to garner an accurate estimate. Even so, it is a good sign. It seems my work upon you went well.

Twilight wasn't sure how to take that. You mean when you reengineered me into a royal?

Twilight… I never wanted this to happen. The rebirthing process is rooted in alchemy, and as you now know, all of it is centered around manipulating changelings. There was no other option to save your life other than converting you.

Twilight was only able to focus half of her thoughts to her eggs as a twinge of loss struck her. Is… is there anything left of my old self?

Only in your brain. The difficult part was the creation of a new lobe to allow you to integrate into the hive mind and then interweaving it into the rest of your brain without causing permanent memory loss.

Twilight balked at the profound difficulty after reviewing her modest knowledge of alchemy. You... hybridized my brain! By Celestia, finding the balance between pony and changeling brain chemistry and making it _work_ is impossible!

Says the product of such work, Cadista replied with a hint of playful mockery. We are not as incompatible as you might think.

Twilight stopped scanning her eggs entirely. T-that means you didn't actually know if you could save _me_.

Yes, I took an immense risk in offering that procedure to you. Had I failed, or if your personality had been changed, Celestia and the hives would likely be at war right now.

Twilight remembered Celestia's actions on the day she was placed inside the chrysalis. _Yes…we would be._ I'll do everything I can to make sure that never happens.

I know that you will. Now, back to the task at hoof. Your eggs came back clean of any defects?

Twilight weaved her spell again to triple check. None that I can detect.

Excellent. Now, the primary reason a queen is so finely genetically tailored is to minimize the amount of effort the new queen has to invest into alchemy. Because your drones are near genetic clones of you, you will know their make-up, and that makes alchemy comparatively trivial. I have already given you what you need to decide their gender, I will leave it up to you as to how you wish to use it.

Twilight grimaced as she stared at the eggs. It feels kind of wrong to choose their gender for them like this. Shouldn't they get a choice?

A choice? Cadista asked with genuine surprise. I don't see how that would work, assuming you mean when they're of age to make a rational choice on the matter. I've never thought to try to give them that option, but even if they did, some might choose hastily, or be pressured into the one they don't prefer, some might even come to regret their choice.

Twilight's wings buzzed every so often as her mind raced with new possibilities. It still feels awkward because some feel that way even when random chance determined it. So what if… they could switch back and forth?

…That… _might_ be possible. Although the complexity of such an ability hinges greatly on how you would implement it.

I'll find a way. In the meantime, I'm fine with just daughters.

Very well. Since the eggs have not been put under any strain thus far, we can move to other aspects of alchemy.

* * *

The hours melted away as Cadista gave away her knowledge of alchemy bit by bit. With the Element of Magic protecting Twilight against what would have been crippling pain, she absorbed it all with ravenous hunger for knowledge. Twilight was oblivious to the mobile incubator being moved and hitched up to the train leaving for Canterlot.

In fact, she was so engrossed into her theorycrafting that it took one of the caretakers placing dinner beside her, along with the aroma to bring her back to the present. "Dinner? Is it that late already?"

The younger caretaker nodded. "Time flies when you're having fun."

Twilight started politely gorging herself on the rotisserie. "To think there's an entire branch of scientific magic exclusive to changeling queens! I could spend a lifetime delving into this and never unlock all of alchemy's secrets."

"Such is the way of any science, no?"

Twilight chuckled, and nearly choked on a piece of food in the process. The caretaker patted her back until Twilight stopped coughing, only for her to fall back in laughter. "Thanks. Truer words have never been spoken."

"It would be rather ignoble to die to a piece of meat after surviving that attack a couple months back."

Twilight nodded in agreement while continuing to eat. Thanks for dinner.

"Ratchet told us you might get carried away with your work and forget to eat."

He's a really good pony. I'll have to do something nice for him later.

"Are you going to make any changes to your brood?"

Not yet, I want to let a few dozen or so reach adolescence so I know what my children's baseline is. Even if they're clones of me, there are still a lot of differences between a royal and a drone. I can seek improvements after that.

The caretaker nodded approvingly. "I'll close down the alchemy section then. You should get some rest sister, I'm sure you'll be busy quite a bit in Canterlot."

Twilight downed a fruity beverage. I might as well. I'll see you in the morning.

Twilight used the Link to locate her room and stifled a yawn before entering. She was pleasantly surprised to find Ratchet reading a technical manual. "Ratchet? I didn't know you'd be here."

He looked up in time to receive a friendly nuzzle, to which he eagerly reciprocated. "Booking put us together. Rainbow Dash is two cabins over while Luna got a whole car to herself."

"Such are the perks of being a princess."

Ratchet closed his book. "If you want some peace, I can find another place."

Twilight smirked. "Peace? That's hard to obtain with the Link." She sat down next to him and leaned against him. "I'd rather spend time with you, if that's okay."

"Well, sure, if you like, but I must admit I'm a bit distracted at the moment." He sheepishly held up a twine bound tome filled with both normal and drafting paper that was half a hoof thick.

"Ohhhh, what is it?"

"It's the latest design manual for the new Spider Walkers R&D put together. They handed them out to first class engineers so we can spot any flaws before a prototype is built."

Twilight cooed as her eyes dilated. "Sounds fun." The page had a dizzyingly complex schematic with formulas covering every square centimeter of space. "That's a multi-tiered planetary gear assembly using… an aluminum alloy?"

"Good eye, the land surrounding the outpost between Equestria and Stripped Gear is rich in aluminum. Metallurgy thinks they found something else that can be used as a substitute for steel. Personally I don't think it should be used in a ground vehicle, but it would make larger airships more feasible."

Twilight scooted next to Ratchet and nuzzled the top of his head. "Mmmm-hmmm?"

The night flew by as the two changelings read the design manual together, debating various aspects of mechanical engineering. It was well past midnight when Twilight was interrupted by a large yawn.

"—Oh, my, I'm sorry."

Ratchet smirked. "Maybe we should call it a night."

Twilight tipped over and flopped on to the bed, her only response being a vague noise of approval. As Ratchet put the book away, he suddenly realized just how small the bed was when he was sharing it with a proto-queen.

"Um, these beds are intended for drones, so I'll just sleep on the floor tonight and let you have the bed to yourself."

A whine emanated from the proto-queen. "Nooooooo~ I don't mind sharing the bed with you, Ratchet." She scooted backwards and patted the mattress next to her.

Ratchet paused. _Well, a bed beats the floor any day of the week._ He rolled on to the bed next to her, and she wrapped her hooves around him. He had to admit, he enjoyed spending time with Twilight. He didn't understand why Equestrians were so physically affectionate, but it was a nice feeling. He felt warm, wanted, and at peace. It didn't take long for low rumble of the train to lull him into a deep slumber.

Between them flowed a faint whisper of love, a strand too tiny to be noticed by any changeling.

* * *

Twilight awoke to the sound of a blowing train whistle and screeching wheels as Canterlot Station rolled into view. She barely registered Hot Spice give a last call over the Link for breakfast as she slid off the bed to stretch in a catlike fashion.

Ratchet yawned and sat upright. "Morning, Twilight."

She flapped her wings a few times to get the blood pumping. "Good morn—" she hesitated when an egg shifted in her abdomen and her breath quickened. "Ratchet, can you find that blanket Rarity gave me yesterday? It should be above you."

"Not a problem." He took to the air and found the item in question before handing it over.

Twilight coiled the cloth into a puffy mound on the floor. "Thanks, I'll summon the caretakers."

 _Oh! That's why she wanted the blanket._ "I'll, ah, go guard the door and make sure nopony else bothers you."

"I appreciate it, Ratchet." After he left, she whirled around assumed the position over the cloth.

Ratchet ignored the faint grunts from behind the door as he waited for the caretaker. _I don't know if I could handle being a queen. Laying eggs everyday, and this is what? Twice now that she's done this right after waking up? I'd rather stick with coffee as my personal wake up button, thank you very much. Speaking of waking up, I better ask a brother to bring us some food._

Right as he sent the request, Rainbow Dash cantered up to him. "Hey Ratchet, is Twilight up yet?"

"She is," he answered simply.

Rainbow tilted her head. "Are you going to stand in front of the door all day, or can I see her?"

"She's, uh—" he was interrupted by a caretaker signaling her arrival through the hive mind and he stepped aside to let her inside.

Rainbow arched a scowling eyebrow. "What is this, changeling only morning or something?"

"She's laying right now," he deadpanned.

"Again!? Well whatever, just tell her Luna said she doesn't need a disguise to walk around town."

"Certainly, Miss Dash."

Rainbow slinked off a few minutes before Twilight and the caretaker emerged with the glowing purple eggs wrapped in cloth. "I'll be sure to have the blanket washed for tomorrow morning."

"Thank you very much," Twilight replied happily as she faced Ratchet. "You wouldn't mind packing our things while I get cleaned up would you?"

"Not at all."

The train lingered at the station for half an hour as the overnight passengers slowly woke up and departed. That gave Twilight just enough time to make herself presentable before stepping off the train as the conductor gave a final boarding call for the next stop. Rainbow Dash and Princess Luna were waiting for her, along with more paparazzi than Twilight knew existed.

All of them wanted to confirm the rumors surrounding Twilight Sparkle's return. Luna's Night Guard provided a cordon keeping them at bay. I am suddenly really glad I lay first thing in the morning, Twilight thought.

Ratchet felt the breakfast in his saddlebag starting to cool. Think we'll get a chance to eat?

I hope so.

He didn't have a chance to say more as Luna stepped up to her. "Twilight, as a symbolic declaration of trust between us, I will escort you personally to the castle."

Twilight nodded. "I appreciate it."

Luna guided the purple changeling through the station as she was bombarded with flashing camera lights and constant questions. Most of them directed about her transformation, and why she possessed the Element of Magic.

Thankfully, the contingent of bat ponies and the princesses kept even the most reckless reporters from crossing the cordon. As they passed into the main street, Twilight could see an open chariot and the signs of active reconstruction off in the distance. A few scattered pegasi hovered above the bustling crowd as some ponies were too preoccupied with their own lives and deadlines to give Twilight anything more than a passing glance.

She craned her head back to see Ratchet was starting to hyperventilate under such intense scrutiny while Rainbow Dash basked in the attention. She hovered just behind Twilight while waving at the crowd. "That's right! Element of Loyalty and future Wonderbolt captain right here!"

Luna weaved a spell that would keep outside noise from interfering with conversation as rest of them boarded. "As you might have guessed from our method of arrival, Twilight, Celestia is catering to the aristocracy with this archaic ritual of accepting a friendly foreign dignitary."

Twilight watched the streets of Canterlot slowly pass by as the carriage took the scenic route so every citizen could see them. Ratchet took the opportunity to give Twilight her much needed breakfast. "I remember Celestia doing this for Kavir Maranjab from Camelu. They're sticklers for ancient traditions."

Rainbow fidgeted in her seat. "Hey, Princess, do I have sit here the whole time too?"

"You agreed to represent the Elements of Harmony, those who are still ponies, when you came with us. The public must see that both the crowns, and the rest of the Elements recognize Twilight for who she is."

Twilight reached across the carriage to grab Rainbow's hoof. "I know it's boring Dash, and I really appreciate you coming with me."

"Ah, don't worry about it. I still owe you for that manure talk yesterday."

Twilight smiled. "It still means a lot to me. Why don't we go flying later? I've never seen Canterlot from above outside of chariots and tower windows."

"Sightseeing? No offense Twilight, but that's not my speed. Now if you want a free airshow, I'm the mare to talk to."

Twilight giggled and pulled Ratchet into a sidelong hug. "You've never seen an Equestrian airshow before, have you?"

"I've never even heard of an airshow. What happens in them?"

Rainbow's jaw dropped, much to Luna's silent amusement. "You've never even _heard_ of an airshow!?"

Luna saw a choice opportunity. "You know, Rainbow, the western castle courtyard is going to be hosting one of the nobility's social gatherings tomorrow evening, and several prominent Wonderbolts have been dragged into attending. They could use some entertainment in that depressingly empty patch of sky above them."

"Princess, you had me at Wonderbolts." She turned to her friend to seal the deal.

Twilight wrinkled her nose at the idea. "Personally, I'd rather avoid any prolonged contact with the nobility. I had a miserable rapport with them even when I was still a unicorn, and I'd rather not listen to veiled insults all day. But…" She flapped her wings a couple times. "I—" she leaned against Ratchet, " _we_ can watch you from a rooftop."

Rainbow pumped a hoof. "I get to show off to the Wonderbolts _and_ educate the 'Lings on what an airshow is? Best night ever!"

Twilight giggled at her friend's enthusiasm. You're in for a real treat, Ratchet. Dash's boasting isn't just a bunch of hot air.

I'll take your word for it.

* * *

The carriage ride lasted well past lunch, and by the time it finally arrived at the castle gates, everyone was hungry and Luna was seconds away from passing out in her seat. _Just stay awake a bit longer, old girl. Wave goodbye to Twilight, pass her over to Tia, and then that sweet, warm sun-forsaken bed will be all mine._

The long stairs between the carriage and the open front doors of the castle were lined with royal guards with Celestia standing at the top. Several dozen nobles stood behind the Guard and observed the changeling queen that dared to claim to be Twilight Sparkle. The Element of Magic upon her brow caused many of them to erupt into furious gossip.

Ratchet glanced about, doing everything in his power to keep from fleeing. _Can't run, too many guards. Can't hide, too many eyes. How can Twilight be so at ease?_

Twilight easily picked up on his nervousness over the Link, and followed Cadista's example by sending him calming thoughts. We'll be fine Ratchet. We don't have to hide anymore.

He gulped as Luna stepped to Celestia's side as the group reached the top. I hope you're right.

Celestia wore both a smile, and a slightly curious glint in her eyes. She spoke in a loud but gentle voice that carried its way throughout the gathered nobles. "On behalf of Equestria, I welcome you back to Canterlot Castle, Twilight Sparkle."

"It's great to see you again, Princess."

Celestia was pleased to see Twilight's overly eager face. "As am I," she said while gesturing a wing inside. "I must apologize for the city tour, but the nobility are insistent that you be considered a foreign dignitary. There is only so much I can ignore from them before they become passive aggressive for a few decades."

"Really, it's not a problem, Princess. It was good to see my old hometown."

Rainbow Dash was stretching to get the cricks out of her joints from sitting for so long. "Well, it was for _me_ , no offense, Princess."

Celestia shared a chuckle with her sister. "None taken, Miss Rainbow Dash."

"So, uh, Twilight, I bet you want some personal time with your folks, and all that jazz. You mind if I take off for a while?"

Twilight snickered and gave Rainbow a brief nuzzle. "Sure. I'll see you at that garden party, right?"

Rainbow groaned at the physical display of affection, but didn't pull away. "Wouldn't miss it for the world. 'Later!"

Luna stifled a yawn. "I fear I must take my leave as well. Until we meet again, Twilight Sparkle."

Celestia watched her sister disappear in a puff of swirling maroon smoke before facing Ratchet. "You must be Ratchet Altair."

He quaked a little under her partially stern gaze. "I—I am, your majesty."

Twilight shot Celestia a pleading look, but she only responded by studying him more closely. "Twilight writes good things about you in her letters."

"Princess!" Twilight hissed under her breath.

Celestia's lip curled up a bit as confusion washed over Ratchet. "She does?"

"Oh yes, in fact—"

Twilight flushed while interposing herself between the pair. "It's really wonderful to see you again Princess, but I was hoping to see my parents and B.B.B.F.F."

"As much as I would like to keep you to myself, I won't keep your family from a much needed reunion. Shining Armor wanted to be the one to escort you to the family estate. He's waiting for you in the west courtyard." She started walking in that direction, prompting the two changelings to follow.

Ratchet worked up the courage to ask a question as the conversation fell into a brief lull. "I heard Twilight say you were heading a public relations campaign for our hive."

Celestia's weak smile faltered. "I am, although I have had nothing but setbacks. It was going to be hard work to begin with thanks to the invasion. While your… hive possessing fur makes you easier for the public to accept, the discovery and removal of numerous infiltrators from other, less pony-like hives, is making it difficult for the public to differentiate you. Even more so since all of you are called changelings."

"Are you sure you're not mistaking them for love collectors?" Twilight inquired.

Celestia gave Twilight a troubled look. "Cadista, through Ambassador Gloss, informed me that her collectors stay out of government positions with one exception being a mayor and several low level administrators. I have allowed her to keep her position because of her long dutiful service, and quite frankly, her surprisingly efficient administration. However, Luna's Night Guard has discovered a number unmarried government and military officials who turned out to be changelings, and the majority of them were in no position to gather love. Based on their appearance, they are obviously not from your hive, and the sensationalized newspapers have drawn the same conclusion."

"So they think we're trying to take over Equestria." Twilight replied with a downtrodden tone.

"You see my dilemma. Thankfully, Cadista has made it clear that the other queens will not act against us for cleaning house, as the saying goes."

Twilight scowled. "The Summit basically said we're the only one who will have open relations with the outside, and most queens care little for the individual lives of their drones. As to why they're there, I believe many of them are for information control."

Ratchet shot Twilight a startled glance. We can't tell her about that!

Celestia's frown deepened. "What form of information control do you mean, Twilight?"

Celestia is our ally, Ratchet, and my former mentor. I'm not going to taint that by lying to her.

Ratchet sweated with his ears folded back as he glanced between both mares. Mother won't like you divulging that kind of information, Twi.

Then mother should have told Celestia already. She faced the princess with an apologetic look. "Sorry about the silent conversation. As I was saying, one of the other queens' main job was information control. She made sure our race remained a secret from the outside world. It's likely that she couldn't just pull those infiltrators back out because they had been in their positions for so long that it would have raised suspicion."

Celestia closed her eyes briefly and sighed slowly. "I can't tell you how glad I am to hear you say that. There are many who think Gloss has been… filtering what we need to know. Thank you Twilight, for putting my fears to rest."

Twilight sent Ratchet a jolt of smug satisfaction over the Link while nodding at Celestia. "Cadista only wants peace between us, Princess. As do most of the other hives. I'm sure Gloss has already told you the appearance of the drones that still have hostile intent towards Equestria."

"She has. She also knows that I will not stop cleaning out the actual infiltrators, friendly or not. Although I would prefer that they leave of their own accord."

"I don't know if they'll do that. The only thing Cadista can do is ask, she holds no authority over them, just as no other queen holds any over her. The only exception is the Summit, and I can tell you already, the vote for that would be vetoed in a heartbeat."

"Which only makes my position all the more difficult."

Twilight hummed as her thoughts turned to Rose. "It would be easier for ponies to accept us if they knew all the good we've done for them."

"The good?"

"The collectors of my hive don't just sit around absorbing love. They live just as any other pony does. They're bakers, farmers, school teachers, mothers, and fathers." She looked at her former mentor with a weak smile. "And they genuinely love the ponies around them. Just as their spouses and adopted children love them back, even though they might have no idea they're in love with a changeling."

Celestia halted by the doors with a fetlock rubbing her chin. "Acceptance for your hive would come easier if such individuals revealed themselves in a controlled event. That would make the public aware that changelings are not the enemies Chrysalis would have us believe them to be."

"I can only ask them to volunteer. We need love to survive, Princess, and if their pony families or neighbors drive them out, we all lose."

 _This is still rather odd, if the changelings are capable of love, as she says, then why do they need the love of other species to survive?_ "Very well, Twilight. I will bring these matters up with Gloss so she can speak with Cadista on this directly. I don't want to distract you from your family reunion." She opened the door with her magic to reveal Shining Armor standing near a covered carriage. "I'll leave you to it. Contact me, should you have need."

Twilight couldn't look away from the pensive Captain of the Guard. "I will." She tripped on her hooves as she galloped to close the distance.

Shining Armor choked up at seeing his sister bearing a haunting resemblance to Chrysalis, albeit with fur. Twilight stopped in front of Shining, afraid to touch him. Ratchet wisely stayed back and out of sight.

 _Glad I told the guards to turn away,_ he thought as he used every ounce of his training to keep from breaking down at seeing his sister become the very thing that haunted his nightmares for months. That was made all the more difficult as he could see his sister behind the fangs and slitted eyes. The way her ears were partially drooped, biting the left side of her lower lip, and that he could see her debating on what to say first; all of it screamed that the changeling queen in front of him was Twilight Sparkle.

Shining quickly discovered he had the same problem and bulled his way through his emotion-induced silence. "Twily?" She held her tongue while briskly nodding her head. "It's really you?"

She struggled to find her voice. "Yes big brother. I'm still your L.S.B.F.F."

He pushed past his misgivings, and locked her into a hug to which she instantly returned. His voice didn't crack, but he shed a few tears nonetheless. "I thought I had lost you twice over. First you go galloping off into dangerous territory without a proper escort, get hurt, and now you come back as—as…"

She pulled away with a frown. "As one of the beings that ruined your wedding?"

"Hey, hey I didn't say that. _You_ saved my wedding, and all of Canterlot."

A flicker of hope lit in her. "I failed to get the Elements. It was you and Cadance who saved us."

A smile started to worm its way onto his face. "I wasn't the one who found the real Cadance. I'd still be under Chrysalis' spell if you hadn't found her."

She poked him in the chest. "You were still the one to save us in the end."

In that moment he could almost see the changeling as her old unicorn self. _She's really still my little sister after all._ "You never could take credit when credit was due." He waved a hoof at the carriage. "Come on, mom and dad want to see you."

Twilight was about to step aboard when she remembered someone. Ratchet, I want you to come with me.

If that's what you want, he replied hesitantly.

Shining Armor helped his sister into the carriage when he spotted Ratchet making his way over. The Captain managed to contain a snarl. " _Need_ something?"

"I, ah, she—" Ratchet stuttered out at the imposing unicorn.

Twilight stuck her head out and shot her older brother an apologetic look. "Sorry about that. This is Ratchet Altair. Ratchet, Shining Armor."

Not willing to snap at his sister's friend, Shining reigned in his suspicion a little. "I see."

He glanced at Twilight whose gaze shifted to one of admonishment. Brother and sister shared a silent debate, one that made Ratchet forget his fear over the Guard Captain. Slowly, Shining yielded to her, and shrugged off much of his hostile demeanor with a sigh. Twilight beamed in victory while waving a hoof at her fellow changeling. "Ratchet's a really good friend of mine, and my engineering guru."

"I'm hardly a guru," he squeaked out. "Just an en—gin—eer," Ratchet's voice petered off into a squeak.

The captain saw no threat in the shaking drone, and could feel his sister's eyes boring a hole into the side of his skull. "I trust you will keep Twilight safe when I cannot."

Ratchet nodded quickly. "I would do that anyway."

" _Good._ " He jerked his head to the carriage and climbed in, prompting Ratchet to do the same.

Ratchet sat next to Twilight who gave him a reassuring look and patted his hoof. "Don't worry. Shiny's a big softy once he gets to know you."

He stole a glance at the unicorn only to see him raise an unamused eyebrow at Twilight. "Have you been treated well, Twilight?"

"Of course, Shiny. Do you really think Cadista would allow me to return to Equestria if she had any malicious intent?"

Shining Armor glanced at Ratchet. _Not if she put a leash on you, but then again, he's not much of a leash if he's this easily cowed._ "I suppose not. I'm glad to see you Twily; mom nearly had a heart attack when she found out what happened."

Twilight glanced out of the window while rubbing the side of her foreleg. "She always was overprotective of me."

"Can you really blame her?" Shining glanced at Ratchet before facing his sister again. "Sure, you're alive and I'm truly glad you are Twilight; but look what it cost you, what it cost Equestria. Somepony else should have gone in your place."

Twilight scowled. "I know I put you, my family, friends, and the Princesses through emotional pain because I was too eager to learn about changelings, and I'm sorry about that. Really I am. However, I think I'm in the perfect position to aid both Equestria and my hive to even greater prosperity than if somepony else had gone in my place."

"We nearly went to war because of all this, Twily."

"We were already _at_ war Shining Armor," Twilight chided. "In case you forgot, Shining, I _was_ Celestia's protégé. I know the Army was planning an expeditionary force into the Cresnox Jungle. They still are, aren't they?"

Shining Armor was torn. _My orders are to keep that knowledge out of changeling hooves, but this is Twilight! I can't, and won't treat her like the enemy._ He worked his jaw as he debated what to say. "…Stripped Gear is not on the target list."

Ratchet expressed his alarm over the Link, but Twilight made him keep it quiet. "Tell them to call it off, I'll speak—"

"Twily. Does Cadista speak for the other queens?"

"Well, no, but—"

"Can she guarantee that Chrysalis won't try to attack again? Or guarantee that all of our foalnapped citizens will be returned, unharmed?"

"We don't foalnap, Shining," Twilight insisted.

"Can you say that about the other hives Twilight? You would know better than any of us."

Twilight's face fell and she fidgeted with her hooves. "I-I don't know who exactly, because I didn't want to know, but—" She recalled how so many queens thought of non-changelings as little more than cattle. "I'm sure some still do."

"You need to stay on your hooves Twilight. Your hive may be friendly to ponykind, and… I want to give them the benefit of the doubt, but you know Equestria will not stand for this kind of behavior. Especially not when Ambassador Gloss has told us that not only is foalnapping unnecessary to harvest the love your kind needs to survive, but that it is generally found to be abhorrent by your own people. We _must_ take action."

"Shining, please, let diplomacy have a chance first. Equestria doesn't need to go to war. How do you expect the Princess to be successful in her PR campaign if you send soldiers off to fight changelings?"

Her older brother studied Twilight's face, finding only sincere concern. "You really don't know?"

"Know what?"

"The Princesses and Cadista have been in talks for weeks. They've already come to the conclusion that there is no other alternative. We must use force to retrieve our citizens. As for the PR campaign, your hive has already agreed to give us guides so we can find our people, and Celestia will be playing that hand to show your hive stands apart and above the others. In the end, it'll all wrap up quite nicely. The crowns get to show we're acting in the public's interests, and your hive gets to demonstrate that you're not our enemy."

Twilight hung her head in defeat as her thoughts drifted towards Chrysalis during the Summit. "There has to be a better way."

The carriage came to a halt shortly thereafter. The Sparkle Manor was just as she remembered it, albeit with vines covering more of the red brick walls. The lawn was carefully manicured and as pristine as always, a testament to her father's dedication to perfect landscaping.

"Shiny, can we leave the politics at the door? I just want a day where we can be a family again."

"I was about to propose the same thing. Cadance should be inside too."

Twilight stepped out of the carriage and onto the marble porch. Shining Armor saw her teeth were chattering slightly as he walked up alongside her. "Come on, Twily, we have to save my wife from mother's small talk, you know how she can get."

She cringed, but never turned away from the doors as the family butler exited the house to greet them. To the old brown earth stallion's credit, he was completely unfazed by the two changelings as he bowed his head. "Shining Armor, you simply _must_ visit more often. The Mistress has expressed concerns over the danger of your occupation constantly as of late." The unicorn suppressed a groan before the butler faced the lone mare. "And you Miss Sparkle, for shame. Galloping off to the wilds only to nearly die in the process? 'Bout gave your mother a stroke it did."

 _After all these years, I still can't tell if he's joking or being serious._ "Mister Pranceston, I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself," Twilight replied indignantly. She glanced back and forth as both stallions gave her a mocking look. "You can't blame me for getting ambushed while on a trade convoy. That would be like blaming you for the chandelier that nearly dropped on Miss Information."

Pranceston nodded the point to her. "That still didn't stop the harlot from trying. That old nag was as pleasant as an infected cracked hoof, Celestia rest her soul." He cleared his throat. "Well it's good to see your mind is still intact, Luna knows it couldn't get any stranger up there." Twilight's face twisted into a pout, but Pranceston turned about face before she could think of a scathing rebuke. "Come along now, your parents want to see you, posthaste."

Shining Armor hesitated as Twilight cantered after the butler. Before Ratchet could slip past him to remain near Twilight, Shining held out a hoof to block him. "This is a private affair. I _suggest_ you remain out here."

"Oh, um, sure, okay."

"And disguise yourself. I don't want anyone seeing a changeling around the house, my sister excluded."

"W-whatever you say, s-sir." Ratchet flared orange and was replaced by a charcoal pegasus with an orange mane.

Satisfied, Shining's scowl eased up slightly. "Don't wander out of the yard."

 _Am I a dog to you?_ "Yes, sir," he replied tersely. He watched the unicorn follow his sister inside with a frustrated grimace. _Do they really have to treat us like dirt just because of Chrysalis?_

He kicked a rock and started pacing around the various shrubberies over the front lawn. _If Twi wants me, she knows I'm just a thought away._ Despite his foul mood, he couldn't help but to give a curious look at the surrounding area. Sparkle Manor sat on a hill near the edge of the mountain face so he had a fantastic view of the noble district.

 _Why are they using carriages pulled by other ponies? I can understand the other hives not bothering with technology, but surely these Equestrians would have invented a self-propelled civilian transport by now. I mean, they have magic more advanced than us, right? Shouldn't that have done the trick?_

Twenty minutes passed until he decided to go over his latest designs in his head. Ratchet sat down heavily on a wooden bench in the front garden. The prolonged boredom and unfriendly atmosphere left Ratchet in a jittery mood. _I don't really see what mother sees in these ponies to model us so closely after them. Sure, they're successful, but also stagnant, just like the other queens. Then again, mother knows what she's doing. I could be missing something about these odd ponies._

He studied the architecture of the surrounding buildings, and of the castle in the distance. "Still, there's a certain elegance to the place. Mother paints a lot. Maybe she wants us to adopt some of Canterlot's architecture. There's got to be something here that would improve the hive."

When a quick survey of the nearby houses revealed little of interest, he kicked a pebble out of place on the shrubbery border. "I had a nice set up back home. Moving up the career path, mother was pleased with my work, I was a few weeks away from making my proposal to the chief engineers, and…"

His short-lived rant faltered at the thought of Twilight. "…and I… I don't know what to make of her." He scanned the skies and nearby street, and found nothing that stood out as strange. "She's dedicated to—" He looked around to make sure no one was within earshot. "—To the hive, but also Equestria. She learns scary fast, like she was built to study." A chuckling grin crossed his face. "And she has a nice laugh… she's had this really peculiar aura as of late."

His brow furrowed in concentration. "If I didn't know any better, I'd think she was—"

Movement in the air above the manor's fence caught his eye as three pegasi landed in the street to join two unicorns and four earth ponies. All of them were wearing baggy clothes and stealing glances at the manor as they talked to one another.

Ratchet raised an eyebrow at them. _Odd, they aren't dressed like everypony else around here, but then, what do I know about pony fashion?_

Ratchet lost interest in the group, and looked around to find three more groups gathering around the area. _Why do they keep looking at Twilight's home? They don't seem to care about the other houses around here. Hmm, weren't there like five guardsponies nearby?_ He tried to find the golden armored warriors, but none were forthcoming. _Something's not right here._

He was suddenly glad the bench he was sitting on was behind thick shrubbery, and slowly slid around to stand behind it. He watched as one of the groups broke up and started walking towards the manor's lone gate guard. An earth pony talked to him while a pale brown unicorn mare zapped the distracted guard with a spell.

Ratchet fumbled back towards the house as the same mare galloped over to the incapacitated guard and cast a second, longer spell on him. Ratchet was unable to determine the purpose for it when all four groups vaulted the fence.

 _Oh, horseapples!_ He started running to the nearest window with a bolt of magic growing on his obscured horn. Twilight! We've got trouble!


	9. Chapter 9

Paths

Pranceston led brother and sister through the short entry hall and into the lounge at a miserable pace; just long enough to make Twilight apprehensive, but not enough to give her time to think of a proper greeting. _Oohhh, that's the last straw. Next time I'm making a checklist on reunion greetings. First—hoh boy we're at the door._

Pranceston placed a hoof on the door, and spoke before pushing it open. "You two should have cleaned up better before coming over, both of you look scraggly." He gave the siblings a disapproving look.

Shining Armor's only reply was to slightly dust off one of his lapels. "There."

The butler glowered at him, and noticed Twilight was fretting over the orange stripe in her bangs. "It's not frizzy is it? Tell me it's not frizzy!"

"Enormously so. Come along."

Twilight squeaked while trying to run a fetlock through her bangs right as Pranceston pushed the doors open to reveal the middle aged unicorn couple sitting by the lit fireplace. The lounge was always kept very chilly so family and guests would congregate around the central fireplace. Twilight stopped fidgeting with her hair the moment her eyes locked onto her parents.

Night Light was the first to stand up from the sofa with his wife not far behind, neither one of them wasted words before roping Twilight into a crushing embrace. Twilight nuzzled her father with tears streaming down her face. "I'm so sorry papa—"

He shushed her while rubbing her mane. "I'll hear none of that. You're alive and whole, that's all that matters."

Twilight Velvet wiped away her daughter's tears. "That's right. You're still my little filly."

Twilight let out a choked half-sob, half-laugh. "I'm not so little anymore."

Velvet tsked. "You will always be my little filly." She pulled back to pull her son into the group hug. The four of them remained in each other's embrace for a long, quiet minute. A small part of Twilight was stunned by how much love her family flooded her with, but she pushed that aside to focus on them.

The embrace would have lasted longer if a pink alicorn had not come into Twilight's field of vision. "You're Cadance, right? I remember you from the wedding."

If Shining Armor had nightmares about changelings, Cadance was caught between fearful hope and revulsion. The body may heal, but the mind was not always so resilient. "Do you not remember anything else?" she asked while raising a hoof to touch Twilight's withers, but stopped short upon spying the red translucent wings on her back.

Twilight didn't see the cause of Cadance's hesitation, but she saw it nonetheless. "I'm sorry, I had hoped all of my memory would have come back by now."

A dozen thoughts raced through Cadance's mind, but one in particular stood out. "Do… Do you remember this?" she said, her voice trembling. "Sunshine, sunshine, ladybugs awake. Clap your hooves and—"

Twilight's eye dilated to the size of dinner plates as she finished the final verse with her old foalsitter. "do a little shake."

The Element of Magic let off a faint pulse as a cascade of memories flashed before Twilight's eyes. Her family and foalsitter glanced between each other as Twilight was zoned out as years of memories surrounding Cadance returned to her. Towards the end of it, Twilight's neutral expressing slowly grew into a beaming smile. "Cadance!"

The alicorn was bowled over by Twilight as she wrapped her in a bear hug. "Cadance! I remember it, all of it!" Her smile faltered a little. "At least, I think I remember everything."

Cadance smirked. "I could help you catalogue it all later."

Twilight giggled. "I've been meaning to do just that. Ever since I got back to Ponyville, all of my recovered memories are coming back in an annoying jumbled mess."

Velvet pulled her daughter off Cadance and dragged her towards the fireplace. "You can do that later, Twilight, I just want you to know that I've been in constant contact with the academy. We'll have this whole thing sorted out soon enough."

Twilight was momentarily distracted by Pranceston arriving with a tray of hors d'oeuvres. "I don't think I understand. Sort out what?"

Night Light sat behind his daughter to hide the grimace directed at his wife who continued on. "Turning you back to normal, of course. Once the mages at the academy get a chance to see what kind of black magic was done to you, they can start working on a cure."

"I—I don't know what to say…"

Velvet interpreted Twilight averting her gaze as a sign of shocked joy. "There's no need for words, my dear. It was _kind_ enough for the changelings to save you, but you shouldn't have to suffer as one of them any longer than you have to."

 _Suffer?_ Twilight glanced around the room. "I don't think that would be… wise."

Shining Armor's lips twitched upward and nodded slightly in approval, while Cadance remained neutral. Twilight couldn't see her father's reaction, but her mother's was one of understanding. "I realize that hive of yours might have issues with you no longer being one of _them_ , but they must understand you don't belong with them. You're an Equestrian, for Celestia's sake!"

"Mother, I don't want to talk about this right now. Can't we spend the day catching up?"

"Certainly, but only after we visit the academy. What kind of mother would I be if I let you remain in that miserable form for a second longer?"

Twilight gritted her teeth, which made her fangs seem far more menacing than they used to. "I am perfectly comfortable with my body, _mother._ There's nothing that needs to be _fixed_."

Velvet shook her head and pulled one of Twilight's hole riddled forelegs up for all to see, but kept her gaze focused on her daughter's face. "Twilight, look at yourself. This isn't normal. Come down to the academy with me."

Shining saw Twilight's ear twitching along with her eyes narrowing. _This won't end well._ "Twily, mom, why don't we sit down for din—"

Twilight shot him a glare before gently pulling her hoof out of her mother's grasp. Her tone held an edge of steel. "Mother, we cannot afford to be so selfish. If there is anypony who is going to be able to bring lasting peace between Equestria and the hives, it's going to rest on my withers to do so. I will _not_ burn that bridge just to be a unicorn again." Velvet's mouth was little more than a pressed line as Twilight continued. "And these," she said while pointing at the holes in her leg, " _are_ normal for _me_."

Night Light moved to interpose himself between the two mares. "Now, now, let's not ruin the day with such talk. Let's just settle down for a nice round of tea?" Before either mare could speak he looked up to find the butler hovering nearby. "Pranceston, a pot of Earl Grey if you please."

Velvet shot her husband a scathing glare, but did not argue with him. Night Light took the opportunity to lead Twilight over to the couch and coffee table. "Why don't you tell us about the hive? It must be a fascinating place if you're so willing to call it home."

 _Glad to see papa is still open minded._ Twilight waited until everyone sat down to speak. "Despite what the name implies, my home resembles Canterlot far more than a bee hive. It has shops, factories, homes, and a palace as large as Canterlot's own."

Twilight regaled at length about the technological prowess and architectural ingenuity of Stripped Gear with a passion that made Velvet increasingly concerned. Towards the end of her tale, Shining Armor had to interrupt. "Sorry to butt in like this sis, but you never got around to mentioning what that central shield tower was for. Do attacks between the hives happen often?"

Twilight used a sip of tea to buy time to think. "I have not personally seen any hives attack one another, but they do happen. As for the attack on me, I still don't have any memories of the event itself. The shield's primary purpose is the removal of air pollution so it won't give away our location."

Cadance had lost most of her discomfort and had a genuine fascination growing about Stripped Gear. "So your hive doesn't foalnap or anything?"

Twilight gave her a reassuring smile. "Cadista never has, and never will. Our love collectors are more than adequate for our needs."

Being the Alicorn of Love, Cadance leaned forward in rapt attention. "How exactly do they _collect_ love?"

Twilight remembered Rose from Ponyville. "For us, love freely given is more powerful than any other. As such, our collectors immigrate to Equestria and try to find a spouse or adopt a foal. They remain in Equestria for the rest of their lives… or until they're run out of town."

Night Light tried to ignore his wife's directionless scowl. "Are they allowed to return home?"

"Of course. It's just that they love their pony family just as much as their changeling one. So long as they can keep sending love back to the hive, they can do whatever they want with themselves."

Cadance's visage was marred by confusion. "So changelings are capable of feeling love? Not just feeding on it?"

"That's right. Why do you ask?"

"Can't you just love each other?"

Twilight fiddled with her cup. "It's been tried in the past, countless times. Cadista and her mother were very close." She glanced at Velvet who let her scowl soften. "But for some reason, the love they shared couldn't satiate them. We require love from other species, it seems."

Cadance completely forgot her reservations about Twilight's new species. "I'd like to help with that, if at all possible. Would some of your collectors mind visiting me so I can see why changelings loving one another doesn't feed them?"

"I could certainly ask for volunteers. I doubt Cadista would refuse an opportunity like this."

Cadance's reply was drowned out by Ratchet yelling over the link. Twilight! We got trouble!

* * *

With Ratchet's broadcast ringing in her ears, Gloss galloped towards Celestia's study. " _Guards!_ I must see Celestia!"

"I'm sorry, miss, but—"

" _Twilight Sparkle is in mortal danger!_ I must inform Celestia immediately!"

The two guards looked suspicious. "Last I heard, she's in Canterlot. Nopony would attack us here… Twice, anyway."

" _Listen to me you obtuse ferus caballus!_ If you don't get out of my way, Twilight Sparkle is going to die. Do you really think the Princess would want you to ignore a potential threat rather than raise a false alarm? After she almost lost Twilight just three months ago? Do you have _any idea_ what she will do to the two guards who indirectly caused the death of her star pupil? Now, _let me through!_ "

The guards hesitated and looked at each other. Without another word, they stepped aside, and Gloss burst into Celestia's study.

" _Princess Celestia!_ "

* * *

What? Ratchet, what's wrong?

Ratchet heard Twilight's confusion over the link as he shattered one of the front windows and jumped through. A bunch of hostile ponies are storming the house!

Ratchet made an emergency broadcast over the hive mind as he flew up and over the second-story banister overlooking the entry hall. He froze as he saw several earth ponies galloping down the hallway in front of him, until they turned a corner. A pair of unicorns weren't far behind. He was outnumbered.

Waiting until they were out of sight, he carefully crept across the hallway and peeked around the corner, but nopony was there. Realizing he had no idea where to go, he sent a request to the hive mind, and a fuzzy outline of Twilight appeared in his vision. He ran down the twisting hallways, left, right, left, until he almost ran straight into a unicorn that looked ready to blast the room Twilight was in.

Twilight!

* * *

" _Assassins!_ " Twilight shouted.

"What?!"

"Ratchet just told me assassins have broken into the house!"

Shining Armor reacted instantly. "We have to assume we're surrounded." He beckoned them to the wall opposite the fireplace. "I'll raise a shield, Twilight and Cadance, take up defensive positions around me. Did Ratchet raise the alarm?"

"Ambassador Gloss already knows."

Shining Armor raised an eyebrow.

"Hive mind," Twilight explained. She might have said more, but the muffled clopping of hooves had reached their ears, and a few moments later, four earth ponies crashed through the doors, a pair on either side of the room. They immediately charged towards the Sparkles, protected under Shining Armor's impenetrable shield.

Twilight held a spell at the ready, and kept expecting the earth ponies to slow down, rather than run straight into a magical barrier. It wasn't until they were nearly on top of them that Twilight felt a familiar numbing sensation in her horn.

She knew what that feeling was. It was a void stone. She opened her mouth to warn Shining, but it was too late.

 _*Shunk*_

As the earth ponies leapt towards the shield, it imploded in on itself. A null magic field multiplied the ambient magical resistance by a thousand-fold, and an entire augmented repulsion barrier spell was forced back into Shining's horn. He dropped like a lead weight, unconscious before he hit the ground.

Cadance, unfortunately, was immediately forced to put her recent combat training to good use, and didn't have time to worry about Shining Armor. One of the earth ponies, who happened to be carrying a void stone, found herself on the receiving end of an alicorn's buck. Had she not been an earth pony, she probably would have been dead. Instead, her muzzle was smashed to pieces, and she was flung halfway across the room.

Twilight, on the other hand, had barely any formal combat training. However, she _did_ remember her nullification lessons, which involved a very simple credo: get as far away from a null magic field as quickly as possible. So, dodging an earth pony's short sword, Twilight turned around and ran straight up the wall.

Hanging from the ceiling, Twilight had a few precious seconds to reorient herself. Shining Armor was down. Her parents were too deep in the null magic field to do anything but hold their heads in pain. Cadance, on the other hand, was displaying an almost unnerving degree of combat ability, holding her own against the three remaining earth ponies. Twilight was about to tackle one of them when the distinct sound of beating wings reached her ears.

Two pegasi shot through the door on her right, and hesitated for the briefest of moments after seeing Twilight hanging from the ceiling instead of standing on the ground. That hesitation was all she needed to gain the upper hand, as the two pegasi launched themselves towards her.

Twilight galloped towards the oncoming pegasi, and abruptly grabbed both of them in a telekinetic grip as soon as she was far enough away from the void stone. Twilight slammed the two pegasi into each other as she jumped off of the ceiling and twisted around. Landing on her hooves, two pegasi crashed into the ground behind her with enough force to leave a sizable dent in the floor.

Twilight!

Twilight turned her head just in time to see a flash of blue light. A thick, angry bolt of liquid lightning ripped through the air as an orange shield flared to life at the same moment. With a fraction of a second to spare, the spell ricocheted off the shield, fracturing into several fragments that whizzed over Twilight's head and detonated against the ceiling.

The battle had only just begun.

* * *

Gloss was mortified to discover that she had shouted into an empty study. Celestia wasn't here. She was about to turn around and demand an explanation from the guardponies when she saw an open door on the other side of the room, leading to a path through the garden.

 _A walk. Twilight is about to get assassinated and the Princess is on a_ walk?!

Gloss galloped into the garden, knowing her only hope of finding the princess in the dense maze of foliage was to follow the cobblestone trail. "Princess Celestia! Celestiaaaaaa! Twilight's in danger! _Twilight's in danger!_ "

* * *

The unicorn had noticed him. Ratchet was lying on the ground below a large dent in the wall, where he had been tossed away like a used rag. Picking himself up, he decided a direct attack wasn't going to work. Were there more of them? Deciding to take a chance, Ratchet disguised himself as one of the earth ponies he'd seen galloping down the hallway. An explosion almost threw him off his hooves, and he abruptly found himself looking at a cloud of smoke instead of a unicorn.

Seizing the opportunity, he galloped through the door. Twilight was by the fireplace, looking very angry and very dangerous. Cadance was under attack by three earth ponies, and was starting to lose ground. She seemed to be aiming for one of them in particular, so Ratchet charged at them and leaped through the air.

He felt a strange numbing sensation on his horn before something tore his disguise clean off. _Void stones. They've got a void stone._ The changeling smashed into the earth pony, but succeeded only in knocking her off balance. He scrambled to his hooves, only to get kicked in the side for his troubles. Winded, he stumbled backwards, barely managing to dodge a punch to the face.

Suddenly, an orange glow enveloped the room as the magical showdown behind him grew more intense. He needed to get that void stone out of Cadance's range. Flying into the air, he dove straight into the face of the earth pony mare carrying the stone, and spit in her face.

" _Aaaaaaaaaauuuuuugggggghhhh!_ " She screamed as the salve almost instantly solidified, blinding her. Ratchet was thrown into the nearby wall, but he wasn't done yet. He kicked off, and with a loud crunch, smashed into one of the other earth ponies with enough force to knock her over. As he tumbled to the ground, wondering how many bones he had just cracked, Cadance had the opening she needed. A powerful blow to the head sent the third earth pony sprawling, as Cadance charged at the blinded, void stone carrying mare and bucked her into a corner.

Cadance was back in action.

* * *

Twilight let out a low growl. Now near the fireplace, she was far enough away from the void stones to regain full use of her magic. _This is my world,_ she thought, as she effortlessly diffused another deadly spell lancing through the air.

 _Now we play by my rules._

A orange-purple bolt of magic shot towards her opponent, splitting into a hundred tiny shards that rained down on his shield before detonating.

Blue lightning zigzagged towards Twilight, only to be harmlessly deflected into a nearby chandelier. Spinning around, Twilight dodged a second bolt of electricity. The third bolt never made it that far. It smashed into a telekinetic field that sucked it into a pulsating orb of electricity and flung it right back at the unicorn, detonating in a flash of blue magic.

Without warning, a bright orange glow enveloped the room, as the unearthly cry of a fire serpent summoned from the depths of Tartarus lunged out of the smoke that had obscured the first unicorn. Liquid fire dripped from its underside, igniting the floor below it, as its gaping maw tried to swallow Twilight whole.

Twilight jumped into the air and flew over the flaming reptile, landing on the ceiling. A purple energy whip shimmered into existence, and Twilight snapped it at the rampaging elemental. A thin cord wrapped itself around the beast's neck and slammed it into the floor, half of which was now covered in flames. Without warning, a yellow energy bolt exploded next to her, and another bounced off her hastily erected shield. She lost her grip on the elemental as she deflected another magical assault.

Suddenly, Twilight saw a cyan blur rocket across the room as a massive burst of cyan energy smashed into her attacker. Cadance had escaped from the void stone, and was now pummeling one of the unicorns. Seizing the opportunity, Twilight focused her energies, and a bright light began to emanate from her horn.

A clap of thunder echoed through the room as the purple changeling unleashed a massive white nova from her horn, covering everything in a fine layer of frost and banishing the fire serpent back to the black abyss it came from. Turning her attention to the fire serpent's summoner, she picked up a nearby coffee table and hurled it at him.

The coffee table froze in midair, as two telekinetic grips fought against each other. The unicorn was powerful, Twilight had to give him that. Unfortunately for him, he wasn't strong enough. The table let out a tormented screech as its metal frame imploded under the titanic magical forces, shattering its glass surface. It inched closer and closer to the unicorn, its metal frame now nothing more than a slab of iron.

Realizing this was not a battle he could win, the unicorn yelped and tried to jump out of the way. What remained of the table, unfortunately, abruptly found itself free of the unicorn's grasp, and smashed into the wall, taking the unicorn with it.

Twilight's sigh of relief was cut short as she heard the unmistakable sound of thundering hooves in the hallway. A second wave of attackers were barreling down on them. Cadance looked up, now tending to a groggy Shining Armor, then looked over to Twilight's parents, who nodded. Twilight was joined by her old foalsitter in the middle of the room as her parents took up defensive positions around her older brother.

Another group of earth ponies stampeded into the room, followed by several pegasi. Twilight flipped gravity for two of them, and the ponies suddenly found themselves on the ceiling. Dodging around a pegasus trying to skewer her, she bucked him in the side and sent him spinning out of control. Another pegasus abruptly found his sword frozen mid-swing by an orange-purple glow. The blade was torn from his grasp and spun around, gutting him with enough force to throw him across the room, his own blade protruding from his stomach.

Cadance had grabbed a sword from one of the fallen pegasi and was now engaged in a vicious aerial swordfight with the remaining pegasus. Twilight tried to yank her adversary away, only to realize with mounting horror that Cadance had flown so close to the northeast corner she was back in range of the void stones. All of a sudden, an explosion announced the arrival of two more unicorns, distracting the pegasus for a split second and giving Cadance the opening she needed to end him.

"Cadance!" shouted Twilight. Cadance flew over to Twilight as she pointed towards one of the unicorns. Nodding, Cadance unleashed a concentrated beam of cyan energy that slammed into the unicorn's shield. Twilight's horn glowed a menacing magenta color, and launched a deadly ball of volatile energy at the unicorn. Already cracking under the strain of Cadance's attack, the unicorn didn't stand a chance as the energy ball smashed through her shield and exploded. The only thing that remained was a charred husk.

Deflecting an energy blast aimed at the back of her head, Twilight turned towards the remaining unicorn, only to hear the sound of more hooves. A third wave was upon them, this time with several more unicorns, all of which started hurling energy bolts at her. Magic missiles flew across the room in both directions as several pegasi flew through the air towards Cadance and Twilight.

Everything was happening all at once. Twilight suddenly realized there was nothing between her family and the attackers. While they seemed to be largely aiming for her, she didn't want to end up with a hostage situation. She flew down and planted herself between the assassins and Shining Armor. Dissolving several more energy bolts in midair, she saw a glint in the corner of her eye, and was immediately faced with a razor sharp blade flying through the air, aimed straight at her heart. She attempted to push it aside, but her telekinetic grip simply slid off. Her blood turned to ice as she realized what was going on; in the hilt of the dagger sat a void stone, and it was almost on top of her.

Everything seemed to slow to a crawl as the blade inched closer and closer. There was no time to jump out of the way, or duck, or do anything other than register the fact that she was about to die. A thought floated through her mind, overtaking everything else, as she watched the instrument of her demise creep ever closer.

 _I'm sorry, Celestia._

And then something blocked her vision. Something grey and furry, with gossamer wings. She heard something through the hive mind. It was nothing more than a feeling, a vague notion, not a coherent thought. But she knew what that feeling was.

It was Ratchet saying goodbye.

* * *

Ratchet had barely caught his breath when a frost nova erupted from Twilight's horn. Wincing, he cast a simple warming spell on himself before limping over to the wall. He was pretty sure he did something to his right foreleg. Looking around, he noticed that Twilight's parents had recovered from the effects of the void stone, and were attempting to revive Shining Armor. Twilight herself had just smashed a unicorn with the crumpled remains of a coffee table. As Shining Armor started to groan, Cadance galloped over, after finishing off the other unicorn, only to perk up at the sound of hooves echoing through the hallway outside.

 _Ok, this is bad._ Ratchet was injured and couldn't assist them in his current state. However, now that he was out of range of the void stones, he _could_ disguise himself as a defeated earth pony.

The battle raged around Ratchet as he sat as a silent observer, watching Twilight fend off foe after foe. As the third wave came barreling in, he abruptly found himself just a few feet from Twilight as she planted herself between the assassins and her family. Not knowing whether Twilight would need his help again, he discarded his disguise and lifted himself to his hooves.

That's when he saw the pegasus on the far side of the room, as she was about to throw a very sharp object at Twilight. Without thinking, he tried to pry it from her hooves, but his grip wouldn't hold. _A void stone._ The blade left the pegasus' hoof and began its deadly journey across the room. In less than a second, it would plunge into Twilight's heart and kill her instantly.

Ratchet knew what he had to do. His duty as a drone was to ensure the continued survival of his queen at all costs, up to and including his own life. Time seemed to slow to a halt as he leapt off his back legs and flung himself in front of Twilight.

He closed his eyes.

* * *

Ratchet's body fell to Twilight's side as a pool of red blood appeared below his unmoving form. The sounds of battle fell away as Twilight stared at her fallen friend. Her eyes began to water, and a tear trickled down her face. A foolish pegasus lunged at her, only to get flung away like a rag doll.

The fabric of reality began to warp around Twilight's horn as powerful energies rippled around her.

"No," she whispered. Her lips trembled, and she said it again. "No!"

She remembered all the times Ratchet had been there for her, leading her through her new life, and now her faithful guardian had paid the ultimate price. Something deep inside her snapped, and she let out an ear-shattering scream.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

A magical shockwave of unbridled power was unleashed from the changeling's horn, obliterating the wooden floor and smashing the ceiling to bits. The walls were torn asunder as everyone in the room was flung clear across the house. Amidst the devastation, only a solitary pink sphere stood upright, as wreckage rained down around Twilight, as though it were coronating her as the Angel of Destruction.

Then, everything stopped.

* * *

Shining Armor had a headache. Being subjected to a void stone was never a pleasant experience, and it was even worse if you were sustaining a spell at the same time. He was only vaguely aware of the chaos that raged around him. He found himself under the protective shadows of his parents, as Twilight planted herself several meters in front of them.

Then, something happened. Something that was impossible, but it happened anyway. The changeling that Twilight had spoken so highly of threw himself in front of his sister, and as he fell to the ground, Shining saw a blade protruding from his chest.

Shining Armor had lived with his little sister for a long time, and back in the days of stressful tests and barely controlled magical power, he learned very quickly what she looked like right before she exploded. It had saved her bedroom from being annihilated many times. It was also what gave him the sense to use what little magic he had left to throw up a shield around his parents, right before his sister let out an explosion of magic more violent than anything he could remember.

As jagged bits of wood rained down around him, his pink shield flickered and died, his magic all but exhausted. Suddenly, everyone on the grounds of the Sparkle manor found themselves floating a few inches off the ground, surrounded by a familiar golden aura, unable to move a muscle. For a brief moment, everything was quiet again. It was a calm that would not last.

 **"WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?!"** bellowed an enraged solar diarch. Three unicorns foolishly attempted to teleport to safety, only to discover that the Sun Goddess was entirely capable of ripping them out of an extra-dimensional manifold mid-teleport. They also learned that getting ripped out of a teleport was _extremely painful_.

"Nopony is going _anywhere_ ," Celestia hissed, slowly lowering herself to the ground as everyone inside what remained of the house was levitated into the front garden. The Princess of the Sun glowered at the assemblage of ponies, before gently lowering Twilight to the ground and releasing her.

"Twilight, please tell me which ponies here _aren't_ going to be executed for treason."

* * *

A lone pegasus watched from the mountain face as Celestia restrained the captured assassins. She lowered the telescope from her reptilian eyes after seeing Celestia ripping the fleeing unicorns from their teleports. The rune encrusted spy glass recorded the entire event, including Celestia's spell.

 _My, my, isn't that an interesting spell._ The pegasus chuckled darkly as she gathered her equipment together. The reptilian slits faded away to be replaced by solid blue glowing eyes. Once her equipment was in place, a ring of green fire encircled her. The flames surged up to encase her in a dome of fire before both she and the dome fell through the ground and vanished with only a thin layer of ash marking her passage.

* * *

As Celestia finished restraining the prisoners, Cadance galloped over to Twilight who was sitting next to a bleeding Ratchet. "Twilight, if you can carefully remove the blade, I can close his wounds."

Twilight nodded to her before facing Ratchet and started stroking his mane. "You're going to be okay, Ratchet. Cadance has great healing magic, but I need to remove the blade."

He nodded curtly, but couldn't suck in a breath as the blade had lodged itself in his right lung. Twilight used every ounce of willpower to keep her fear for his life in check as she carefully bit down on the hilt and pulled it out.

Ratchet coughed up blood speckled foam as Cadance began working her magic to repair the damage. Twilight sighed in relief as his breathing eased up. Cadance probed the wound with her magic. "There, that should be enough to stabilize him."

He kept coughing up blood, but his breathing was much easier. Cadance sat back as Twilight wrapped her hooves around him. "You'll be fine in a few hours, once you clear the blood from your lungs."

Twilight helped him roll over onto his stomach so he could cough easier. "That knife nearly killed me."

Sorry, but there wasn't any time, and it had a void stone embedded in it.

His breathing eased up, but between the battle and rapid healing, Ratchet was too exhausted to remain conscious. Twilight freaked as his head fell forward, only to be caught in her hooves. "Ratchet!"

Cadance placed a reassuring hoof on her withers. "It's okay, rapid healing saps the body's energy. He just needs some sleep."

Twilight wrapped him in her magic and hefted him onto her back at the same time as Celestia flew over to them. "Twilight, does anypony need medical attention?"

Night Light and Velvet dusted themselves off after bowing to the princess. "We're fine, your majesty," Night replied, "but our home is another matter."

Twilight folded her ears back. "Sorry about that, I just… he wasn't moving, and I thought—"

"Honey, don't worry about it," interrupted Night Light, with a reassuring smile. "At least you didn't turn us into potted plants this time."

Twilight muttered something incoherent, then looked at the drone on her back. "Ratchet'll be okay, but I'd like to get him somewhere safe."

Celestia nodded before turning to see Cadance help Shining Armor groggily climbing to his hooves. "I should have expected void crystals," he grumbled loud enough for all to hear as he was lead towards the group. "No pony would be dumb enough to attack the Sparkle family without them."

Twilight, I lost my eyes and ears through Ratchet. What's going on?

Twilight could still hear Ratchet's voice over the Link, but it was as though he was asleep. He'll be fine, he's just unconscious. We won, but not before he jumped in front of a blade meant for me.

Cadista's relief was so strong Twilight could taste it. Good, then Gloss' warning got to Celestia in time. I will let you choose your next course of action, but until you mature into a full queen and can stop laying, I suggest you return to the hive. I couldn't bear the thought of losing you or your progeny to another attack.

 _If it was only me, I'd stay, but I won't risk my eggs… or Ratchet._ That might be for the best. I'll be on the train tonight.

Cadista sent her heartfelt acknowledgements, and left Twilight to speak with those around her. She returned to the present to find Celestia and Shining Armor looking at her. "You blanked out there, Twily, are you sure you're okay?"

"Sorry, I was just speaking with Cadista. As for me, I got away with a few cuts and bruises, nothing serious."

Celestia heaved a sigh. "Thank goodness. A platoon of Guardponies should be here shortly, but I do not want to risk any of these…" she looks at the remaining assassins with distaste, " _assailants_ from fleeing. I will take them to the dungeons myself. I'll return within the hour."

The princess gathered all of the assassins, both living and dead, and teleported all of them back to the castle. Velvet fretted over her son and daughter's injuries. "Just look at this. Shining, you're lucky your horn didn't fracture after suffering feedback like that!"

"I'll be fine, mother. A few bottles of ether and I'll be back on my hooves in a day."

Velvet scowled at him, but Shining was ultimately not her biggest concern, so she turned to the mare who was. "Young filly, I hope this makes you realize the danger you're in. Maybe now you'll give my offer serious consideration this time."

Twilight nuzzled her father as he utilized the first aid kit Pranceston procured to mend a shallow cut on her neck. "Mother, can we not talk about me being a changeling right now? The house is a wreck, Shining's hurt, we all could have died, and I'm really not in the mood for this right now!"

Velvet stomped a hoof. "The house can always be rebuilt, Shining Armor will recover, but you don't seem to see reason. It doesn't take a genius to know those assassins were real ponies, and that means they were here because of you; or to be more precise, because of your _condition_. Ponies are running scared that the changelings are taking over, and this attack wasn't some peasant rebellion."

Twilight grumbled at her mother's ranting and started heading towards the kitchen for some water. "Not now mother, please?"

Cadance saw where Twilight was going. _They might keep ether in the pantry, or at least some fresh tea would help his migraine._ She pulled Shining Armor so that she could shoulder a foreleg. "Come on; let's see if I can't cure that headache of yours."

He tried to hide his pain, but Cadance could see through the tough guy act, and he knew it. "Thanks honey."

Twilight and Velvet argued long after she arrived at the sink and pulled a cup down to fill, yet the only thing on her mind was Velvet's constant nagging. "Mother, I told you, I can't go back to being a unicorn!"

"You're not thinking clearly, Twilight. You barely got a chance to see your own home again before this horrendous attack happened. You'll never have peace if you stay this way."

Twilight downed the first glass of water on one go. "What do you want me to do? Burn the best bridge we have to ever make changelings and Equestria allies? That's what I want mother, to unify our races."

Velvet harrumphed. "If that is your wish, I will not stop you from trying, but you don't need be a changeling to do that!"

Twilight's nerves were already frayed, and her mother wasn't helping. She whipped her head around and snapped at her. "And I think I do! Did it ever occur to you that maybe I _want_ to stay this way?!"

Velvet recoiled from Twilight's venom laced words, while Shining Armor and Cadance looked on in silence. "Y-you can't mean that," she stammered. "No, I know what this is. Fine, I'll not speak of this again until you can think of rational arguments instead of resorting to immature shock tactics."

Twilight watched her mother strut off into the living room to help Pranceston with the arriving Royal Guard. Shining Armor shared a worried glance with his wife. "Twilight, was there any truth to that?"

The proto-queen set Ratchet down, and hovered a glass of water nearby while tapping him to try and wake him up. "Not you too, Shining…"

Cadance rested a restraining hoof on her husband. "Twilight, we're your family. We'll love you no matter who or what you are. Your mother's just worried for you, that's all."

Twilight's mood fell as her thoughts drifted to her eggs. "It's a mother's nature to worry about her children."

"I know it's difficult to understand her position Twilight," said Cadance. "Even I won't be able to fully understand a mother's love until I experience for myself one day, but she's doing this for you."

 _I'm starting to._ Twilight sighed and looked over to her brother and sister-in-law. "I need to show you something."

* * *

The Canterlot train yard was much smaller than Ponyville's, space was at a premium after all. By the time they arrived, Celestia was waiting for them. A small gathering of Royal Guard patrolled the skies, but the princess was focused on Twilight's carriage as it pulled up.

She watched the purple changeling disembark along with Cadance, Shining Armor, and Night Light. "Twilight, why did you want me to meet you here instead of at home or the castle?"

"I have to show you something. You may not like it, but you deserve to know."

The ponies shared worried glances as Twilight strode purposefully towards an isolated train car. Twilight announced her intentions to the caretakers to give them a minute to prepare themselves.

The older caretaker was horrified. Your highness, I must protest! Fluttershy was bad enough, but you intend to let more ponies see the incubator?!

I am not your highness, I am your sister.

Sister though you may be, you are still a queen, Twilight.

A _proto-queen_. And as a queen, I have to look to the wellbeing of the hive, Twilight retorted. Now please, step aside.

There was a short pause before the caretaker replied. I pray you're right about this.

Twilight felt Cadista's gentle touch through the hive mind, sensing her acceptance as she strode towards the incubator.

Both caretakers exited the train car as Twilight arrived. "Welcome back sister," said the younger one, with a bow.

"Thank you." She turned around to face her pony family. "What lies inside is… precious to me. Please be careful."

Before fear of rejection could take hold, Twilight stepped purposefully into to the train car, with Ratchet and the caretakers close behind her. Celestia made a show that she trusted Twilight implicitly, waving off her escort and entering without hesitation. The rest followed her.

Celestia noticed the caretakers standing at attention inside a control compartment that dominated the first third of the car, but Twilight was further inside with Ratchet at her side. Curiosity urged her onward and she found herself in a room filled with empty glass incubators, save for the twelve that Twilight was staring at.

"Twilight, what is all this?"

Twilight forcibly kept her breathing slow so she wouldn't hyperventilate. "Princess. Would you take the chance to turn me back into a unicorn, if it meant that hundreds of thousands of changelings would never exist?"

Cadance and Shining Armor heard the question, but left Celestia to give an answer. The alicorn followed Twilight's gaze to the twelve purple objects within the incubators. _Those can't possibly…_ "Twilight. Those are eggs, aren't they?"

The rest of the ponies shot the princess a fearful look before turning to Twilight. Her wings fidgeted as sweat covered her face and neck, but her eyes never left the purple items. "Yes. _My_ eggs."

No one spoke a word as Twilight's words sank in, that was until Shining Armor took a closer look. "Twily, I—ah, I get that you're not a pony anymore, and I can… see you lay eggs and all, but just because you lay them doesn't mean they'll hatch… right?"

Twilight faced her bother with drooped ears and downcast eyes. "They will hatch in less than a month, and I lay a clutch every day."

Shining's gaze instantly shifted to Ratchet. _Temporarily lost memories, vulnerable state, and a way to make her feel obligated to stay with them._ **"You."** He shoved his muzzle in Ratchet's face. "Did you take advantage of my sister!?"

Before Twilight could react, Ratchet was pushing himself against the wall in an effort to avoid everypony's venomous glares, save for Celestia. Having read Luna's complete recounting of her dealings the queens of the past; she knew Ratchet was not the wolf the others believed him to be. She watched Twilight teleport to interpose herself between her family and Ratchet.

The group was forcibly pushed back by the spell as the proto-queen glowered at them. "Ratchet didn't do anything like that!"

Shining Armor glanced back at the two female caretakers before turning back to Twilight. "If those eggs are viable, then he must have done something. What about when you were asleep?"

Twilight's face twisted in both horror and indignation at the same time as she slapped him. "He would **never** do that!" Cadance and Night Light backed off as Shining Armor did his best to not rub his pained cheek. "Maybe instead of jumping to conclusions, you should have asked how!"

She tore her gaze away from her older brother. "And for the record…" She inhaled deeply to bring her tone of voice under control. "I fertilize the eggs myself as I lay them."

Celestia moved to stand behind Shining. "Why are you showing us this Twilight?"

The proto-queen's posture eased up at Celestia's calm exterior. "I remember a lot of your lessons Princess. 'The more you know, the less you fear.' You told me that countless times."

Celestia gave her former student a nod of respect. "Queen Cadista has been reluctant to release such information. Understanding is the first step to acceptance."

"Exactly," Twilight replied. _I knew the Princess would understand._ "That's the other reason I wish to remain a changeling. I want our people to be united, and as long as I remain a queen, I can work towards that goal."

Cadance glanced at her husband. "I don't like to hate, loathe, fear, or revile. Twilight, I want you to know that I'll do everything I can to make sure the PR campaign succeeds. I won't have my sister-in-law be afraid to visit because of more assassination attempts."

Night Light nuzzled Twilight before pulling her into a strong hug. "No matter what you are, Twilight. You are always going to be my daughter, and my doors are always open to you."

Tears fell down her cheeks as she wrapped him in her hooves. "Thanks, daddy. I promise to make you proud."

"You say that as if you haven't already," he replied derisively.

She giggled for a bit until Shining Armor entered her field of vision, and she pulled away from her father. "Twily, I'm—"

She muted him with a hoof gently placed over his mouth. A weak smile played across her lips. "I know, B.B.B.F.F. you don't need to say it because there's nothing to forgive."

"Maybe not to you," he replied before turning to Ratchet. He sidestepped Twilight to face the cowed drone. "I acted out of haste and ignorance. The former out of habit of my profession, the latter I hope the coming months will rectify. My apologies."

 _I can't really blame him. I'd be probably be that painfully overprotective if I was a warrior as well._ Bolstered by Twilight's reassurance over the hive mind, Ratchet stood up and took Shining's hoof and shook. "No harm done."

The Guard Captain moved to lightly pat him on the back. "If you ever break her heart, you're a dead drone. Got it? Good," he whispered.

Ratchet froze in place as Shining's neutral face came back into his field of vision. "I'd love to stay around, but I have duties to tend to." He pecked Cadance on the muzzle before bowing to Celestia. "Your Highness." Celestia returned the gesture with a slight nod of her head, which brought him to his sister. "I want you to promise me to watch yourself out there. This is twice now in the past three months somepony's tried to kill you."

"I will, big brother." They hugged one last time before Shining Armor broke contact and departed the incubator.

Cadance moved to join her husband. "I'm afraid I have matters of state to tend to before I can return to the Crystal Empire. Good luck Twilight."

Night Light watched his daughter-in-law depart with a yawn. "I'm afraid this is too much excitement in one day for these old bones. I wish you all the luck and love in the world Twilight. Let me see what I can do about your mother, she'll come around eventually."

"Thanks, daddy."

Twilight always knew her father loved her, but could never fully appreciate just how much until now when he radiated so much love for her that it made what her friends had given her pale by comparison. "You've become a fine mare, my darling. Don't ever let go of that compassion and love for your fellow ponies."

She nuzzled him, enjoying his presence as if she was a little filly wrapped in his hooves again. "You're the best father I could have ever hoped for."

He pulled back to look her in the eye. Night Light took in her reptilian eyes, fangs, orange stripe, and accepted it all. "You are my daughter Twilight. No matter what you look like, or what you become, remember that I will always love and protect you if you need me."

Twilight couldn't speak without her voice cracking, so she opted to hug him again. He silently rubbed her mane as tears of joy sank into his fur.

Celestia spied the three changelings watching the scene with intense curiosity. _Surely they must be used to Twilight's behavior by now._

Night Light patted Twilight on the head before making his way to the eggs. "I trust I raised you right to be a good mother."

She joined him to stare at her progeny. "I hope so."

Night Light sighed and headed for the door. "I'd better get home. Farewell, young one."

Twilight waved goodbye as the older unicorn departed, leaving Twilight with Celestia and Ratchet. The drone started slinking towards the exit. "Why don't I go find Rainbow Dash so you two can catch up?"

Celestia watched him scurry off with an amused expression. _He's rather observant._ Twilight huffed at Ratchet running off and was about to speak to him over the Link when Celestia called out. "May we speak somewhere else? It's getting late. Perhaps you could join me for dinner?"

* * *

Canterlot Castle had countless rooms, both grand and majestic; but Celestia chose her personal dining room, barely half the size of her bed chambers. It was well decorated, and it had been used many times with Twilight.

The room gave the proto-queen an intense sense of nostalgia. "I remember taking so many lessons and impromptu tests in this room."

Celestia grinned. "Do you recall the time you tried to pass your advanced telekinesis test by making your soup swirl around in the air?"

Twilight's cheeks flushed. "Yes, and that the waiter entering the room broke my concentration and the soup splashed all over me. I had garlic stink in my mane for three days after that."

Her embarrassment grew with Celestia tittering. A well groomed pegasus entered carrying two platters of food. Both mares used their magic to lift their covered meals over. The waiter was joined by a second carrying a bottle of wine. "Your Highness?"

Celestia nodded for a glass while Twilight declined. "I don't think I can for the next couple of months."

Celestia waited for the servants to leave before speaking. "It must be difficult having to completely refrain from wine."

Twilight begrudgingly accepted plain water. "Egg laying has its benefits. I may not stop laying for a while, but once I do, it only takes three days to make an egg. Pregnancy as a pony would take ten months. All in all, I think I came out on top."

Celestia hummed in approval and the meal lapsed into a brief silence until she noticed what Twilight's meal was. "I was not aware changelings were carnivores."

"Omnivores, actually," Twilight corrected. "As far as I know, all other hives are herbivores like ponies."

"Did you find it odd to eat meat the first time?"

"A little, but that was only during my first meal after hatching. To be honest, I love eating meat now, except for breakfast," she added with an amused snort.

"I remember the first time I entertained a griffin ambassador over five hundred years ago. Chipped Beak the Greater as he liked to be called. He made it a point that he would never eat a fruit or vegetable while he was in Equestria. He always ate in the grisliest manner possible to instill fear. It took two hundred more years before I found out they _can_ eat fruit, but it's like junk food for them more than anything else."

Twilight thoughtfully chewed on a bite. "I think Gilda did the same thing during her visit. Rainbow said it was griffin custom to eat that way, but you taught me to know better."

Celestia watched Twilight dig further into her steak, seeing she was completely at ease in the act. "So what do you plan to do when you return to Stripped Gear?"

"I'd like to continue my education into engineering, and learn what I need to be a good queen."

"Will you find time to visit us?"

"Of course, but with Canterlot being so anti-changeling right now, I'd rather wait until I can stop laying before I return."

"You seem rather comfortable with the idea of laying eggs."

Twilight twitted with her fork as her wings buzzed with agitation. _She knows me far too well._ "I'm terrified, princess." Her fork clattered noisily on the plate as she hugged herself. "It's all happened so fast. I didn't even get a month out of the shell to adjust before I started maturing into a queen."

Celestia got up to cradle her former student as she continued pouring her heart out. "And now I'm going to be the mother of hundreds of thousands of changelings, build my own hive, and try to find some way to unite ponies and changelings. I can't do it all," she wailed.

Celestia said nothing, but continued to embrace Twilight as she expelled all the stress and tension that had built up ever since she had taken her first step out of the chrysalis. The young queen rambled on about other minor stresses and events, while Celestia listened to it all with quiet care. _I have no right to harbor ill will towards Cadista when I had similarly high expectations of Twilight._

Cadista sensed her distress as well, and sent Twilight as many soothing thoughts as she thought appropriate. _I want to ease her troubles, not bury them._

Slowly, Twilight's tears and sniffles slowed and dried up as she had no more to shed. Thank you… mother.

Cadista did not want to intrude any further on Twilight's privacy. Of course, my daughter.

* * *

The midnight train out of Canterlot blew its whistle to announce its departure. Twilight and Rainbow Dash rocked slightly as the engine started pulling them along. The two mares watched the city move away from the windows of Rainbow's cabin.

She lightly slapped Twilight. "I can't believe you got into a fight without me! If I had been there, I'd have kicked the plot off those assassins so hard I'd have scored a field goal all the way to Cloudsdale."

Twilight huffed and tapped Rainbow on the back of the head with a wing. "I would have, but I had no idea where you were, and had no way to contact you."

Rainbow scowled at the ground after the train passed into the tunnel. "Those changelings did a good job in saving you; Ratchet and Gloss, I mean."

Twilight turned away from the window to lounge on the bench. "Well, that was mostly because of the hive mind. Gloss was able to try and warn Celestia about the attack the instant Ratchet saw it coming."

"And where was I that whole time? Napping on the roof of the gym, useless."

Twilight cast a worried glance at Rainbow as she flopped on the bed. "There's no way you could have known there would be an attack. We were in the middle of Canterlot, for Celestia's sake." Rainbow flicked a wing at the excuse. "It wouldn't be healthy to stay at my side all the time either. Once we get to Stripped Gear, I'll be perfectly safe."

Rainbow had been facing away from the proto-queen, but now she flipped over to look at her. "And what if you get attacked there too, and I'm not around to help you?"

"Dash," Twilight sighed, "it's my hive. It's the safest place for me to be."

"Coulda said the same thing about Canterlot."

"Well, what do you suggest, Rainbow Dash?" Twilight replied with growing exasperation.

"I don't know, just grumbling aloud, that's all."

Twilight scrunched her muzzle while patting her friend on the back. "I don't blame you for not being there, if that's what's troubling you."

"I know," Dash mumbled.

"Well, you're in for a big treat when we finally get to the hive. Stripped Gear is an amazing town, just you wait and see."

Rainbow's mind was filled by an image of a gigantic beehive. "I hope so."

"Good night Rainbow, and… thanks for coming back with me. I know this is difficult for you."

Rainbow Dash craned her neck around. "You're my friend Twi, I'm not going to let my misgivings towards changelings ever stop me from calling you that."

 _I hope after you've seen what we're like, you'll forget about those misgivings._ "Sleep well, Rainbow, we've got a long trip ahead of us."

The pegasus was too morose to do more than flap a wing in acknowledgement. Twilight left her to her thoughts and cantered over to her quarters. The lamp was on, and Ratchet looked up from his spider walker manual. Hey, Twi'!

"Hey Ratchet, how are you feeling?"

Much better, just... tired.

Twilight giggled. "Yeah, rapid healing can be an exhausting process." She glanced at the book in his hooves. "Still going over that manual?"

Mmmmhmm. Care to join me?

Twilight hesitated. "I was… actually hoping to talk to you about something."

Ratchet closed the book and yawned. "It's about today, isn't it? I knew you cared about drones much more than Cadista, but I didn't think you'd blow up a house over me." He gave her a weak smile.

She let out a nervous laugh. "Yeah, uh, about that…"

"I have to say, I'm flattered, but really, you don't need to do all that on my behalf."

Twilight sat down next to him and sighed. "I just… I don't want to lose you, Ratchet. You've been the guiding light of my new life, and I can't imagine living in it without you."

Ratchet fell silent. Only after a long silence did he speak up. "Please don't take this the wrong way, but… why don't you just get another drone? Plenty can do my job just as well, and they would all give their lives for you."

Twilight was taken aback. "Because they wouldn't be _you_. Maybe the other hives have it differently, but there's not another drone in this entire hive who is _you_. Sure, they do the same things, they're even willing to… to _die_ for me, but they still wouldn't be _you_. They'd talk just a little bit differently. They'd act in a slightly different way. They wouldn't have had the same experiences with me that you've had."

Ratchet abruptly found himself smothered in a hug from the proto-queen, and tried his best to return it. He wasn't sure what to say, but perhaps there was simply nothing to be said.

Twilight tried in vain to choke back her tears. "Please, please don't ever leave me, Ratchet."

"Of course not." He nuzzled her back, in that same affectionate way she had often nuzzled him. They stayed like that for a while, locked in each other's embrace, until Ratchet yawned again.

Twilight giggled. "I suppose we should hit the hay, now."

The two of them slipped under the covers, and Twilight turned out the light, before snuggling up next to Ratchet. It wasn't long before the soft rumble of the train lulled the two changelings to sleep. Perhaps if Ratchet hadn't been so exhausted, he would have noticed Twilight's love flowing over him like an extra blanket.

* * *

The next morning, Ratchet woke up, wrapped up in Twilight's warm embrace. Her breath tickled his bangs ever so lightly, and the warmth that permeated his being begged him not to leave her.

He might have simply stayed there, were it not for Hot Spice broadcasting the morning menu. _He's actually making Valdect omelets today? I've got to get one for Twi, and myself._

With the greatest of care, Ratchet pried Twilight's limbs off of him, and slid out of bed. He made sure the proto-queen was not disturbed before stretching in a cat-like fashion. What surprised him, now that he was on his hooves, was how fully awake he was. _Wow, I might not even need coffee today. I haven't woken up like this since…_

His train of thoughts slowly ground to a halt when he realized he still felt warmth emanating from Twilight's direction. He scrunched his muzzle while raising an eyebrow. _There's no way I could feel her body heat from here. If I it didn't know any better I'd say this feels like… love?_

Ratchet immediately scoffed at the thought. _I guess she's probably saturated with it after her time in Canterlot, but… wait, she has to be conscious to feed love to another changeling._ He scratched the back of his head. _Maybe she's so bloated with love that she's leaking it to me? I've never heard of that, but then I've never seen anypony receive the amount of love she has._

Ratchet was about to shake her when he realized who the love was meant for.

 _No… that's impossible!_


	10. Chapter 10

Homecoming

Ratchet's brain locked up as his mind smashed into a fatal logic error. _She's producing love like a pony, but she's a changeling. This… this can't be happening!_ With breakfast forgotten, he closed his eyes to make sure his senses weren't lying. _No, that's definitely love... h-holy Mother of Burrel that's actually love! It's gotta be leaking love—yeah, yeah that's it. She's just bloated, that's all._

 _But it's much warmer than any crystal I've ever fed off… could it be? I know! One of the collectors might be able to explain what it feels like. This… this is just a misunderstanding!_

Unfortunately, the inquiry left Ratchet even more confused. _So it_ is _directed love!_ Ratchet was forced to conclude that he was delusional.

There was only one recourse left. My _Queeeeeeen!_

What's wrong, my son?

I know this sounds really, really crazy, but I _think_ Twilight's producing love for me.

Producing? she replied with a disturbing lack of concern.

Yes, my queen. It defies all logical sense, but I can _feel_ Twilight radiating love!

Cadista was silent for several seconds. Wake her, and fetch some food. I wish to speak with her in private.

Yes, my queen. Ratchet gently shook the drowsy proto-queen, which only made her wrap her pillow even tighter.

"Five more minutes, Spike."

"Twilight, mother wants to speak to you."

Twilight cracked her eyes open. "You've gotten awfully furry, Spike," she groaned while smacking her lips.

Cadista broadened her speech to both changelings. You are notoriously difficult to rouse, my daughter. She requires caffeine.

At once, my queen.

Twilight blearily blinked as she watched Ratchet leave. Ah good, you're awake.

Twilight stretched and yawned. _Bluuuuuuuuh_. You normally don't wake me like this. Is something wrong?

That depends on who's answering. That pushed some of the morning fog from Twilight's mind. You're producing love… for Ratchet.

Twilight sat bolt upright, as if someone had just read from her diary. No I'm not! I-I um, that's not bad, is it? I mean Ratchet's a great guy, and— She paused. Wait, did you say... _producing?_ Wordless affirmation emanated from Cadista. That's _not possible_.

A ghost of a laugh drifted over the Link. He said the same thing. Ratchet will return with your coffee soon. This can wait until you're fully awake.

Twilight started rocking back and forth, clutching her tail. O-okay.

* * *

A short and mildly uncomfortable breakfast later, Twilight was sitting on the bed, watching the passing scenery through the window, but her mind was a million miles away.

I'm going to be perfectly blunt here, Twilight, I expected this to happen, although I will admit it was later than I anticipated.

Y-you expected me to produce love? _How?!_

…Twilight, I engineered you to be capable of this.

 _O-of course. I-It's our way for each queen to tailor her children to the finest degree, but…_ But why me?! Why didn't somepony else do it a long time ago?

Perhaps I misspoke. What I meant to say is, I made sure that you wouldn't _lose_ that ability. The missing element that you have is impossible to create via alchemy. I feel you have a right to know that I have been planning to convert a pony for the past three hundred years.

Twilight's paranoia redoubled. You—you _planned_ to convert me into a changeling!?

Not you, specifically, Twilight! Cadista quickly replied. Yes, I _was_ looking to find a pony to be my heir. Yumia and I have been working on this alchemical project for the better part of a millennium. In the end, I was not the daughter she wanted, _you_ are. Given your political position, I had no intention on converting you, but fate forced my hoof.

Twilight reluctantly accepted Cadista's placating thoughts, if only so she could think clearly. That nearly brought war between Equestria and the hives. Cadista sent her wordless acknowledgement. Don't you feel… resentful over not being wanted?

Yumia loved me as much as I do you Twilight; she was actually envious of me that in all likelihood, _I_ would be the one to see this day. As you are no doubt beginning to understand, Twilight, a queen always looks to the preservation and future of the hive. It is our very nature to do so.

 _My nature?_ Twilight's eyes drifted towards the rear of the train where the incubator was located. It called to her, striking a chord deep within her psyche that she was all too willing to heed. Yes… my nature.

Twilight's almost calm demeanor fell apart in an instant. Oh no, Ratchet found out I love him! How did he react?! Was he freaked out, or was he afraid of me, or, or, or did he like it, maybe? You didn't tell him to remain silent about it during breakfast did you? Please, _please_ tell me he wasn't repulsed by me! I didn't even get a chance to read my book on—

Calm _down_ , Twilight, why would you think Ratchet would dislike you?

Twilight stopped biting her hooves. Well, I mean, I was planning this whole thing on how to confess to him, how to say, what to say, and a checklist, and now it's all ruined because I produce love, and he sensed it before I was ready to tell him!

She could almost feel Cadista's facehoof. After centuries of waiting for this day, this is hardly the reaction I expected.

A knock on the door and a familiar presence in the hive mind grabbed the proto-queen's attention as Ratchet entered with a platter on his back. "Oh, um. I brought some extra coffee for you."

Cadista withdrew to let Twilight have her privacy. The proto-queen grabbed the platter with her magic and set it off to the side. "Ratchet… about earlier. I, ah..."

He averted his eyes and rubbed the back of his head. "Um, I really don't know what to say. I was never trained to be a collector, so I don't know any courtship rituals or mating habits." Twilight's drooping ears made him speak hastily. "But, I'm willing to learn—if you don't mind me being so ignorant about this whole _earning love_ thing…" He paused. "That came out wrong."

A warm smile crossed Twilight's lips as she sat down in front of him. "For somepony so ignorant of love, you didn't do so bad earning mine," she teased.

Ratchet felt the warmth of Twilight's love swell. "Well, I just, uh, do whatever, ya know?"

Twilight's smile grew as she leaned in close. "So do I." She closed her eyes, and ever so lightly, kissed him on the lips.

Ratchet blinked. "What was that?"

Twilight giggled. "A kiss, Ratchet. It's what ponies do when they love each other."

"Oh." _Of course it means that, you blockhead, why else would she do that?!_ "Um, it was good— I mean, nice."

Twilight cocked her head a little. "This sort of thing really isn't understood outside of the collectors, is it?"

Ratchet shook his head. "It never seemed important."

"Well, I read this book once on pony mating rituals, and it's theorized that kissing arose from the fact that our lips are some of the most sensitive parts of our body. In fact—"

 _Twilight_ , Cadista interrupted, you are already ruining your first romantic moment.

Twilight blushed, and Ratchet looked confused. Romantic moment? What's that?

 _Oh, Ratchet…_

* * *

Twilight left the incubator after personally dropping off the day's clutch of eggs. Being so far removed from the rest of the train, she found the adjoining freight car to be empty, save for the shipment of steel bars. She paused, and contentment washed over her as she thought about the eggs. _Her_ eggs. Was it trepidation? Joy? Or perhaps it was desire that danced through her mind.

 _Desire for what?_

Power? No, Twilight had more than she cared for. Conquest? Hardly. A home? _I already have a home,_ she told herself, but at the same time, it wasn't quite true.

Twilight traced a hoof along the steel ingots. The more she thought, the more her answers seemed to slip out of reach. Frowning, Twilight took her leave. _I'll find out what I really want later, I promised Rainbow Dash I'd meet her today._

Twilight barely took one step out of the last freight car when she found Rainbow Dash waiting for her with a pained expression. "Hey, Rainbow Dash, I didn't keep you waiting too long, did I?" she said casually, seeing if the pegasus would be forthcoming.

Rainbow Dash played it casual and started walking with Twilight. "Nah, it's cool, ya do what ya gotta do, right?" She started leading Twilight further up the train. "Say, you haven't had breakfast yet, have you?

Twilight's stomach growled, much to her displeasure. "I _did_ , actually, but I could definitely eat again."

"Geez, Twi, how many meals do you eat every day?"

Twilight huffed at her cyan friend. "Enough. You try laying four eggs a day, and see how much you eat." Rainbow only shrugged with indifference. "…Whatever, I'll tell the staff to grab us some pancakes."

Rainbow Dash gave her a deeply condescending look. "Really? Pancakes?"

"What's wrong with pancakes?"

"A mare as awesome as me doesn't _do_ pancakes. Only the might of waffles will suffice."

Twilight chuckled as she sent the request to Hot Spice. " _Sure_."

Rainbow stopped puffing her chest out as she remembered something. "Say Twi, the 'Lings around here are in a buzz like something huge happened. Should I be worried?"

Twilight rocked on her hooves as the train took a sharp turn. "It, ah…" _She's my friend, she deserves to know._ "It's about me. Apparently I'm capable of producing love."

Rainbow's condescending look returned in full force. "I may not be an egghead, Twilight, but even I know you don't produce emotions, you feel them."

Twilight grumbled while pinching her brow. _There's no way she's that dense._ "You know exactly what I mean. Chrysalis was practically getting off on all the love she was stealing from Canterlot."

Rainbow Dash snickered. "She was sounding a bit… _husky_ during that monologue of hers."

They reached a dining car filled to the brim with changelings. Twilight heard the drone of a dozen of conversations waft over her as she found an empty table. Rainbow on the other hand, heard nothing more than deathly silence, broken only by the clinking of tableware, moving chairs, and the grinding wheels of the train car. The pegasus cringed at the scene. _Okay, this is just freaky._

Rainbow's discomfort was not helped by finding the waiter placing their order on the table barely a second after taking their seats. Twilight eyed her ten-stack of pancakes like she hadn't eaten in days, and spoke while drenching it in syrup. "So how's Ponyville been since I've been gone?"

"Girl, you're asking the wrong mare for gossip," Rainbow replied while digging into her waffles. "You should've gotten Rarity to come along if you wanted _that_."

"Surely you know of something."

"Well, there was this bit with the Foal Free Press going around recently. Some writer named Gabby Gums was putting up a tell-all gossip column."

Twilight smirked at her. "I thought you said you don't like gossip."

"Hey, hey, there's gossip, and then there's _gossip_."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Rainbow waved a waffle laden fork at her fanged friend. "You know, for somepony who spends more time reading than sleeping, you're not really _in_ on that sort of thing, are you?" Twilight opened her mouth to rebuke, but Rainbow moaned with pleasure at her next bite. "Ahh, I still can't get over how Hot Spice can make a mean waffle; _buck_ this is good."

 _Ah, forget it._ "I'll pass your compliments," Twilight offered.

"So Twi, what's the deal with you 'Lings feeding on love, anyway?"

Rainbow could not have asked a worse question because Twilight instantly fell into lecture mode. "I'm glad you asked. For us, love is critically important for our nervous system, higher cognitive functions, and telepathy, to operate. Without love, we'd fall into a coma, and eventually go brain dead."

Rainbow Dash's raised an eyebrow. "Wow, what a bummer."

Twilight hummed in agreement. "Well, I prefer not to think about it."

"So…" Rainbow led on with mocking bedroom eyes, "you're a love factory now?" Rainbow smirked as she polished off another waffle to give Twilight time to understand her meaning. "Sounds like a name from one of the fellas from the stable back home."

Twilight bristled. "At least I didn't spend a month's pay there every week!"

"That doesn't even make sense, _love factory_. So hey, are we going to be stopping in Ponyville? I want to grab some stuff from home."

Twilight had the perfect rebuttal on the tip of her tongue, but forgot it in lieu of Rainbow's topic shift. _That, but, oh I give up._ She groaned and didn't answer until she had another bite. "The conductor won't stop until we reach Appleloosa, where we have to take on supplies for the final leg of the journey. Cadista doesn't want to risk the train being attacked while sitting in the station."

Rainbow freaked. "Ah, pickle nuts! I better book it back home before the train passes by Ponyville, be back later!"

Twilight watched her friend leave with a patronizing smirk. _Five bits she's going to grab her trashy romance novels._

Her fork clattered against an empty, syrup covered plate, and her eyes slowly shifted to Rainbow's half-finished meal. _No sense in letting good waffles go to waste._

* * *

A week later, Twilight was enjoying Ratchet and Rainbow Dash's company over drinks in a lounge. The partially darkened train car gently rocked its occupants as it raced through a tunnel. A glass of rum sat mostly undisturbed in front of Rainbow Dash, who kept flexing her stiff wings. "How much longer are we going to be stuck in this train? I can feel myself wasting away in here."

"Should only be for a few more minutes," Twilight said between sips of lemonade. "The last station is just beyond the mountains themselves."

Ratchet was too absorbed in the last several pages of the spider walker manual to pay the mares any mind. That changed when Twilight's tail brushed against his own, eliciting a mild jump out of him. Twilight's snickering served to identify the culprit. "Sorry, did you need something?"

She blushed while her hooves fiddled with her drink. "Find anything else of interest?"

"Nothing we didn't go over already. Except for—"

Ratchet, along with every other changeling in the car looked towards the windows, leaving Rainbow Dash at a loss. She glanced around to see them looking out at the passing rock of the tunnel. "What's going on?"

No sooner had the words left her month that the mid-day sun blared through the windows as the train left the tunnel behind. The gorge between the mountain and cliff based train station stretched out as far as the eye could see, as if the continent was trying to tear itself away from the fetid jungle. The setting sun coupled with the multicolored rock face of the gorge filled Twilight's heart with wonder. "Isn't nature beautiful?"

Rainbow mumbled to herself as the two changelings discussed the scenery. _That hive brain of theirs is really creepy._

The whistle wailed as the train slid noisily into station. The trio carried their baggage towards the street where a small shuttle airship awaited them. Rainbow Dash eyed the craft suspiciously, but did not hesitate to follow Twilight inside. "I thought you said we would be traveling back to your hive on one of those big ant walkers or whatever."

Twilight watched a series of crates being unloaded from the mobile incubator and carted to the shuttle. "Normally we would, but due to the circumstances, we'll be traveling in that."

Twilight waved a hoof at what seemed to be empty air. Or it was, until a huge, ninety meter airship decloaked. Rainbow Dash's mouth hung open as the shuttle brought them over into a hover above the steel behemoth.

"What in blazes is that!?"

"That," Twilight replied with pride and she shooed a fly away from Rainbow's mouth, "is the _S.G.N. Column of Spring_. It's a q-ship."

Rainbow stared in awe as the faux transport opened its top mounted doors to reveal a cramped cargo bay, barely large enough to accommodate the shuttle. The cyan pegasus fervently studied the craft. "Wait a sec, where's the gas bag? Every airship has a gas bag right?"

Ratchet cleared his throat. "Actually, our navy uses an artificial recreation of pegasus magic. With that, even a ship as large as this can stay aloft for weeks without refueling."

The shuttle came to a halt and Rainbow watched the cargo bay doors slide closed behind them. "Okay, _that_ was cool."

Rainbow Dash stuck close to Twilight as the proto-queen walked through the halls towards her cabin. "Hey Twi, how do you know where you're going? Nopony's told us where we're bunking."

Twilight rolled her eyes. "Hive mind, but we're not going to be staying long enough to need a cabin, just a place to store our luggage."

"Oh, right."

Twilight stopped walking and studied her friend. "Are you really that bothered by our Link?"

"...Not really, I just can't stand being out of the loop, ya know? I've seen a dozen 'Lings go by us without a single word being said, but I can still tell they were talking to each other. It's creepy to see a dining car full of ponies without a single word being said… out loud, anyway."

Twilight started back towards the cabin. "I don't know what to tell you, Rainbow Dash, we use the Link almost exclusively in the hive." _Well, aside from me, I guess._ "Tell you what, why don't I assign somepony to be your guide while I'm busy? You don't need to guard me while we're in Stripped Gear."

"You _are_ the official diplomat, Rainbow Dash," Ratchet offered, "you should get to know the town better for a while."

Rainbow stroked her chin in an attempt to look conniving. "A personal guide, huh? He'd better not slow me down."

"Heaven forbid," Twilight replied. "He'll be waiting for you when we get to the palace."

"How are you going to manage that?"

"Hive mind, remember?"

 _Bah, you can't use it for everything._ "What about your big queen? Does she hold court like Celestia?"

"Over the hive mind."

"Training soldiers?"

"Hive mind."

"Call the Fire Dep—?"

"Hive mind."

"Pay your taxes?"

"Hive mind."

"What about—"

" _Hive mind!_ "

"Do you use it to go to the bathroom, too?"

"Guuuuuuuuuh!"

* * *

True to her prediction, the q-ship made the trip in good time. The trio stood in a lone observation bubble suspended below the belly of the ship. A jungle covered caldera stretched out below them, illuminated by the glow of Luna's moon, seemingly devoid of all life.

Rainbow was finally getting a chance to fly, or at least hover, above Twilight. It did much to improve her mood, but it wasn't enough to hide her sour expression. "Okay, what gives? Where's that glowing city you raved about? There's nothing here but a weird mountain. This better not be more brain cloud crap."

Twilight took a deep breath. "Actually, Rainbow, we can't see the town yet either. We won't for another minute or so."

Rainbow Dash plopped on the metal floor next to her friend. "Give it to me straight, Twilight. How can you handle being in that think link of yours? It's like hearing a ton of different voices all at once, right?"

"It's really not the terror you keep making it out to be, Rainbow Dash. Yes, I hear thousands of voices all the time, but the Link doesn't drown you in a sea of noise. If I really wanted to, I could tune them out."

"But you don't, do you?" Twilight shook her head. "How can you think with all that noise in your head? I mean, they tell you to be quiet in a library for a reason."

Twilight huffed. "That never stopped you from yelling in _my_ library."

Rainbow snorted, but said nothing. She sulked until Ratchet pointed at the bottom of the ship. "There, that's the edge of the masking barrier."

They passed through a faint orange forcefield, revealing Stripped Gear in all its glory. Factories churned out smoke, food plazas were lit up in decorative color palettes, shops flaunted experimental neon advertisements, and all the buildings had warning lights. The sight left Rainbow Dash dumbstruck.

Small tugboats moved in to guide the massive beast towards the hatchery. While a second shuttle went about moving the eggs to their final destination below, the original shuttle headed straight for the palace.

Rainbow's muzzle was plastered against the glass as she drank in the sights. Never before had she bore witness to such a spectacle of color at night, and the bewildering artistry left her speechless. Twilight joined her at the window. "A lot different than Ponyville, isn't it?"

"You're not kidding. I haven't seen a town that's this lively at night! Canterlot _would_ if it wasn't for the stuffy nobles."

The shuttle passed by a sign extolling the virtues of Twist Berry Beer. "I thought you guys had that cloud brain for everything. Why bother with advertisement?" Twilight glared at her while tapping her hoof. "What?"

"I'm not going to dignify that with an answer."

"What did I say?"

Eventually, the shuttle landed on a palace platform. The lights on the platform and palace wall cast the area in an almost daytime ambience. Cadista stood near the boarding ramp.

Twilight squeezed out of the door, and launched herself at the hive queen. Mother! Cadista braced herself as Twilight collided with her in a bear hug. "I missed you so much!"

Cadista was briefly overwhelmed by the sensation of receiving intended love. _So it's really true. Praise the First Mother!_ She half chuckled, half snorted at Twilight's excessive enthusiasm. "How can you miss me so much if our minds are linked?"

Twilight nuzzled her. "There's a big difference between being able to talk to you, and being able to hug you."

"I'll take your word for it," she conceded before hugging her back.

Twilight jumped back to point at her nonplussed pegasus companion. "This is Rainbow Dash, longtime friend, and slowest flyer in Equestria."

Rainbow Dash snapped to attention. "Slowest!? Them's fightin' words!" she playfully growled in a mock Applejack accent.

Cadista let the two mares toss banter back and forth for a minute before clearing her throat. "Ambassador Rainbow Dash, it is an honor to finally meet you."

The pegasus had Twilight on the ground in a headlock. "Huh?" She looked up at the bemused queen before bolted up to her hooves and standing at attention. "Oh right," _Crud, how did it go again?_ "I, Rainbow Dash, the Element of Loyalty, thank you for your hospitality."

Cadista nodded slightly. "And I, Queen Cadista, welcome you to Stripped Gear. The hour is late, why don't I show you to your accommodations?"

Twilight stood up. It might be best if it's near the outer walls. RD will want to have something near the open sky.

That can be arranged.

Rainbow Dash followed the changelings deeper into the palace and couldn't peel her eyes off the multitude of lights brightening the hallways and aesthetically pleasing gear systems near the doors. The sound of clanking gears and hissing steam was faint, but omnipresent within the large hallways of the palace.

"Here we are," Cadista said, breaking Rainbow from her reverie as they came to a queen sized brass door. She stepped on the metal plate for the door to slip open and show Rainbow Dash a large room with a massive adjoining balcony. She pointed at a drone standing off to the side. "This is Brass Excursor, he will be your guide and assistant during your stay."

Rainbow Dash ignored the room and zipped over to inspect Brass. He was a little shorter than Ratchet, but with much larger wings. "Assistant, huh? You think your scout's going to be able to keep up with me?"

The drone sent a query to Cadista to see if he could speak freely. "I'm an Excursor for my speed and agility, not my charm and good looks, that's just a bonus," he added with a smirk.

Twilight wrapped a hoof around her friend. "Why don't we let you get settled in, Rainbow Dash. Cadista and I have a few matters to discuss."

"Oh, yeah, sure. See ya for breakfast or lunch tomorrow?"

Twilight briefly nuzzled her friend. "Sounds great." She lowered her voice to a whisper. "Thanks for coming Rainbow; you don't know how much this means to me."

Rainbow fidgeted, but didn't push her off. "Yeah, yeah, I know, enough with the mushy stuff already."

Twilight lost all of her mirth. "Rainbow Dash, I know it's going to be hard for you to stay here, but I meant it. Thank you for coming."

Rainbow groaned and gently pushed the clingy proto-queen off. "What are friends for right?"

Twilight snickered. _She never could take a hug for long._ "See you later, Rainbow Dash."

"Laters." Rainbow watched the two queens depart before turning back to Brass. "So, you think you can keep up with _me_ huh?"

Brass buzzed his wings to limber up. "We've heard of your competitiveness. It's why I was chosen."

"Is that right?" She eyed the open door to the balcony. "Well, then you'd better prove it!"

Without another word, Rainbow Dash bolted out of the room in a prismatic blur.

Brass was only barely able to track her movement. _Why didn't I see this coming?!_ Brass vaulted into the air, intent on winning this little contest.

* * *

Twilight and Ratchet followed after Cadista towards the royal chambers deeper in the palace. "I made arrangements for your chambers to be prepared in your absence and all of your personal effects moved in as well."

"Can Ratchet stay with me?" Twilight blushed. "I mean— that is, if you want to."

Ratchet glanced between the two royals. "I, ahh…"

"Given the nature of recent events, I will leave the matter entirely between the two of you."

He turned to see Twilight's warm smile. "If that's what you want, I would be honored."

They came at last to a sizable bedchamber with a personal library on the second story. However, the room was lacking furniture of any kind, save for a plain queen sized bed and a simple dresser with various personal hygiene implements on it.

Cadista remained near the door as Twilight and Ratchet slowly stepped inside. Twilight surveyed the mostly empty chamber with confusion. "It's a little… bare, don't you think?"

"Well, it would at least provide plenty of room for designing and building prototypes," Ratchet offered, "and the skylight's big enough to airlift supplies, so they don't need to be brought through the palace."

Twilight surveyed the area. "That's all well and good, but this feels more like a workshop than living quarters."

Cadista walked over to the balcony. "This used to be Yumia's room—she was always the tinkerer. Aside from some basic amenities, I've stripped everything out of here so that you can remodel your quarters as you wish."

"Oh," Twilight's ears fell. _I'm sure she just put it all in storage somewhere._

Ratchet sensed Twilight's desire for privacy. "Why don't I start packing my things so I can bring them over?" He bowed once to each royal. "My queen, Twilight."

Cadista watched him leave before speaking. What troubles you, my child?

Twilight sat on her haunches while rubbing her foreleg. "I know it's been a very long time since Yumia's death, but there isn't even a portrait of her anywhere. Not your room, or this one, or… well anywhere."

Cadista's gaze slowly fell away from the light of Stripped Gear towards Twilight. It is our way, Twilight. The hive mind keeps her in our history so that we may learn from the past, but not so that we'll get bogged down in it.

Twilight leaned her head against Cadista's foreleg. Canterlot castle has a stained glass hallway marking important events in Equestria's history. While the hive mind is nice, sometimes a visual reminder can be just as good.

Cadista's eyes never left the proto-queen leaning on her. If you wish to start such a project, I will support you.

The gears in Twilight's head churned away. _The future is important, but it seems like the past is forgotten. Maybe that's what I can do._

The elder queen felt Twilight's gratitude, but her troubled thoughts remained. Was there something else, my child?

Twilight cast the older queen a searching gaze. "Why do you never call Yumia 'mother?'"

Cadista's visage stiffened. "Because I do not know if she is."

"What do you mean? She birthed your egg, didn't she?"

"She designed the alchemy that made me, but… I did the same for her in my previous life."

Twilight cocked her head. "Previous life? Wait, I thought that it was Yumia's idea that our hive's new queens didn't break off to form their own Link."

"It might have been," Cadista replied at length as she tried to search her memories. "Yumia and I have played and reversed the roles of mother and daughter so many times through rebirth that I've forgotten who the first queen was."

"Then who was she to you, exactly?"

Cadista sat down so she could wrap a tentative hoof around Twilight. "It's… difficult to explain. I don't think it would be accurate to call her mother or daughter, nor a wife or life partner as it was never a romantic relationship… as far as I know, anyway. Again, the events of the life previous to this one are lost to me, and Yumia left such things in the past. I suppose it might be safer to call Yumia and myself as one being of two bodies, always in a state of decay and renewal."

Twilight watched the tears start falling off her mother's cheeks. "Until Chrysalis killed her."

A tidal wave of fury washed over Twilight. "Yes," she replied between clenched teeth. "That wretched creature thinks she only killed my mother, when she really murdered my other half." Her fury dissipated into resignation as she struggled to hold herself in check. "And, now… once my body fails me, through injury or age, I will die for good."

"What!?" Twilight shouted as she leapt into the air out of shock. "Why can't you go through rebirth again?"

Cadista gently pulled Twilight back to the floor. "Because I don't wish to. Our dream has been realized in you, Twilight Sparkle. My time on this world is passing, and I have long since accepted that."

Tears dripped down Twilight's face as she hugged Cadista. "Don't talk like that! I can't lead the hive without you!"

The elder queen nuzzled Twilight. "Don't fear, Twilight, just because I have resigned to leave this world does not mean I will rush to meet my fate. As long as I draw breath, I will aid you for as long as I can." She tilted Twilight's head up with a hoof and flashed a reassuring, but weak, smile. "And that will be for a long time yet."

With her spirits recovering, Twilight yawned deeply. "I'm glad. For a minute there it sounded like you wanted to…"

Cadista nodded solemnly. "I apologize, thinking too much about Yumia often robs me of my good humor. You should get some rest, I have a feeling you will want the entirely of tomorrow to redecorate."

Twilight chuckled briefly. "Well, that'll be a joint effort between me and Ratchet, but there is something else I want to do this week." Cadista hummed inquisitively. "I want to see just how much useable love I produce, and who can feel it."

"I thought you might. I will make arrangements for the day after tomorrow."

"Great! For now, I'd better go help Ratchet move. Bye!"

 _Why doesn't she just ask some drones to do that?_ Cadista was about to ask as Twilight flew through the skylight, but something stayed her hoof. _Oh, let her go, it's probably a custom among ponies._

* * *

The next week and a half flew by as Twilight settled back into hive life. It was a nippy autumn morning as Twilight flew over the city. She took in the brief stillness in the skies before the hive exploded with activity. Firmly clasped in her magic was an object that had the distinct honor of being both embarrassing and precious to her. It was a steel container shaped exactly like the egg cartons she used to buy from Applejack.

Despite having used the thing every day since her return, Twilight still blushed at the sight of it. _I'm never going to be able to look at chicken eggs the same way again._ The longer she looked at the carton, the more it soured her memories of scrambled eggs. _That does it, my first act as queen is redesigning this thing._

Twilight wrenched her eyes from the egg carton to spy the hatchery off in the distance, but a prismatic blur off to the side caught her attention. Rainbow Dash was about to pass her by, but Twilight's distinctive red wings were hard to miss against the brass and bronze of the city. "'Sup, 'Ling Queen."

Twilight yelped in surprise, and the egg crate in her magic wavered for a moment until she restabilized it. She let a sigh of relief before facing Rainbow Dash's smug grin. "Don't sneak up on me like that, I almost dropped them!"

Rainbow waved off Twilight's exasperation. "I would've caught 'em."

Twilight pulled a checklist and quill out of her saddlebags and started writing on the back of it. _Note to self: beware of Rainbow Dash while transporting eggs._

Rainbow performed aileron rolls around Twilight until she took closer scrutiny of her friend's magic. "Hey Twi, did you notice your magic's nearly all purple again?"

The proto-queen took a moment to hold the checklist and quill away from her face to inspect the aura. "Yeah, it started changing back a while ago, but my magic stopped short of turning all the way back. I don't think I'll ever be rid of the orange flicker that dances through it all the time."

"Can't you like, make it go away?"

Twilight put her checklist and quill away. "It takes a while and constant effort to change one's magic color, but the orange flicker's kind of growing on me. I think I'll keep it."

"It does look pretty rad. I haven't seen anypony with multicolored magic before." She glanced away from Twilight. "Well, aside from King Smoke with Eyes anyway."

As they neared the hatchery, Rainbow was about to fly off when something occurred to her. "So, uh, do you always deliver the eggs yourself?"

Twilight fidgeted with her hooves, but managed to keep her voice level. "I, ah, no, I haven't done it myself since we were on the train."

"So what makes this batch so special?"

Twilight looked insulted. "Rainbow Dash, I would think that _you_ of all ponies would know that every child is special to their mother, even if all you see is an egg."

Rainbow Dash was not so easily dismissed. "You wouldn't be trying to hide something from me, would you?"

"I—uh—buh—No! Of course not!"

Twilight cringed and started to back away from Rainbow's reproachful glare. "I may not have AJ's lie detector magic, but I _know_ you're not telling me something."

"It's… personal."

Rainbow's scowl was replaced by pleading clasped hooves. "Oh come _oooon_ , Twilight. I'm your friend, how personal could it be?"

Twilight worked her jaw as she debated on if she should anything at all. _She's going to make me regret this._ "You have to promise not to tell anypony."

"Who's ta' tell? I'm always the last to know anything around here, with that group think you all have."

 _I guess she's right._ "They're… Ratchet's eggs."

"Him? I thought only queens laid eggs." Twilight shot her a sardonic look before understanding fell over Rainbow's visage. "Oh, oh! Well, well, well, so you finally got around to that, huh?"

Twilight landed in front of the hatchery and kept the egg carton close. "Yes, well, unlike you, I wanted my first time to be something special."

Rainbow Dash grinned. "So, if you two break up, does that mean he has to pay egg support?"

"Rainbow!" The cyan pegasus rolled in the air, laughing, until she saw a familiar drone flying towards them.

"Uh oh, gotta jet!"

Rainbow Dash bolted away as Brass landed right next to where the pegasus had been. "Confound that pony! Stay still for once!" he yelled after her.

Twilight watched him take a moment to catch his breath before flying off after Rainbow. The proto-queen couldn't stop a mirthful snort from escaping her. _Well, it's not like I wanted to keep it a secret, anyway._

Unlike the mobile incubator, the hatchery was a cavernous chamber under the palace, with heavily reinforced support columns covered in disused alcoves of a bygone era. The floor, however, was a maze of pipework that criss-crossed underneath catwalks leading to rows upon rows of glass incubators.

The hatchery smelled like cleaning chemicals and ancient alchemical magic that tickled the nose of anyone who remained for very long. Luckily, Twilight was headed for the central control room, where the caretakers from the mobile incubator awaited her, along with a dozen other drones starting their morning shift.

The senior caretaker dipped her head in respect. Sister, while it is a pleasure to see you as always, I am unsure as to why you did not let us deliver the eggs for you.

Twilight landed carefully on the small landing platform in front of the control center and levitated the egg crate onto the floor between them. "Because of this." Using her magic to open the crate, Twilight revealed five, not four, glowing purple eggs.

The two drones moved over to inspect them carefully for flaws. After a minute the caretaker gave Twilight an approving nod. "They are in excellent condition, a good sign that your maturation is progressing without complication. I know it must be difficult to have a consistently high appetite."

Twilight watched as other caretakers removed the eggs to be placed in the larger incubators below. "Not so much anymore, it just took a few days or so to remind myself that all of the calories are going into the eggs, not my flank."

The elder caretaker moved over to Twilight with a tape measure, starting with her legs, while the younger one stood nearby with a clipboard and quill. "Well, in a manner of speaking, it _is_."

The proto-queen looked at her forelegs while the caretaker measured her hind ones. "Do we really have to do this _every day?_ "

"Yes," the drone declared as she probed Twilight's skeleton with her magic. "Otherwise your development and egg health might be in jeopardy. By the way, your bone density is starting to drop."

Twilight pulled out her checklist and amended her previous personal note. "I'll start drinking more milk," she mumbled.

The drone made several other measurements and passed on a few other recommendations until she arrived at Twilight's head. "I don't understand it," she said after removing the Element of Magic from atop Twilight's brow and inspecting the top of her head. "There should be at least some sign of your crown growing in."

Twilight nearly knocked the older mare in the muzzle as she looked up. "Wait, _that's_ what you've been inspecting my head for, for the past two weeks? We _grow_ that?!"

The elder changeling tactfully pulled Twilight's head back down to continue her inspection. "Yes, every royal since our race began starts growing their crown in at the proto-queen stage."

"But I've seen mother take hers off. She hardly wears it at all around the palace."

Having no luck, the caretaker released Twilight's head so she could stand normally. "They've always been removable after fully growing in, and for other hives they are critical to the queen's ability to command her swarm without being overwhelmed by the weight of their hive mind."

"You make it seem like our hive doesn't."

"That's because we don't," the younger caretaker replied, "due to us drones being far more intelligent than the average, we don't require such intensive micromanagement."

"Not to mention that those same drone improvements were incorporated into Cadista and you as well. You could support a hive mind of half a million without your crown's amplification, but that still doesn't explain why you're not growing one. Mother never said anything about removing that from the alchemy that remade you."

Twilight was about to replace the Element of Magic when a thought occurred to her, and she pulled the tiara in front of her face. "Maybe this is why." Both caretakers shot her quizzical looks. "The Element and I are one and the same. What if it replaced my crown?"

The two drones blinked. "It's… possible," the younger one offered. "The crown grows in when you start forming your own hive mind, but maybe only if you don't already possess an amplifier."

The trio of mares were jarred out of their debate when Twilight froze. Of the one hundred and thirteen silent slots in the hive mind forming under her, four of them were waking up. Twilight's ears turned towards the northern section of the hatchery.

"Twilight?"

"They're hatching!" Without another word, Twilight raced through the air as the two caretakers tried to keep up. She arrived at a padded dais, where her first twelve eggs were resting. The eggs themselves had grown to the size of a watermelon, but Twilight was focused on four of them in particular.

A lone caretaker jumped as Twilight approached. "Sister! I was just about to call you."

"I know, I can hear them." The first two caretakers arrived and, with the help of the third, they moved the other eight eggs away so the first four would have room to hatch.

Twilight knelt down until she was at eye level with the quartet of eggs as they started quivering. Bit by bit, the changeling infants became more restless as the hardened wax shells started to fracture. Twilight's eyes grew wide as one changeling's horn managed to breach her shell, and her three siblings quickly followed suit.

That's right, break free. You can do it. She didn't know if they could understand her yet, but she encouraged them anyway.

After a minute of slowly wearing down her shell, the first hatchling freed her head from the egg and slumped over, trying to catch her breath. What she got was a full view of Twilight's face. The purple hatchling chirped inquisitively as the proto-queen smiled and used her magic to help pry off the rest of the egg.

There you go, little one. She turned to the other three hatchlings as they freed themselves. Twilight helped each in turn while one of the caretakers brought over a heating unit to keep the hatchlings warm.

Twilight's heart melted at seeing the four purple hatchlings, each bearing her mane colors of purple and orange, but they lacked her cutie mark. The proto-queen's love poured into her hatchlings, as they stumbled towards her. She looked into their azure glowing eyes with a few tears of joy dampening her fur.

Sitting on her haunches, she wrapped all four hatchlings in her forelegs and held them tightly. Sensing her as both their queen, and as a strong source of love, the four purple changelings feebly hugged her back. _My darling little foals._

Twilight and her first four drones remained in the embrace for a few precious minutes before the elder caretaker rested a hoof on the proto-queen's withers. "Sister, we should take them to nymph care."

Twilight looked first to the caretaker, then to her hatchlings. The azure glow in their eyes was slightly dimmer than Cadista's drones, making their irises more visible, but not enough to see their color. "Don't worry, little ones. Your aunts will take good care of you."

The four nymphs clung to their mother, and only source of love. Twilight kissed each one on the forehead. "It's okay, mama can always hear you."

Sending as many reassuring thoughts as possible, Twilight calmed her nymphs down and levitated them to the waiting hooves of the caretakers. The younger caretaker stayed behind and watched as Twilight bit her hoof as the hatchlings were taken to the western section of the hatchery. "I should go help."

"Sister, wait!" the drone called out before the proto-queen could take off. "Twilight, you can trust your brood in our care. This is what we've been trained for."

"I-I know, but, they're my children. I need to care for them."

"Sister, I read up on how mammals care for their young, but you can't give that… style of care to your young ones."

Twilight wrestled between logic and her maternal instinct. "But… they're precious to me."

The caretakers sat next to the proto-queen and pulled her head towards the ground floor incubators. "Aren't they as well?"

"Of course they are," Twilight replied definitively. "I just… I don't want the most they ever see of me is an occasional passing glance."

The drone hugged her royal sister. "They are linked to you, Twilight. If they ever want to feel your love for them, all they have to do is think of you."

Twilight watched over the active incubators and thought of Cadista. She was rewarded by the elder queen's caressing touch upon her mind. "Thank you, sis, I may not be able to be a part of their day to day lives, but I want to be there when they hatch. From both the egg and the chrysalis."

The caretaker nodded and flew off after sensing Twilight no longer needed her. The proto-queen's gaze remained on her eggs. _My children, I promise you that I will be the best mother I can possibly be to you. After all, a queen is incomplete without her drones._

* * *

The moon was high in the night sky by the time Ratchet returned to the workshop he called home. The walls were aglow with the flickering light of a scented candle, beating back the smell of grease. Next to the candle sat a pile of books, and the only mare in Equestria who would willingly subject herself to them. Twilight was so absorbed in her studies, she didn't notice the door opening.

Grey hooves softly clopped along the floor as Ratchet let the door swing shut behind him. He wiggled out of his saddlebags and softly fluttered over to Twilight's side, his gossamer wings creating the slightest of breezes in the still air of the room.

"Sorry I was out so late."

Twilight tore her eyes from the musty old tome. The light of the candle cast shadows that danced across her face. "It's okay, I was distracted myself." They shared a long kiss before she turned back to her studies. "I'll go to sleep in a few hours, I don't want to start laying first thing in the morning again."

"Ah, it wasn't that bad. It gave me an excuse to test out my newest washing machine improvements." They snickered as Ratchet brought over some spare cushions next to her. "So, what are you studying?"

Twilight rubbed her tired eyes. "I need to contribute something to our race if I'm to earn the right to found my own hive. So, I've been digging through our history, but I can't find anything before the ebony castle's first queen."

Ratchet started massaging her wing shoulders from behind her, eliciting a moan of relief. "I take it mother didn't have any answers, either?"

Twilight gave up on the book and leaned back into the massage with a blissful expression. "No, she seems completely disinterested in any past beyond her own. Oh _Celestia_ , that feels good."

Ratchet adjusted his treatment towards the base of Twilight's neck, making her melt into the cushions. "Maybe that could be your contribution, if you find some long lost alchemy or something? I'm sure that would be acceptable by the summit. How does this feel?"

He gently pulled Twilight onto her back so he had easier access to her left foreleg and kneaded her muscles. Twilight's body went limp under his caring touch. "That feels _wonderful._ I'm suddenly really happy that we don't have chitin."

Ratchet betrayed none of his mounting sadness as he slowly moved on to her other foreleg. "I thought you were going to stay with Stripped Gear."

"I am, in a sort," Twilight replied lazily. "I won't be severing the Link with mother. We're going to try a new thing where multiple hives will remain united in a singular hive mind."

He slowly worked his magic up her neck before coming face to face with Twilight. "Glad to hear it. If our minds were ever separated…"

Twilight pulled him in close for a tight hug. "Ratchet, my love, I would never leave you, nor Stripped Gear. I want my future hive and Stripped to be united as one nation. That…" She gave him a long, lasting kiss. "…will be our legacy. United queens under one Link," _and to join Equestria as a single nation._

Ratchet nuzzled her face in slow movements. "I would be honored to help you achieve such a goal," he kissed her on the cheek, "my queen."

Twilight's laugh echoed through the room. "You've become quite the Romeo."

"I've been taking a few love collector classes Rose recommended."

Twilight nibbled one of Ratchet's ears. "Is that right?"

Ratchet felt Twilight's love swirling around and through him like a furnace. "It's helped, but I think I can do better." He planted a long, passionate kiss upon her lips. Twilight wrapped her hooves around the drone that had unwittingly stolen her heart, and they fell back on the cushions, giggling.


	11. Chapter 11

Epilogue

A phonograph spilled forth a downbeat tune as a lavender-orange glowing quill moved to the song's rhythm. A collection of rolled up scrolls sat in a pyramid as Twilight Sparkle signed another.

She inspected the letter before rolling it up with a ribbon, and levitated an enchanted stamp with Rarity's cutie mark over. She carefully spat a globule of salve on the tie of the ribbon and stamped it. "There, that's the last of them."

With a flick of magic, Twilight lit the dragon scale candle and burned the letters to her pony friends and family. She had barely finished sending the letters when it flared up once again, and another letter fell onto the table. Excitement coursed through her until she saw the seal bore Velvet Sparkle's cutie mark. Her smile sunk into a grimace as she broke the seal.

Dear Twilight Sparkle,

I, Open Source, Chief of Thaumatology, of Canterlot Academy Research Department, have been informed that you are suffering from a malady that has stricken your body. Upon your request, I am gathering a team, and will be traveling to Stripped Gear within a fortnight—

"I never asked for this!" Twilight angrily crumpled up the letter and flung it in the waste bin. The force of it sent the flimsy trash can flying a few meters before slapping against Ratchet's workbench, spilling its contents everywhere.

The drone looked down from his work on a clockwork pony head to see the mangled remains of the battered bin, and the dozens of scattered paper before peering up at a morose Twilight Sparkle slouching over her desk. "Something wrong?"

He knew exactly what was wrong, but Twilight always dismissed it as nerves. She attempted to rub the sudden fatigue out of her face, to little effect. She idly cleaned up her mess without looking away from her desk. With silence being her only answer, Ratchet abandoned his work, and flittered over to the brooding queen. "You know you can talk to me about anything, Twilight."

A brief ghost of a smile passed over her as Ratchet laid a comforting hoof on her withers. Slowly, she turned her slightly bloodshot eyes at him. "Ratchet… am I doing the right thing?"

"With what, honey?" He nuzzled her briefly.

"…Deciding to stay this way? As a changeling queen, that is."

He paused. "I can't really answer that, Twilight. It's not my place to judge what you do with your life," he pecked her on the cheek, "only to catch you if you fall. Changeling or pony, I'll be here for you."

It was a cheesy line, but it still produced a smile, frail though it was. "I don't know what I'm going to do about Velvet. Dad says she's completely obsessed over this."

"Well, what are _your_ reasons to remain a queen?"

"I want peace between ponies and—" she answered automatically.

Ratchet held up a silencing hoof. "Twilight, you know that's not what I meant, why do _you_ want to stay this way?"

Twilight's ears fell flat, and she slumped on her cushion, while averting her gaze. "I love what I am… does this make me selfish?"

Ratchet lightly lifted her chin with his hoof. "Not at all. You have a right to be happy, Twilight."

Laughter fought to escape her depression, and eventually won out, filling the room with warmth. Twilight blinked away a tear, and hugged Ratchet as if her life depended it. Despite all of her magical prowess, she felt safe wrapped in Ratchet's hooves. She wished that moment could last forever.

Yet it was not to be, as a loud rapping on the door shattered the moment.

Twilight twisted around at the clock above her desk. "They're here already?!" Twilight bounced up, and hastily gathered all of the room's cushions into a mound. Come in!

A caretaker barely managed to open the door before four purple nymphs barged their way in, and made a beeline straight for Twilight shouting in unison. "Mama!"

Twilight braced herself as a wave of giggling purple fur slammed into her. Sixteen hooves clung to the proto-queen while four faces stared up at her with a child's love. Chuckling, Twilight flew over to the mound of cushions so she could sit down and shake the squealing nymphs off. "How are my little ones today?"

With their mother at ground level, the nymphs swarmed over her, with one of them latching onto Twilight's face. The little drone stared into her mother's comparatively massive eyes with the biggest smile her tiny face could produce. "Mama, mama!"

Twilight's heart melted into a puddle of goo as she pulled the squirming nymph off her face, and cradled her in her forelegs. She felt the love of her nymphs flow into her as they in turn fed off her love for them. The caretaker trotted over with a perplexed expression. "I have to say, sister, you don't have the same... reaction as I would expect out of a queen, nor the nymphs, for that matter."

Twilight flicked her tail back and forth as one of the nymphs tried to bite the end of it, while a second nymph clung to Twilight's hoof as she gently tried to shake her off. "When I'm not on official business, I want some time to _just_ be a mother. I don't care how many children I end up having."

"They certainly seem to be enjoying themselves," Ratchet offered with a shrug.

One of the nymphs caught sight of the half-finished clockwork pony head Twilight had mistakenly brought into the cushion pile, and jumped over to confront it. Twilight noticed the young changeling positioned herself to stand between the head and her mother while growling at it.

A mischievous grin crept over Twilight and she wrapped the metallic head in her magic and made it slowly float towards the challenging nymph. Instead of being cowed or frightened, the filly growled louder at it and kept moving so that she was always between Twilight and the ghostly robot head.

Twilight leaned her head down to whisper in the nymph's ear. "Uh oh, the big scary monster's going to eat you."

The nymph stiffened and, in what ended up being more adorable than intimidating, rushed forwards, jumping on top of the floating head and biting its brass ear, while trying to simultaneously hold on and punch the robot. Twilight used a bit a magic to throw her voice to be inside the metal head. "Oh no, I have been defeated, _blaaaaarg!_ "

The nymph jumped off as the head fell to the cushions, and ended up on its side before Twilight released it from her magic. The nymph instantly repositioned herself between the fallen head and Twilight. With the head on its side, and unmoving, the nymph cocked her head and poked it with an investigative hoof. She bounced back in case the head attacked her, but it remained motionless.

Nodding with satisfaction with her victory over the monster, the nymph turned to Twilight and reared up to hug her mother. Twilight rubbed her daughter's head, as she cooed in response. "My triumphant little protector." The nymph buried her head deeper into Twilight's fur before looking up into her mother's eyes, her stubby little wings quivered with wonder. "Aegis, I think I'll name you Aegis."

Aegis chirped in appreciation and hugged her mother even tighter.

* * *

Later that day, in the deepest bowels of the palace, Twilight was assailed by a cloud of dust as she opened a pair of ancient doors. Cadista cleared the air with a gust of wind. "I forgot this place even existed."

Twilight was sent into a fit of coughing, and took a swig from her canteen to ease her lungs. "Not surprising, the architecture here looks organic, like a primitive insect hive… almost like the ebony castle's interior… Just how old is Stripped Gear, anyway?"

Cadista floated her horn light into the chamber as the two changelings entered, finding books, dust, primitive alchemy tools, more dust, a few rotten wax pods on the ceiling, even more dust, and a shelf crammed with scrolls. And also, dust.

"After all those rebirths, I've forgotten the hive's true age, or even my own." She inspected some of the cobweb covered tools. "These are shaped chitin; perhaps it's almost as old as the First Queen herself."

Twilight scanned the myriad of tomes, carefully blowing dust off their spines. "The markings are reminiscent of modern Vespid, so I can probably work up a translation easily enough."

Cadista looked at the forgotten chamber with disinterest. "I still don't understand why you wish to delve into the past."

"Because the past shapes our present and future. There might even be something on our origins."

Cadista's gaze fell upon the decayed pods, and their distinctive cigar shape churned her stomach. "Ugh, to think Yumia, or I, used to resort to kidnapping for love."

Twilight hmm'ed at seeing a promising book and carefully removed it from the pile. "All the more reason to investigate the past. One of you might have written a journal. Wouldn't it be just _fascinating_ to see just how far you've come?"

The elder queen failed to find anything of interest. "I suppose, if you can shorten it to five bullet points."

Twilight dusted off a chair and sat down with her treasure. "This one should be good, it's a journal from…" she methodically translated the cover as Cadista cantered over. "Kwiːn Ge'tua'vat, founder of the nation, Gur. Sound familiar?"

Cadista arched an eyebrow. "Not in the slightest."

Twilight opened the book with a creak, as its ancient bindings struggled to hold together. "If you don't mind, I'd like to study this for a while."

"Be my guest. If you think this is of importance, then do it for as long as you wish."

* * *

As the hours passed, a collection of empty glasses and several plates of food piled up on the table next to Twilight. A pair of drones dusted the old archive as Twilight worked through her translations. A few electric lamps and fans had been brought in, with wires snaking outside to a mobile generator.

Twilight put the finishing touch on the first entry's translation. "Let's see, alchemical projects, logistics entries of the hive's founding, and a mortality report. Strange how advanced alchemy was, compared to their technological or magical knowledge…" Twilight's eyes drifted down the page to a bit of informal text written in the margins.

"Ah, the personal notes of Ge'tua'vat. Too bad there's so little of it…"

Oʊ.vɚ Kwiːn Tia'vil'yet says this land will suit us nicely, our exodus was—

"Exodus?" Twilight frowned. "Exodus from what?"

She turned the page, and a small gasp escaped her lips.

* * *

Deep in the bowels of a buzzing hive, an ebony queen with acidic magic slaved over a magical array. A piece of charcoal darted in and out, making minor adjustments. Chrysalis studied her work before turning back to the crystal ball displaying Celestia ripping the unicorn assassins from their teleports. She wrapped the ball in her magic, changing the display to reveal the mana manipulation of the spell itself.

Taking several glances between the array and the crystal ball, Chrysalis nodded at her work. "There, that's should do it."

She turned to face the five hypnotised unicorns standing to the side with green glowing eyes. All of them still wore their academy faculty uniforms. "Prisoner one, step into the array!"

"Yes... my love," a mustard yellow stallion replied in an absent unfocused tone.

"And don't scuff the pattern," she commanded.

The elderly unicorn assumed the position in the center of the array, prompting the callous queen to empower the array. "Now, teleport back to your cell."

Without a word, the unicorn's horn lit up and a flash of light enveloped him, only for the magical reaction between spell and array to explode, along with him with it. Chrysalis shielded herself as bits of flaming pony flew in all directions, leaving nothing more than smoldering hooves and bloody chunks all over the room. Chrysalis kicked the bucket of charcoal over in a rage. "Damn it all! Even in the midst of battle she masks her spellwork."

The array was ruined, but it was a failure anyway. "At least it's not a total loss." She faced the other charmed prisoners. "Clean this mess up, then return to your cells."

"At once... my love," they replied in unison.

Chrysalis ignored the ponies as she paced in front of her smoldering workspace. "The subspace disruption matrix was delayed for too long." She stopped to collect the crystal ball that had been knocked onto the floor, its image stuttering before it stabilized. "No matter, I'll unravel her secrets soon enough."

She sauntered over to a defaced portrait of Celestia, and picked up a dart with her magic. "And when they are…" The dart flew across the room, nailing the base of Celestia's horn. "You, and all the love you have for your subjects, will be mine!"

end of arc one


	12. Chapter 12

arc two: for the hive

Long Live the Queen

If there was one thing the changeling jungle was known for, it was hot, sweltering rain. It fell so heavily that Twilight Sparkle was half convinced that there was an ocean above the Summit's amphitheater. The rain slid towards the sheer drop offs at the far sides of the room, which would make keeping one's footing rather difficult on the slippery waxed floors, were it not for the changelings' wall walking ability.

The gathered royals sat impatiently as Cadista addressed them with Twilight standing slightly behind her. Despite being the center of attention, Twilight couldn't help but to scan those in attendance. Of the original twelve queens that were present in her first Summit, three were gone. Only one of the other proto-queens from the first summit had obtained the mantle of queen.

 _Speaking of which, I'd better pay attention._

The storm raging above them was near deathly silent thanks to Silandrus' enchantments. This allowed Cadista to be heard with ease. Twilight was partially glad that she had missed her mother's opening statement, it was long and tedious, and she'd heard it in rehearsal so much that she was sick of it.

"I, Queen Cadista of the hive Stripped Gear, deem my daughter and heir, Twilight Sparkle, fit to assume the mantle of queen. My tribute to the Home Guard has been paid, and thus I request of this Summit that my heir be given the title she so rightly deserves."

Twilight suffered it all with poise and grace. _This is what…the fifth time she's had to readdress herself like that in the past twenty minutes?_ Cadista's words were not her own, she would have been more flattering given the choice, but tradition demanded it. Oddly enough, it was one of a scant few Silandrus did not cut corners off for the sake of time.

The gathered royals turned to the lone Home Guard drone who approached the speaking floor with his head lowered in reverence. "I attest that Queen Cadista's tribute of eggs and supplies is satisfactory."

Twilight glanced at Chrysalis, who had a mocking grin on her face. It went unsaid, but Twilight knew why Chrysalis and several others scoffed at Cadista's tribute. _I'll probably hear the same nonsense about egg failure rates myself. Why do you think we use incubators?_

Silandrus remained impassive to the other queens. "Very well, the floor recognizes Twilight Sparkle." Cadista reclaimed her seat as Twilight took her mother's place at the center of the chamber. Silandrus studied the purple changeling intently, seeking for doubt, apprehension, and fear. She found a mixture of the three, as was expected. "It feels as if it was only a week ago that you first darkened these halls, Twilight Sparkle," she stated evenly, as if the rain wasn't bothering her in the slightest.

"Four years doesn't seem so long anymore."

Silandrus grunted amusingly at the former unicorn. "No, I'd imagine it wouldn't." She could see some of the royals grumble about Silandrus' hypocrisy for wasting time with small talk. _I'm old and weathered, I'm entitled to it._ Nevertheless, she had no desire to compound the matter. "The mantle of queendom is not to be taken lightly. You must always act to advance the changeling race, no matter what _previous_ loyalties you once held. Do you swear to this?"

Twilight nodded slowly. "I am a changeling first and foremost, as is my allegiance."

"Good. Now, what have you to offer in payment for this elevation in status?"

Unlike Cadista, Twilight had to offer something to the changeling queendoms as a whole, rather than just the Home Guard. "I offer the gift of knowledge," Twilight answered flatly as she prepared herself for backlash, "I have evidence pointing to distinct possibility that the Cresnox Jungle is _not_ the birthplace of our race."

Stunned silence, gasps of astonishment, and a few scornful barbs was the Summit's immediate response. Changelings cared little about the past, save for one thing.

 **"Blasphemy!"**

"What evidence?!"

"What kind of tribute is that?"

"You can't be serious."

Twilight weathered a half dozen other insults before Silandrus slammed her gavel for silence. She glowered at the lavender changeling, who was doing an admirable job at hiding her anxiety. "The Ebony Castle has stood for eons as the birthplace of our race. Your evidence better be convincing indeed if you wish to _ever_ see your crown."

Had tradition not dictated silence from the other queens at this moment, Twilight would have been shouted out of the room by the more zealous royals. "It is." Twilight summoned a satchel full of water resistant scrolls. "I discovered ancient records in the lower levels of Stripped Gear, Kreesus' palace, and eight hive ruins which indicate that our kind migrated here before the Ebony Castle was built. I made copies for everypony, should you want them."

Silandrus glanced at Kreesus, who nodded in affirmation of Twilight's claim. She liked to think of herself as a sensible individual, but even then, Twilight's theory was hard to accept. "When it comes to the past, there is little we queens concern ourselves with. Why should we accept your evidence or your theory?"

Half of the other royals muttered their agreement. Chrysalis shared the others' displeasure, but kept quiet about it. _Twilight Sparkle is not to be underestimated, she_ had _to know this would be our reaction._

True to form, Twilight _did_ have a follow up. "Because I plan on locating artifacts of our birthplace, and then donate them to the Home Guard. If I find enough, I can give some to every queen present here today. That should meet your satisfaction."

The grumbling in the chamber returned. Only this time, it was out of intrigue, rather than outrage. Silandrus listened to it all, noticing the shift, but her gaze never left the purple supplicant. _Having a genuine artifact of the real homeland_ would _be necessary, should her theory be correct._ "Those artifacts would have served as a better tribute for your crown than a promise would." She caught herself right as the words left her mouth. "…You mean to search the Ebony Castle for an archive… assuming it has one."

Twilight waited for the other royals to quiet down. "Correct. As you all know, I'm barred from entering the castle, outside of attending Summits, until I am crowned queen. While the castle may not be our birthplace, it _is_ the oldest hive in the jungle. I'm sure to find a clue to our place of origin."

 _I've seen supplicants gift knowledge of alchemy, new farming techniques, and knowledge of better love feeding grounds; but that wasn't enough for her, now was it? This must be her way of affirming her dedication to her new species._ Silandrus eyed the bound scroll still held aloft in Twilight's lavender-orange magic. The younger mare carried herself with something in between fear of rejection and a firm belief that she was right. "Given the nature of your request, I call for a recess. If the Summit finds your evidence and proposal adequate, you will be granted what you seek."

"I will trust in your collective wisdom." Twilight levitated her collection of scrolls to each queen present. Some took the offered literature with curiosity, while did so others with begrudging reluctance. One queen snarled at it and smacked the scroll away from her. "I don't need a recess to come to my decision! This is nothing but blasphemy and an insult! I demand this—this **outsider** be killed immediately!"

Yeelindrus and a couple others followed suit. "Well said! We cannot forget she's an Equestrian." Cadista and her supporters shot Yeelindrus scathing glares, not that she noticed, or cared. "We're all practically in a love famine thanks to her helping the ponies retrieve their prisoners. There aren't enough feeding grounds for love collection alone!"

Silandrus slammed her gavel five times just to silence the insufferable nag. "You all know tradition! The mother is held accountable for the actions of the daughter until she becomes a queen herself. **But** we are not here to discuss the love famine in _some_ of the hives."

The elder queen allowed herself to sneer at Chrysalis' merry band before continuing. "We are here to judge if Twilight Sparkle is ready for the weight of her crown."

Chrysalis had to forcibly restrain Yeelindrus from speaking again. _"Hold your tongue, or I'll have it removed. Equestrian or not, I will NOT be without artifacts of the homeland!"_

With the rain laying claim over the awkward silence, Kreesus took to the air. "Going back to the matter at hoof, I for one _want_ to know if we've been paying homage to the right queen. We owe it to the First. Whomever that might be."

"That is all _assuming_ Twilight's claim is true," called a more neutral queen. "I propose a different approach."

She turned to Silandrus, who was still a little miffed about her motion for a recess not getting seconded. _This had better be good._ "Let's hear it, Daubera."

"I propose we grant her the mantle of queen now." Several voices of complaint and shock threatened to derail her, but Daubera was not so easily cowed. "Twilight Sparkle is to carry out her investigation, and _if_ she finds solid proof that the jungle is not our birthplace, she will carry out her original offer of retrieving artifacts from the real First Mother's hive."

"And if she isn't?" growled a tan-colored queen named Polybia. "I won't have a blaspheming outsider survive _one week_ with her crown!"

"Then she had better have more than just a token to take its place, or else she will be declared rogue."

Twilight stiffened at the terms, but said nothing aloud. Mother, would they _do_ that?!

Cadista never got a chance to answer, as one of Twilight's opponents replied by with a snide grin. "I can agree to that. Let the heretic just _try_ to dishonor the First Queen. _She_ protects her own."

A few of the less superstitious royals cast Polybia a condescending eye, but none of them bothered to speak out, if only to get out of the rain that much faster. Silandrus shared the sentiment. "All in favor of the motion?"

Are sure you want to do this, Twilight? Cadista asked worriedly. We have enough supporters to suspend the summit for another day. There is no redemption after being declared rogue.

Twilight noticed those in Chrysalis' camp had already voted to the affirmative. _I know what I'm doing._ Yes, mother. I _know_ I can find proof of my theory here in the castle.

I pray you're right. It took great effort for Cadista to push aside her misgivings and voice her agreement.

Silandrus hummed in curiosity as Cadista and her few supporters voted, thus causing the sideliners to join in. "Then it is unanimous. Twilight Sparkle," she shouted in a commanding voice refined over many centuries, "by the will of the Summit, you are hereby granted the right to your crown, and any land you can claim as your own. We welcome you into our ranks as an equal, Queen Twilight Sparkle."

Twilight bowed as Cadista levitated an ebony and lavender changeling crown upon her daughter's head. "Thank you, gathered royals of the changeling nation. I live to advance our race."

 **"As do we all!"** shouted the Summit in unison.

With no desire for a reception, the royals scattered. Most went home, caring little for Twilight's research, only the results. Jstrul chased after Chrysalis in a less direct path to the northern docks.

"She could become a serious problem, sister. Her words mean nothing, she is still an Equestrian at heart. Even the blind could see that."

"You've never converted a pony into a drone, have you Jstrul?"

The younger sister hesitated a step before continuing. "No, they're too individualistic unless their memories are completely wiped clean. Mother demonstrated that to us a dozen times. What of it?"

"The point is, _yes_ , she is an Equestrian at heart. But I've watched her carefully every time she's visited Equestria. I have no doubt she has the mind of a changeling. While she cares about our heritage, Twilight doesn't have the gall to lie to the Summit, nor to make an effective queen. She is still a scholar, and wouldn't falsify research like this," Chrysalis waved the damp scroll for emphasis.

"I see," Jstrul muttered at length. "So what do we do? How is this going to affect our plans?"

"We've waited four years. We can at least wait to see if Twilight's theory is correct."

"Fine, I'll start making contingencies for both outcomes."

"Good. In the meantime, I have a pot to stir."

* * *

Twilight and Cadista galloped into a side room absolutely drenched, and panting from the jungle heat. Twilight was more than happy to weave a drying spell. Eight drones awaited her, an even split between grey and purple. Twilight's progeny shared her coat and mane colors exactly, save for the lack of cutie marks. Cadista's brood had been more or less standing at ease for the past hour, while Twilight's drones had been caught in the middle of a discussion before all eight snapped to attention at the queens' arrival.

One of the lavender drones bowed her head to speak after seeing Twilight's crown. "Congratulations, my Queen. I knew you wouldn't fail."

"That still remains to be seen, Riposte." Twilight admitted with more concern than she intended.

If the purple drones heard her concern, they didn't show it as they knelt in front of her. "Long live Queen Twilight Sparkle!"

Twilight gave them all a flat look. You four are so corny when in public its almost embarrassing. The four tried to hide their mirth, but Twilight was too close to hide it effectively.

Cadista placed a reassuring hoof on Twilight's withers, snapping her back to the present. "I have faith in you, _Queen_ Twilight Sparkle." Cadista's pride was almost oppressive over the Link. "I can't tell you how proud I am to say those words."

Twilight nuzzled her mother, taking comfort in her touch. "If only I didn't need to _be_ a queen, in title, to inspect the castle though. I'd have preferred to wait until I had those artifacts first."

Cadista's eyes misted over at seeing the crown on her daughter's brow. "I know, my dear. I would have conducted the search myself were it not for the Home Guard constantly refusing my requests. I forgot how long of a grudge Captain Cadiz can carry, even from beyond the grave it seems."

"Its fine, mother. I trust my work, and that of my children." The four lavender drones beamed with shared pride, Aegis most of all. "All of the old hives have archives, the Ebony Castle shouldn't be any different. I'm still wondering why keeping them fell out of practice."

"I have complete faith you'll find out why," Cadista encouraged while teasing Twilight's mane. "Just remember that you can always count on me to be your hive's lifeline until you can found your colony."

Twilight locked Cadista into a sidelong hug. "Thank you, mother." Cadista had never been able to rid herself of being ill at ease at public physical displays of affection, but Twilight always managed to tear through that reservation like wet paper. "…I guess this is where we abide by the tradition of The Divided Path?"

The other queens don't need to know our Link remains united. But yes, we shouldn't give them any reason to suspect anything.

They separated, with the drones splitting up to stand behind their respective queens. "Until next time, mother."

"May your reign last four thousand years, Queen Twilight Sparkle."

It wasn't a goodbye. Of course it wasn't a goodbye, their minds were still linked. Twilight remained motionless as Cadista departed down a southern passage to the docks. So why did it still feel like one? With tears dampening her fur, Twilight summoned as much emotional strength as possible to address her four escorts as she turned to leave along a different path to the docks. Aegis, how's that checklist for our expedition?

Twilight's right-hoof drone quickly conversed with a distant sibling. Pepper says it's ready to go, and she's on her fifth recheck of the checklist.

Right on schedule. Twilight felt her emotions start restabilizing as she worked. Intel, how's plan B?

The male drone behind Aegis already had the answer. I've narrowed the list to a few harmless things that should still satisfy the Summit. You could give them two or three just to play it safe.

You have the list ready?

Broken Piston has it waiting for you in your personal study.

Perfect, thank you. Let's see if we can keep this ball rolling, ponies. Ferrum, how's— her request was derailed by Polybia and her escorts barring the way.

"There you are!" she growled hatefully.

Aegis' squad stood protectively in front of Twilight as the irate queen tried to shove her muzzle in Twilight's face. She stopped short at the four drones drawing strange cylindrical weapons she had never seen before. "What do you want, Polybia? You can't touch me here."

"I come bearing the word of the First Mother. She holds total dominion over the past, and it is not our place to poke our noses where it doesn't belong, least of all yours. You would do well to respect that, lest you incite her wrath."

Twilight arched a disbelieving eyebrow. "You wouldn't happen to be the avatar of that wrath would you?"

Seeing she was in no immediate threat, Twilight silently ordered her escorts' weapons to be holstered. Some of Polybia's irritation faded at the correct usage of the phrase. _Perhaps she has the heart of a changeling after all._ "If necessary, but I would never spill blood on this holy site." Polybia eyed the hostile drones with contempt, but their weapons brought cold fear into her heart. It was no secret that Stripped Gear fielded exotic weaponry far beyond what anyone else was capable of.

Polybia hid her fear behind a mask of righteousness. "Something I'm surprised an outsider like you would respect. No, the First Queen herself will stop you, one way or another."

Twilight's drones pulsed with derisive disbelief at the declaration, a sentiment she shared. "I'm sure if she truly disagrees with my search, she'll let me know."

"I have no doubt she will," Polybia attested. "I have served her in warning you of this sacrilege, I pray whatever part of your mind is truly changeling will make you heed it before the First Mother demands blood."

Without another word, Polybia and her escorts turned back and departed. She cast a warning eye over her shoulder before turning a corner.

Twilight sighed tiredly, "I could be a thousand years old, and changelings like her would _still_ harp on my old life."

Her escorts scanned the three other entrances before deeming the area safe, for the moment. Hey, it lets all of us generate love, Aegis offered. I'd rather be a hybrid hive than a pure blood any day.

"A fair point," Twilight agreed as her mood improved a bit. "Come on, let's get out of here before somepony else starts nagging me."

Twilight managed to evade a couple other queens trying to find her. _I really don't want to talk if I can help it._ Room after room, and a half dozen flight shafts later, Twilight's entourage was within spitting distance of the docks when her least favorite individual of all time was waiting for her, Chrysalis.

"There's the mare of the hour. It's been _too_ long since we've last spoken, Twilight," she feigned misspeaking. "So sorry, I mean _Queen_ Twilight Sparkle."

Tempered anger boiled up within the lavender queen, and her escorts shot Chrysalis and her four drones hate-filled glares. Ferrum was barely keeping his weapon holstered, but he was silently begging for Chrysalis to give him a reason. "What do you want, Chrysalis?"

The ebony queen slithered closer to rub a hoof along Twilight's jaw, only to have it smacked away by Aegis. Instead of getting angry, Chrysalis only laughed at the display. "Why to congratulate you, of course. It's been difficult to accept that the weak pathetic creature who failed to use the Elements of Harmony against me is now my social equal."

Twilight snorted in disgust. "And yet you were still defeated without them. Don't try and shove that superiority complex on me, Chrysalis. I still owe you for trying to kill me all those years ago."

Chrysalis feigned insult. "I had no plans on killing anypony in Canterlot… _Oh,_ you mean that little scuffle that ended with you becoming one of us? I had nothing to do with that," she replied dismissively.

"Lies!"

"And what proof do you have?" Chrysalis challenged, causing Twilight's glare to falter. "Last I recall, you still don't remember what happened that day."

Twilight became a mask of dangerous energy. "How would you know that?"

"You don't honestly believe those little trips of yours to Ponyville are in total secret, do you? Ponies talk, tidbits slip, ears listen, and all I have to do is put the pieces together."

"I _still_ know it was you," Twilight insisted heatedly. "Nopony else would have reason to try and kill me that day."

"Really? No one else could have possibly wanted you, the star protégé of the solar diarch, dead? As I recall, Silandrus' brood was under orders to kill all outsiders in the jungle until _after_ your first Summit." A dash of confusion washed over the purple changelings. " _Sure,_ I had motive, almost everyone did. Don't get me wrong, I would love to suck you dry of every scrap of love, before tossing your withered husk to the jungle rats, but it wasn't me." A savage sneer crossed her face. "You would have been dead if it was."

"Can I kill her now, Mother?" Aegis growled. "I can make it look self-inflicted."

"Not here, Aegis," Twilight commanded begrudgingly.

Chrysalis scoffed at Aegis' impotent fury. "I don't see why you're so mad, _smart_ drone. Were it not for me, you wouldn't exist."

Aegis spat on the floor, a scant inch from Chrysalis' hoof. "Kiss my flank, Sticky Spit."

Chrysalis scowled at the drone, and her hoof flashed to break Aegis' jaw, but it was stopped short a sliver from her face. Aegis didn't flinch from the near impact, and only smirked at Chrysalis. The irate queen spied the purple and orange aura encasing her hoof before shooting Twilight a withering glare. "How _dare_ you stop me! I am within my rights."

Twilight forcibly pushed Chrysalis' hoof away from her daughter. "You will _not_ harm my drones, Chrysalis."

The ebony queen cast Twilight a look of disappointment and disapproval. "I should have expected you to maintain that Equestrian over-protectiveness of your spawn. It must _pain_ you to know you'll outlive hundreds if not millions of them over your lifetime."

"I'll live. Is there a reason why you're pestering me?"

With no discernible reaction coming out of Twilight, outside of contempt, Chrysalis switched topics. "There is, actually. I read your literature." She produced Twilight's scroll off one of the side tables. "I wanted to give my guarantee of non-interference. Provided you're right about the First Mother."

That earned the ebony queen five looks of disbelief. "I'm surprised you care."

" _Of course_ I care. Any true queen should! So, the stipulation of my non-interference is this: you bring back enough artifacts to fill my personal chambers, or I'll announce my lack of satisfaction in your coronation tribute. I would be fully within my rights to… engage in aggressive negotiations with you." A ring of fire encircled Chrysalis. "Good luck, _Queen_ Twilight Sparkle."

Twilight glowered as the ebony queen sank into the floor. "Now that, children, is the textbook example of a bitch."

"Hear, hear," they replied in unison.

Twilight slouched in her shuttle's cabin as it took to the air. In the privacy and safety of the shuttle, her drones dropped most of their hard edge and started gossiping with each other like brothers and sisters Twilight would find in any Equestrian home. Twilight's disposition strongly advised giving her some quiet time to think. Despite her run-in with Polybia and Chrysalis, Twilight's mood was uplifted at the sight of her destination. A masterpiece of changeling engineering hung in the air two kilometers from the Ebony Castle.

 _The S.G.C.S. Ashes of the Phoenix. I couldn't ask for a better 'leaving the nest' present._

The _Phoenix_ was truly a work of art wrapped in steel and steam, stretching just under half a kilometer from bow to stern, and close to a hundred meters at its tallest point. Its steel hull carried twin stripes of orange and lavender across its central axis. Spires, sensor masts, and smoke stacks covered the upper deck like a city in its own right, while numerous armored blisters dotted the hull.

No fewer than thirty steam driven mana conversion engines hung on the _Phoenix's_ belly. Each one's propellers glowed majestic lavender and lazily churned the air as they wreathed the ship in artificial pegasus magic. Faint motes of magic danced off the propellers, creating the illusion of a blanketing purple aura under the _Phoenix._

Yet for all of its majesty, the _Phoenix_ was not the only source of Twilight's good spirits. Two thousand changelings, nearly all of them her own, crewed the steel behemoth. There, in the shuttle, with only the dwindling thunderstorm and the tranquilizing vibrations of the shuttle's engines as her companions, Twilight immersed herself in the hive mind.

The organized chaos of her thousands of children going about their daily lives, plus the seven hundredish in the nursery, including the quiet ones in their chrysalises and eggs, was intoxicating. The ebb and flow of voices, the whirlwind of emotions dancing through the Link, the constant brushes upon her mind from drones seeking a freely given mother's warmth; all of it was utter heaven for Twilight Sparkle.

 _To think I used to be alone with my thoughts all those years ago,_ Twilight sighed contently. Were it not for her obligations, she could spend weeks just listening to and directing the hive mind in utter bliss. _I promise to be the best mother and queen possible._ Her thoughts drifted to the comically small crown perched on her brow. _Too bad I had to give my element up to the Tree of Harmony. I'd prefer wearing that over this thing._

Luckily, the hole in her soul that the element left behind had been rapidly filled by the hive mind. _Rarity would have a fit saying it doesn't look good on me. Speaking of which…_

The shuttle slid into one of the _Phoenix's_ many hangars, allowing Twilight to disembark, only to find a huge gathering of purple drones cheering wildly, with two particular ponies standing at the forefront of the celebration.

At the same time, the hive mind exploded in congratulatory praise, sending Twilight reeling at the suddenness of it. Everywhere she looked, her drones filled the hangar while singing her praises both vocally and in the Link. "I knew you guys were planning a celebration, but right here in the hangar?" She said both vocally to her pony friends, and over the Link so all could hear.

Rarity cantered over, with Rainbow Dash hovering nearby. Both were adorned with party hats and confetti. "Well, Darling, _I_ wanted to hold it in the reception hall like you requested, but—"

" **But,** " Rainbow brashly interrupted, "that place is _way_ too small! You'd be lucky to get thirty ponies in there, _max!_ "

Twilight was bombarded with congratulations, both mentally and in the physical world. Everywhere she looked, Twilight found her children beaming smiles back at her. The sheer volume of them over the Link was trivial to handle, but the vocalized accolades threw her off balance. "A fair point."

"Well then, as my first act as an official queen, I decree everypony to have fun during the celebration!"

The crowd redoubled its manic cheering and parted for Twilight, allowing her to trot over to the party buffet with her pony friends in tow. This was more than just a once and a lifetime event, this was their mother returning a fully recognized queen, and they were officially a new hive. To say they were ecstatic was a gross understatement.

"You know I don't care for formal events."

"I can't imagine why, Twilight, you're a queen now! Sure your king-er-hive may be limited to an airship for the moment, a rather smashing one I might add, give my gratitude to the interior designer," Rarity rattled off topic.

Both Rainbow and Twilight gave Rarity an incredulous look. "Um Rares, the whole place is pretty bare bones on the interior decoration department. I'm surprised you didn't faint when you came onboard."

Rarity accepted a generously offered cup of punch from a drone. "Queen Twilight informed me of the issue ahead of time, so I was able to prepare myself. Besides, it's not what the ship's lacking that's got me all aflutter, but the potential it has! The walls are just **begging** for the artistic touch!" She almost fainted at the sheer number of possibilities.

Twilight took her crown off and gave it a forlorn inspection. "You know you can drop the titles around me, Rarity. It doesn't feel right having my friends address me as such," _or my children outside of serious situations, for that matter._ "I only wish the others could have made it."

"I suppose, though it's a serious travesty not to, if you ask me. But I guess I can allow it, what with us not being your subjects after all, but honestly, Darling, _Queen_ Twilight Sparkle has such a lovely ring to it, don't you think? It has an air of power and mysticism about it."

"Pah, Twi or Twilight for me, ain't no way this egghead's ever going to want anypony calling her queen. Not in our lifetimes anyway."

Rainbow Dash's offhanded comment soured Twilight' good cheer a little. _No, Twilight, don't spoil the mood. You've known about this for years! Just enjoy the time you have._ Acceptance of her prolonged lifespan, compared to her friends and drones, was slow to come by over the years, but it _was_ there.

Rarity watched Twilight's internal struggle, but didn't comment when the lavender queen's smile remained genuine, albeit a little weaker. "It _is_ a pity the others couldn't come as well. Pinkie's foal's a hooffull. I dare say the little rascal almost tops my sister in that category." Both other mares could hear the fondness in Rarity's tone.

"Did she ever find out who the father is?" Rainbow asked between bites of an orange.

"Rainbow, show some tact! A lady doesn't spread that sort of gossip."

 _"Sure you don't."_ Rainbow Dash muttered tersely. "Well, given the Cake twins, she can handle it. Not like Twi here," she jabbed, both physically and verbally. "I think you took the whole 'settle down and have a family' a step or twenty too far, eh?"

A flat look and an impressive eye roll was Twilight's only response due to Ratchet coming into her field of view as he trotted over in grease-stained overalls. He was easily the tallest drone in the room, almost as tall as Twilight herself. It was a natural side effect of being consort to the queen. "Hey, _honey,_ how's my favorite chief engineer?"

He tilted his head. "I'm your _only_ chief engineer."

"Doesn't mean you're not my favorite," she teased back with a coy grin. "But I have to ask, why did you come like that?" she asked, pointing at his filthy work clothes.

"Sorry I'm so late. I was caught up in fixing the transmission shaft between engines B12 and C6. I thought I'd pop my head in before going back to wash up."

Ratchet, you're sweaty and covered in engine oil and grease, she purred while leering at him. You couldn't be sexier if you tried. Twilight wrapped her hooves around him, and planted a long hungry kiss on him.

Several nearby drones hooped and hollered at the display, Rainbow Dash included, making Ratchet blush furiously. The lone grey drone didn't know why, but Twilight seemed to lose her social reservations around him at the oddest times. How could I forget with all that role playing we do?

Twilight erupted in laughter so hard she had to cover her mouth. Speaking of which, you have an appointment with me in our quarters tonight.

* * *

The coronation celebration ended all too soon. There was an investigation to get underway, after all. Not to mention several queens salivating at the prospect of her being declared rouge. Twilight cantered towards the bridge with Rainbow and Rarity tagging along. "I'm glad you decided to come, Rarity, sneaking visits to Ponyville's been tough with getting the _Phoenix_ prepared. But now that it's airborne, I can bring the whole family to visit once I deal with this expedition."

"Oh posh, think nothing of it, Darling. Truth be told, I'm glad I accepted, really I am, the functional artistry of it all is simply dazzling. I've already got a whole line with your high technology motif all planned out. But I must say, I'm not exactly sure what kind of vessel this is. It doesn't _feel_ like warship, yet I saw several… ordnance on my way in a few days ago."

"The _Phoenix_ was originally a last ditch evacuation vessel Cadista kept around in case she ever needed to evacuate the hive, hence the name. She gave it to me and I've had it refitted to be a colony ship," Twilight answered with a proud smile. "I've made it out to be a fully functional city in the air. The armament's only meant for self-defense. I wouldn't dream of taking her into battle."

Rainbow glanced at Rarity in shared confusion. "Are you kidding? Those guns could bring down any Equestrian airship in one second flat, let alone a griffin destroyer. Besides, what's a colony ship?"

Twilight decided to ignore the weapon comment. It really wasn't designed for combat, at least, not anymore. "Well, I'm not exactly sure where to settle my hive, and it's not feasible to remain airborne forever. When I find a suitable location, the ship can land where I need it. The plus side is that it's carrying all kinds of construction equipment and can provide every service a growing hive needs to expand."

"So do you have any land in mind? I hope you're not planning on trying to take over some of that horrid jungle down there."

Twilight tittered at Rarity's dramatic upturned snout at a landscape below. "I'm not sure yet. I actually wanted to ask the Princesses about that."

"Why would—" Rainbow Dash started before jumping into the air to hover in front of Twilight. "You want to colonize Equestria?!"

"I haven't told anypony outside of Cadista and my children, but yes, actually. I wanted my hive to be Equestrian citizens." _And for me to be one again._

Rainbow cringed while letting out a nervous laugh. "Um, you may want to definitely check with the Princesses then. Not everypony's going to welcome changelings."

"I feel for Princess Celestia," Rarity started with a sigh. "She's been trying so hard to smooth things out between changelings and ponykind, but some places have gotten even worse with fear and distrust."

"Her letters told me she's had all kinds of success though," Twilight insisted. "It's been well over four years since the wedding invasion." _I mean sure she said some places still need work, but…_

"Well, I can vouch for Ponyville at least," Rainbow Dash declared with pride. "'Lings like Rose, Junebug, and a few others have really showed the town how great changeling neighbors can be. But… the entire time I was on tour with the Wonderbolts in Manehattan and the entirety of Prance, we had to go through daily screenings to make sure we weren't 'Ling infiltrators. As if anypony could ever hope to replace me, of all ponies!"

Twilight grimaced at the Wonderbolt lieutenant's words. "Was it really that bad?"

Rainbow landed with a huff. "I got shafted on promotion to captain because I wouldn't say you were only a passing acquaintance. Ponies forget about the Elements _real_ quick now that we don't have them anymore. So, yeah, it's that bad out there."

"Oh my gosh, _Dash!_ Why didn't you tell me you were passed up because of me!"

"Because it wasn't important to tell you until now," she replied while brushing off any more sympathy. Although she didn't stop her friends from giving her a short hug.

"Heavens, Darling, didn't the Princesses say anything about that?" Rarity asked once Rainbow pushed them off of her.

"Oh, believe me, Luna had some **serious** words with a whole bunch of ponies, and I think one or two noble houses were stripped from their titles." Rainbow replied with a vindictive sneer. "Spitfire was being pressured to keep me from replacing her, she's near retirement age for the Bolts, after all. 'Course, that didn't stop her from pointing out those that leaned on her to do it. Then again, I only told the Princess there were some serious bigots in the higher ranks, not that it cost me a promotion, it would have felt dirty to take it that way."

Twilight wiped a few tears away. "I'm so sorry, Rainbow, I know how much it means to you."

Rainbow Dash shot the lavender queen a stern glare. "Don't apologize for who you are, Twi. You haven't done anything wrong, and your hive's chill in my book. But…" Her anger lost its edge. "I was _this_ close to being just like them. If it had been somepony else who had been turned into a 'Ling, I might have been in their shoes, ya know? _It sickens me._ "

Twilight smothered her cyan friend in an even tighter hug, which was quite the easy feat given her size. She couldn't stop the river of tears, nor did she want to. "T-thank you, Rainbow, for everything."

She was about to wiggle free of the emotional queen, before Rarity silently shook her head. _The things I endure for friendship._ Even with Rarity's prodding, there was only so much hugging Rainbow could take before gently pulling away from Twilight. "You mope around anymore and you'll end up stuck that way. Don't we have a castle to invade?"

"If only you could," Twilight replied while trying to compose herself. "But I can't take you with me. Queens only. I was able to talk the Home Guard captain into allowing me to take a couple dozen 'escorts', rather than the usual four."

"Ah, nuts!" Rainbow groaned while kicking the wall. "Are you sure? Maybe I could go disguised as drone."

"I'm actually surprised you want to go at all. The whole trip's going to be me searching for a records archive and doing weeks' worth of research. I mean, it sounds exhilarating to me, but…" she trailed off so she wouldn't insult her friend.

She needn't have worried, as any insult didn't register. "Sure, you could do all the boring stuff with the books, but how _cool_ would it be to be the first pony to ever step hoof inside an ancient changeling castle! I could be the next Daring Do!"

"Rainbow, are you forgetting Twilight _is_ a pony?"

Rainbow's manic grin faltered, but Twilight only giggled in response. "It's quite alright, girls, I'm comfortable with what I am. You don't have to tiphoof around the subject."

Rarity shot Twilight a searching gaze. _I know she was about to call it an issue, but perhaps it's just me._ "I suppose not, Twilight. In any case, you're at least allowed to take pictures, right?"

Twilight tapped her chin in thought. "As much as the captain objected, I convinced him that I would have to take books or artifacts out of the castle, so yes."

"Wonderful, Darling, please take some of any artwork you find, if it's not too much trouble of course, clothing preferably." Rarity batted her best pleading eyelashes.

"I'll see what I can smuggle back for you."

"Oh you're too kind, Darling." Twilight's warm smile caused her fangs to catch a glint of light. "Twilight."

"Yes?"

"I just remembered a question Fluttershy wanted me to ask you, but I've been so wrapped up in this lovely flying castle of yours and I got distracted."

Twilight chuckled, feeling a swell of pride from the compliment. "Thank you, she's a beauty, isn't she?"

"Very. Anyway," Rarity paused to tap her chin. "Fluttershy was wondering why changelings have fangs."

That got a couple of puzzled looks from Rainbow and Twilight. "Why would them having fangs mean anything special? Oh! Do you guys have poison? Or is it called venom?"

"W-what?! No, we don't have poisonous fangs!" Twilight blanched before actually dwelling on the question. "Well… **I** don't have venom, and as far as I know, none of the other hives do. I'm sure mother would have told me when she taught me about the other hives."

"Well, Fluttershy found it odd when you said you're the only hive that eats meat…what was the word she used again?"

"Omnivore," Rainbow Dash answered instantly, receiving a couple of bemused looks. "What? I hung around Stripped Gear for like a year." She stuck her tongue out. "I pick up on things too, ya know."

"Fair enough, Rainbow. As for her question… it doesn't make sense for herbivores to have fangs." Twilight sent a query to Cadista, only to be disappointed by the answer. "Mother doesn't know either. As far as she knows, we've always had them."

Rarity huffed. "Oh well, just another mystery of life, I suppose. So, who's up for afternoon tea?"

"Pass, I've got a training session with Throttle and the gang, see you later!"

"Sorry, Rarity, but I have a lot of prep work to do if I want to get this expedition off the ground first thing in the morning."

"Oh, that's quite alright, dear, I—" the pair passed into a small shopping area, complete with summer festive decorations. One extolling a flower laden hat caught Rarity's eye. " _Inspiration!_ I guess that tea will have to wait, good luck on your trip, Twilight! Bring back lots of picturrrrres!"

Rarity's idle chatter faded to inaudible ramblings as the fashionista wandered into the store and promptly unloaded all kinds of questions on the unwitting clerk. Twilight remained outside to watch for a few seconds before happily shaking her head and continuing on. _Rough spots or not, I know Celestia and Luna will welcome my hive, and we'll all be stronger for it._

Her thoughts drifted to her study. _But first, I have to know who the real First Mother is, or at the very least, where she used to live. If not for the hives, than at least for myself._

Her path brought her over to a large window granting a sweeping view of the Ebony Castle now that the rain was letting up. Hidden somewhere in its walls were the answers she sought. "After all, she's _my_ First Mother now too, and she deserves proper recognition."


	13. Chapter 13

A Bug's Life

The day following the Summit saw the _Phoenix_ bursting with activity. Everywhere Twilight went, her children were going about their daily routine of running the ship. Except now, forty of them were performing the final checks for the expedition.

Twilight was in the middle of personally performing maintenance on one of the larger transports when a caretaker named Gentle Touch pinged her over the hive mind. Begging your pardon, my queen, but you'll be pleased to know the secondary hatchery is finally ready for use.

At last! I was _not_ looking forward to carrying these eggs into the castle again. Twilight removed herself from the engine compartment and silently asked the maintenance staff to have someone take over for her. I'll be right over. Do you have the projected sustainability and specialization needs?

Yes, of course, I had the charts delivered an hour ago. With Equestrian trade on the upswing and the _P.C.S. Golden Harvest_ ready to launch within the month, we'll be able to sustain a population of five thousand, _but_ I'd feel more comfortable if we kept our numbers at thirty-five hundred until we locate a suitable location to settle.

Sounds reasonable, Twilight admitted. Having a food surplus is more important than a drone surplus.

I suspected you'd agree. As for specialization, I trust we'll have a ground colony up and running by then. I would suggest an even mix between farmers and tradesponies, although a couple more soldiers couldn't hurt.

Crunch the numbers for me; I want exact figures and the proper alchemical reagents ready by the time I arrive.

At once, my queen!

The _Phoenix's_ twin hatcheries were a small affair, numbering only a hundred incubators each. Twilight passed the first hatchery with a warm smile at the sight of her eggs and the purple drones tending to them. Many of them were the size of watermelons and would hatch soon. _It'll feel good to finally start laying more often again. Everything will start clicking in place in a month. For every egg I lay, one will hatch, a nymph will form their chrysalis, and a chrysalis will hatch. Even with general development time variation, the hive can ride this cycle all the way up to thirty five hundred without missing a beat!_

The prospect of it all was far too exciting for her to hide her enthusiasm. _Luckily, the current eggs should hatch before I'm done filling the second hatchery, so I can keep laying for over two weeks! I could lay indefinitely if I halve my production rate._ A wandering thought doused some of her burgeoning joy. _Wait… that would mean I wouldn't have any time when I could enjoy some wine or cider. Note to self: figure out how to prevent egg alcohol syndrome… aside from the obvious._

The snaking tubes and wires abruptly ended halfway through the chamber, where the two separate hatchery machines met. Twilight found a trio of lavender drones running tests on some pipework for the inactive incubator. "Gentle Touch, is it ready?"

Gentle jumped at the question. "Y-yes, my queen. We just fixed the last of the faulty pipes, and I have what you asked for right here." She fished around in her saddlebags to produce a clipboard. "Here are the projected job needs in three years." As she spoke, the closest incubators were filling with a lavender solution.

Twilight scanned the offered paperwork. "Excellent. Let's get started right away; I've wanted to lay for over a week now."

A caretaker ran over carrying a pair of large cushions. Twilight took the larger cushion for herself, and over the course of two minutes, she laid twenty eggs. The lavender queen relaxed on her cushion while the caretakers busied themselves with placing the fresh eggs. Twilight idly rubbed her now much thinner and lighter abdomen. She mentally prepared herself to start producing more eggs. "Next time, girls, please make sure the system is actually ready before you give me the go ahead to start ovipositing again." _I know I can hold onto forty for several months, if need be, but it's very uncomfortable to feel that bloated._

The idea of throwing eggs away for her convenience never crossed Twilight's mind. Gentle Touch finished her tasks before bowing an apology. "So sorry, my queen. It was entirely my fault."

"No real harm done," Twilight replied reassuringly. "Is the alchemy ready?"

"Yes, my queen."

Twilight stood up while giving herself a mental note to wash herself before departing for the Ebony Castle. "Perfect. Now I want to hurry up and get the alchemy done before I leave for the expedition." Gentle Touch prepared to relay all of her queen's instructions to the staff manning the control room. Twilight idly stared at the filled incubators while mental calculations swirled in her head. "I want ten CCs of cordaline, seven and a half of vertain, twenty of zerrial…" Twilight rattled off over thirty additional chemicals as a group of caretakers from the first hatchery arrived to help.

Twilight brooded while the caretakers carried out her orders. _That should do it for strain EP-59, but I need to make sure it works before committing._ Pepper, do you have a moment?

The drone in question jumped at the sudden address. A-always for you, my queen.

How's Rich Soil's progress?

Funny you should ask; I'm right here with her, going over arithmetic. She's a bright little nymph, as expected. She's a fine addition to the hive.

Twilight sent the nymph a gentle brush of love upon her mind. Always good to hear, but I need to know about her magic.

Oh, OH! Of course, _that's_ what you meant. Um, let me think… Well, she is noticeably weaker in her changeling magic, as expected. She's only been able to show consistent ability with levitation, albeit below the norm, and her disguise control is on par. But she's demonstrated rather weak abilities beyond that. _However,_ the flower she's been caring for in her room _has_ tested positive for earth pony magic. It's obviously nowhere near as potent as an actual earth pony, but it _is_ there.

Thank you, Pepper. Twilight sent both Pepper and Rich Soil a brush of motherly pride over the hive mind. _As long as the strain has levitation and disguises, I call it a success. It's next to impossible to incorporate natural pony magic into a changeling without sacrificing something in return. I'll have to refine the strain to shore up its changeling magical ability later._ Twilight returned to the present to find the gathered caretakers waiting for orders. "Strain EP-59 is a success, mark the records accordingly."

The group cheered at the news, with one of them running off to follow orders. The rest happily drew chalk arrays on the twenty incubators with painstaking attention to detail. Once every array was checked, rechecked, and then checked five more times, Twilight stood in between the two isles of new eggs with her horn glowing bright pink as she gathered her love reserves. Thin tendrils of love snaked out to each incubator. Upon contact, Twilight tripled her love output to hasten the process. The arrays glowed bright pink as the love passed through them before sinking into the eggs. The lavender solution within the incubators luminesced a pale light as the alchemy took hold and changed the eggs to Twilight's specifications.

One by one, the hive mind expanded to accommodate them, sending an intense thrill of satisfaction down Twilight's spine. Once was all said and done, Twilight cut off the flow of love and was left feeling incredibly winded; the act had left her love-starved. _Glad I can perform alchemy and give the initial love feeding at the same time._

Twilight collapsed on her cushion with laborious breath, and she was promptly swarmed by her caretakers. A warm chuckle escaped her as the changelings hugged their mother, feeding her with all the love they could produce. Twilight sighed contently as she lost herself in the moment. It was times like these when she was a mother first and a queen second.

The group gossiped and chatted for fifteen minutes until Twilight's love reserves reached normal levels again. These were the times Twilight truly lived for. Each caretaker's smile and loving embrace pulled at Twilight's heart. _If only I had the time to just sit down and talk with each of my children._

Gentle Touch let her fellow caretakers talk up a storm and was content to rest her head on Twilight's forelegs, basking in the warm blanket of her mother's fur and love. A motherly smile crossed Twilight's features as she brushed aside Gentle's mane and kissed her on the forehead. All of you make me so proud, she broadcast throughout the entire ship. Countless words of thanks and declarations to retain that pride answered her back. _I think Yumia said it best. It's good to be the queen._

After a few more minutes, Twilight gave a silent command. The drones begrudgingly released their hold on their mother, and Twilight resumed her posture as queen. "Thank you, everypony. Now, I want all of you to quintuple check the eggs. If there were any complications in the alchemy process, I want them caught early."

"At once, my queen!" They all responded in unison before dispersing.

Twilight spied a wall mounted clock. _Good; I can take a shower and still remain on schedule._

She was just leaving the hatchery when Gentle Touch trotted up beside her. "Begging your pardon, my queen, but there is one other matter I'd like to discuss."

"So long as you don't mind walking with me. What is it?"

"It's about our alchemy stores." Twilight's mood dropped instantly. "Zerrial is a very rare mineral, and is exorbitantly expensive _when_ we can find a supplier. When you factor in the rest of the alchemy supplies, we're burning bits faster than coal. I know you prefer to allow us to choose our gender, but might I suggest having at least one of the eggs be male to be used as a consort later? It would free up a number of other rare compounds for future experiments."

Twilight hummed as she contemplated the proposal. "That would still take an additional three and a half years before he'd be ready, and double it for his progeny to reach adulthood." She hoped it was enough of a reason to drop the idea. _It would just feel unfaithful to Ratchet._

"True, but EP-59 is not _absolutely_ necessary for us to be farmers," Gentle countered. "Not to mention we can undergo rebirth to update a drone's genetics. We just need to rebirth a drone with the latest strain, and he'd be ready to serve as a consort within two months' time."

"A fair point…" Twilight conceded. "Let me think it over for a bit, and I'll get back with you."

"As you wish, my queen."

Gentle turned to leave when Twilight called back at her. Twilight knew her well enough to know that Gentle wouldn't wait around for authorization. And Gentle…

Yes?

Twilight steeled herself. _This is in the best interests of the hive._ Volunteers only.

As you wish, my queen.

A quick shower later, Twilight proceeded to the main portside hangar where three transports waited to ferry forty drones and one queen to the Ebony Castle. Ratchet was muttering to himself when the local hive mind rang out. Teams A-C, proceed to your assigned transports immediately. T minus two minutes to departure.

With the sea of purple-fur charging to their seats, he almost missed Twilight making her way to the central transport with a spring in her step. You seem happy, he said, forgetting his troubled thoughts for the moment.

You have no idea, Twilight replied before bounding over to kiss him. "I finally got to lay those eggs I've been holding for the past week. Gave me some new respect for mammals, carrying a foal for eleven months… _yeesh._ "

"I can imagine," Ratchet lied.

"Well come on, we don't want to hold the schedule up!" Twilight practically shoved Ratchet onto the transport and towards the front where her seat was.

"Um, about that, are you sure I should be going at all? The Home Guard can be very particular about who's allowed in. I'm not really a part of your hive, remember?"

"Can't we just say you are?"

He shook his head, trying to convince her before they took off. "No way, each Home Guard drone has the ability to sense anyone around them in a huge radius. They can pick up on the individual's hive mind connection, and what flavor that connection is."

"Flavor? That's an _interesting_ way to put it, but I think I understand… Would you be averse to linking with me directly then? Even with your coat color being different, the HG couldn't argue that point."

Ratchet was so intrigued by the comment he didn't react to Twilight pushing him into a seat or to the transport taking off. "…I've never heard of a willing transfer, but I'd like nothing better than to be in your half of the hive mind."

"Great! I'll go ahead and ask." Mother, is there any chance Ratchet can be transferred to be linked with me directly?

It was not a question that came to any real surprise, but Cadista had been dreading the day it came. …I'm loath to give up any of my sons and daughters, but… _I could only handle letting him stay with her because they're in love._

Twilight's initial even tone fell into self-admonishment. If you don't want to, that's okay. You've already given me so much, it was wrong of me to ask.

No, no, Cadista replied hastily before Twilight withdrew. She heaved a heavy sigh. It's never been done, willingly anyway. I know you will watch after my son. Please be sure to link with him quickly; you know how traumatic even a few seconds off the hive mind can be.

I do. Thank you very much, Mother.

Anything you for, my daughter. I will give him a warning so he can prepare himself.

Twilight took Ratchet's hooves in her own and prepared her magic. The moment his voice vanished from the Link, he started hyperventilating and started to whimper out of fear. Twilight acted quickly and poured some of her love reserves into him. Ratchet's wildly unhinged mind latched onto her love and the link between them was established. She held him tightly while rubbing his mane. "It's okay, you're back in the Link."

Ratchet was stunned to realize he was drenched in sweat. "L—let's never do that again."

"Agreed."

Ratchet's emotional state leveled off by the time the transports touched down on the ground level of the castle. Twilight cantered out ahead of the pack to meet with a group of Home Guard standing in front of the ground level main entrance. The mesa, upon which the castle rested, was covered in an ancient city long since fallen into ruin.

Every fiber of Twilight's being wanted to immediately go exploring, but she still had to get permission first. A formality really, but changelings outside of her hive were hidebound to follow tradition. "Captain Thoran, it's a pleasure to see you."

Thoran's group bowed their heads. "The pleasure is ours, Queen Twilight Sparkle. When I first heard you showed interest in our race's past, I laughed for two straight hours out of the impossibility of such thing." Twilight shot him an unamused look. "N—now I'm glad I was wrong to think so." He laughed nervously. "At any rate, you're more than welcome to investigate the castle and the surrounding mesa to your leisure. However, I trust you won't mind me posting a few guards with each of your groups. Just to make sure nothing gets damaged."

"A fair compromise. I'd like a team to investigate the ruins, while the rest of us search the castle itself. All of the other hives, save one, had their archives in the main palace."

"A prudent course of action, your highness." Thoran eyed Ratchet, searching his aura. "…I'm surprised you have one of Queen Cadista's drones with you, yet he tastes like he's one of yours. Why is that?"

 _Now I understand why Ratchet said flavor._ "He was a—"

"I was a parting gift, from Queen Cadista," Ratchet interjected hastily. "My new queen here needed a consort of useable genetic material, and I was a perfect match."

Twilight forcibly hid any reaction while Thoran studied Ratchet's taller than average height. "Well, you certainly look like a consort… Rather odd that someone like Queen Cadista would willingly part with a drone. Does he speak true, Queen Twilight?"

"H—he does, yes…" she stuttered out of mild surprise rather than jumping to cover a lie.

Thoran's gaze lingered on Ratchet for a bit longer before turning away. "Very well. You're more than welcome to any part of the mesa. But _do_ try to leave things as they were; the Home Guard is barely large enough to keep the castle together, and we just don't have the dronepower to restore anything."

"We'll use the utmost caution." She turned around to address her drones. They were already unloading their equipment and forming up into groups. Okay, everypony, listen up! Groups A and B will search the palace for the archives as the primary objective. Group C will search the outside ruins for anything of note. Secondary objectives are to take lots and lots of pictures. …Just, save a roll of film or two for important finds. A few moans of disappointment came from the cameralings. _I know them too well to let_ that _one slide._ She turned to Ratchet, who was still a little out of sorts from the transfer. Are you good to go, or should you wait with the transports?

N—no, I'm fine. It's just… different, is all.

What do you mean? We've always been part of the same hive mind.

True, but… it feels like your side of the Link is more orderly… refined almost. It's difficult to describe any other way.

Twilight nuzzled him affectionately. I'll take that as a compliment. If you need to take a break to catch your breath, let me know, okay?

Thanks, I think I will. He located a moss covered bench nearby and flopped down on it.

Twilight frowned at his apparent weariness. "Captain Thoran, you mind giving us five minutes?"

He cast Ratchet a disapproving scowl. "Take as long as you need, Your Highness. Although I'm rather surprised you would take a consort into field work with you."

"He's more than just a gene bank, _Captain._ "

"I meant no offense, your highness," Thoran placated. "I just find it unusual, that's all."

Some of Twilight's annoyance bled away as she gave Ratchet a curious glance, but his veiled expression revealed nothing. "Unusual how?"

"I wouldn't dare presume to tell a queen what she should do with her own hive. Forget I said anything."

"No, tell me! Why is it unusual?"

"It's no big deal, my queen," Ratchet soothed to try and give Thoran an out, but Twilight would have none of it.

"I _asked_ you a question," Twilight growled.

Thoran started sweating profusely. Holy ground or not, Twilight had taken offense and was well within her rights to kill him on the spot. Not that she would have, but he didn't know that. "Well… from what we Home Guard overhear, a consort's body devotes a lot of energy into remaining fertile for your use. Personal feelings aside, of course, but consorts _are_ there for breeding, not normal drone work. T—that is, from the guesswork we've pieced together, I'm probably completely wrong." Twilight's glower weakened a bit, giving Thoran his opening. "How about I give you ten minutes; there's no deadline, after all."

With a tip of his helmet, Thoran bid a hasty retreat. _Blah, let him go. He's right, after all. I'm just glad we have enough food so Ratchet isn't held back by his metabolism._ Team A, we'll enter the castle in ten minutes, see what you can find around the gatehouse in that time. Ferrum, that doesn't mean you can wander off for self-pleasure!

Twilight snickered at the distant curses as she walked over to Ratchet. "Feeling better?"

He moved over so she could join him on the bench. "Much, yes. I didn't think transferring would take so much out of me."

"Glad to hear it," she replied with a relieved smile. Twilight leaned against him and studied the ruins around her. The past age had not been kind to the old city. It didn't help that many of the structures had been made of earthworks and hardened wax. Outside of the castle, the only structures taller than Twilight were a few scattered wind beaten walls that had lost their paint long ago. In the stillness, the sound of buzzing wings and hoofsteps could be heard with a backdrop of a gentle breeze blowing around the mesa.

Despite the mixture of natural and artificial beauty around her, Twilight couldn't stop thinking about the love of her life. "Ratchet… you don't really see yourself as a gene bank, do you?"

"Hardly," he scoffed before spying an eavesdropping Home Guard. I haven't fertilized an egg for years now. I wore protection last night, remember?

Twilight nuzzled him while draping a wing over him. I'm sorry, really, but you know why I can't let you.

Ratchet was taken aback by her apologetic tone. Why should you be sorry? _I'm_ the one who told you I was unsuitable. Any drones I sire run a high risk of not being able to produce love. And at the end of the day, my genes are too common be worth it at all. It's better this way; I thought we agreed to that.

Twilight still found it difficult to believe that _he_ was the one who originally wanted to cease siring eggs, and Twilight's mental gymnastics somehow worked its way into blaming herself. I know, I know… but I still feel guilty over it. No matter what I tried, I couldn't correct the problem with alchemy.

Twilight, if there's anyone who should feel guilty, it's me.

"What? Why?!" she cried out in astonishment before switching back to the Link. You can't help that!

Maybe not, but I'm wasting too much of your time when you could be finding more suitable consorts. He wasn't sure _whose_ job that was, but he wanted to make a point.

Twilight's mouth hung open for several seconds. _Ratchet Altair!_ You are **never** a waste of my time! How can you even say that!?

 _Horseapples!_ Errm, what I mean is, I need to help you find suitable candidates among the hive for possible consorts. A—and I've been negligent in that.

If Twilight's Ultimate Fanged Scowl of Doom could kill, Ratchet would have been one seriously dead bug. Ratchet, you're the only one I will ever have those kinds of feeling for.

Were it not for Twilight's painful glower, Ratchet would have given a scowl of his own. Twilight, you _know_ that form of love is not why queens take consorts. Mother has twelve at any given time, remember? Plus, I've seen the requisition forms for alchemical reagents. We burned through a year's worth of zerrial in a month! We can't keep using such high level alchemy for every _single_ egg! It's untenable.

Why do you think I've negotiated for full on open trade with Equestria, we _can_ afford it. Her heart wasn't in the rebuttal, and he knew it.

Twi, my love, that's like saying you're flushing bits down the toilet simply because you can. The hive, _you_ , **need** to have consorts that can perform the function I'm unsuited for. He dragged her quivering chin over to face him. His stern, but loving, expression met her wavering one. "Twilight, I will always love you. You know that, right?"

"I love you too, Ratchet," she whimpered.

For the sake of the hive's future, I beg of you to take up more consorts. It won't diminish the love we share, I promise you.

The sheer cost of the rare alchemical reagents _was_ bothering her significantly. Cadista would never admit it, but Twilight knew procuring the supplies she needed was close to crippling her hive's economy. _My first obligation is to the hive._ Somehow the words rang slightly hollow, but her duty as queen demanded it of her. Alright, Ratchet, I'll have Gentle Touch bring up a list of candidates. But I want to make this crystal _clear:_ I love all my drones as my children, but _you_ are my second half.

Heh, and what's the other half? he replied, not fully understanding the idiom.

She shot him a wane smirk and pecked his cheek. The hive.

The couple was just climbing to their hooves, when Thoran buzzed back over while jabbing a hoof at the transports. "By the First Mother, what are those!?"

All three turned to witness three metallic changelings emerge from each transport. The bronze finish on their steel skin and clanking joints attested to their inorganic nature. Several of Twilight's drones were puzzled by the dumbstruck Home Guard rushing over to surround the automata. The robots were loaded down with saddlebags and crates and completely ignored the black drones as they deposited their supplies near the purple changelings.

"Oh, those are the Clockwerks. Artificial changelings. They're mostly harmless."

Thoran kept glancing back and forth between Twilight and the Clockwerks as Twilight's brood started doling out the supplies. "Artificial changelings?!" He let off a heavy sigh before landing. "Why am I even surprised at this point?" _I swear,_ queens _these days. First it was those walking biological weapons of Polybia, the so called "specters" from Jstrul, and now it's artificial changelings._ "I suppose I don't have any issue with you bringing them then, just please don't let them damage anything."

"I wouldn't dream of harming anything here." _At least, I hope it doesn't come to that._

The group Twilight brought with her into the castle consisted of her original four escorts, who rarely left her side outside of the _Phoenix,_ eleven other drones, Thoran, and one Clockwerk. Thoran kept stealing wary glances at the unnerving metallic changeling.

However, Thoran's mood jumped several levels higher once Twilight's group entered the Castle proper and she started asking questions. "These tapestries," she pointed out to those hanging from the entry hall's rafters. "The style seems oddly familiar… but I can't put my hoof on where I've seen it."

The group glanced up at the navy blue and silver tapestries depicting heavily stylized figures that could only be guessed to be changelings in some sort of battle with a shape or group too abstract to identify. Thoran grinned at them with pride. "You like them? Restoring those was my life's work until I became captain."

Aegis gave him a bemused smile. "Doesn't take much to make captain in the HG, does it?"

Thoran shot her a scathing glare right as Riposte slapped her upside the head, eliciting a mischievous snicker out of her. "Forgive Aegis, please, continue."

Thoran didn't notice Twilight giving her son an approving smile. "Anyway, the tapestries along the ground floor depict the various battles against the jungle's denizens as the First Mother carved the first hive out of the mesa's previous inhabitants."

Twilight gave a silent order, and her escorts took to the air to snap several pictures of the various tapestries and other historic artwork scattered across the halls and corridors. "Do we have any depictions of times before we started building a civilization? Preserved cave art, perhaps?"

"Afraid not," Thoran replied woefully. "These tapestries are among the oldest surviving records we have. There was a large fire that burned much of the lower levels a few thousand years ago."

"That's not good," Aegis commented upon landing. "I hope the archives survived."

"That's what we're here to find out. Let's break up into teams of three and search the north side. B team has the south. Contact me if you find anything big."

"Yes, my queen!"

Hours melted away into days, and days turned in a week of ultimately fruitless searching. Twilight and her usual retinue were resting inside one of the dozen storehouses on the ground level. The room was covered wall to wall with murals that would leave a historian busy for years.

Thoran was chewing on a sandwich while brooding over the lack of success and constant bombardment of questions from not only Twilight, but all of her brood as well. _I don't have to take this anymore. The southwest wing is crumbling and we've had to devote so many able bodies away from maintenance that it'll take a whole year to catch up._

He glanced at Aegis, who was tapping the wall with her ear pressed against it. Every so often, she would move to different section of wall, and tap away at both the wall and his sanity. He was about to ask her to stop that infernal tapping, when Twilight trotted over while gnawing on a meat-laden leg bone. "What room is this? I haven't seen many chambers dedicated to murals like this."

 _Always with the questions. There I was begging for a queen to care about us for more than being custodians and I get the one who can't go five minutes without asking something._ Shoring up his best public face, Thoran dipped his head in respect before actually contemplating her question. "This is the Vale of Heroines. And it's not a bunch of different murals, but a single piece, showing the First Mother's victory over a rebelling queen."

Twilight studied the rather violent depictions of battle and death with a curious eye. "Why would 'Heroines' be plural then?"

"Some other queens remained loyal to the first," Thoran explained with increasing enthusiasm. He _was_ a historian at heart, after all. "This is the earliest historic record that remains intact to this day."

Ferrum fluttered over, delivering a water skin to Twilight. "I've been meaning to ask you, how does the Home Guard hive mind work since you don't have a queen?"

The question piqued Twilight's curiosity, and left Thoran flat-hooved. "I ahh… I'm… not sure, exactly. I've never given it much thought."

That turned everyone's heads, save Aegis, who was still absorbed in her search. "What do you mean 'not sure'?" Ratchet replied as he stopped tinkering with the Clockwerk. "Are you designed to link solely with each other or something?"

"No, we have a central nexus that acts like a queen, I think, but I've never seen it. I don't think anyone has."

 _An artificial queen? Is that even possible!?_ She was about to voice that question when Aegis shouted out.

"Ah ha! I think I found something!" Everyone trotted over. "Captain Thoran, is there anything behind this wall?"

"Not for several meters. This is all solid rock."

A wicked smile flashed over Aegis' face as she stood back with her horn aglow. "Wanna bet?"

"Aegis…what are you doing?"

"Watch, Mother." Aegis fired a lavender-orange bolt at the wall, blasting out a golf ball sized dent in the wall, sending a small plume of dust everywhere.

"What are you doing!?" Thoran screeched. "You can't destroy sacred property!" He recoiled at the damaged drywall and the once pristine mural it once held. "D—do you know how long it took to restore this!? Your Highness, I demand restitution!"

"Hold, Thoran! Aegis, what did you find?"

The drone in question blew away some of the dust and took a flashlight off her belt and shined it upon the hole she made. "It's hollow, Mother." She peered into the hole. "There's a staircase in there; deep too."

"Very good. Everypony, take pictures of the mural." She turned to Thoran, who was trapped between fury and curiosity. "I'll be glad to give any restitution necessary, but I'm afraid we'll need to tear down this wall. This could be exactly what we've been looking for!"

Thoran wrestled with himself long enough for Twilight's drones to finish their photography. _Well…what do I have to lose? She'll pay to restore the mural, and she's recording it so it's not fully lost,_ and _there's a chance that this could be the archives._ "I hope you're right."

Seeing his agreement, Twilight faced the Clockwerk. "Clockwerk unit Vespun: instructions, clear a large enough opening through the indicated wall to allow my passage."

The robotic changeling stared at its master and followed her hoof to the cracked false wall. **"Directive received. Executing."** Vespun's joints hissed and clanked as it approached the wall. Its head cocked back and forth as it surveyed the obstruction.

Twilight gently slapped herself with a hoof. "Clockwerk unit Vespun: instructions, suspend current directive."

The robot frozen in place. **"Complying."**

Can somepony remove its saddlebags? It's not designed to account for the altered center of gravity.

A few nearby drones complied, allowing Twilight to speak again. "Clockwerk unit Vespun: instructions, resume previous directive."

 **"Affirmative."** With an about face, Vespun bucked the wall with such force that the resulting boom and crumbling rock pained everyone's ears.

Dust filled the surrounding area, making everyone back off or suffer a coughing fit. Twilight weaved a spell to clear the air to find the hole was large enough for her to duck inside and have two changelings side by side. "Clockwerk unit Vespun: resume default posture."

 **"Understood."**

Twilight suppressed a snicker at Thoran's astonishment. She summoned a horn light to illuminate their path. The stairs descended so far down into the mesa that her spell only revealed inky blackness and wax covered walls.

Riposte inspected the walls as the group moved in. "Yup, this is definitely ancient changeling make. The wax construction is exactly the same style used in the last two ruined hives we investigated."

"Excellent. Good job, Aegis." All teams! Reconverge on my location, we have some spelunking to do.

Within an hour, all forty lavender changelings arrived, as did an equal number of Home Guard after Thoran gave a similar order.

There was an air of excitement coursing through the gathered changelings. Twilight's brood was greatly affected by her own eagerness to get started. "Okay, listen up! We have no idea what's down there, so we're staying together this time. We could run into a nest of quarray eels again, or the area could be loaded with traps like the last hive we went to. Keep a sharp eye out, and call out anything suspicious."

With Aegis' squad taking point, Twilight lead the group down into the forgotten section of the castle. The stairs went on for seemingly forever, with only flashlights bringing any warmth to the lightless depths. The deeper they went, the more agitated the Home Guard became.

Thoran was trying to stare ahead and ignore the cold chill crawling up his spine. Begone from here. He tried to swivel his ears and look for the source.

 _Am I hearing things?_

Leave, now!

 _That wasn't a physical sound…_

He strained both his ears and Link senses to try and hear it, but the voice did not speak again. Anyone else getting some weird vibes out this place?

Not really, Captain.

I swear I heard something.

The First Mother doesn't want us down here, sir. This place just _feels_ off limits.

The stairs finally deposited them in a great cavern that could easily act as a hangar for some of Stripped Gear's smaller airships. The ground was artificially flattened from use in ages past, but that was so long ago that stalagmites were starting to form in various places. Twilight and her drones were abuzz with excitement. "We found it! This has got to be the archives! Alright everypony, start searching for a way to get inside, but stay vigilant for traps."

With various cheers and hollers, the purple drones swarmed over the area, armed with flashlights and archeological tools. Ratchet stood by Twilight with a perplexed expression. That expression was shared by the Home Guard standing dumbfounded around Twilight and her Clockwerks.

"Um, begging your pardon, your highness, but what they looking at? There's nothing here but an empty chamber."

Twilight looked at him as if he had grown a second head. "What are you talking about?"

Um, Honey, why they all going about like they found a giant laboratory or something?

"Wha—are you serious!?" Ratchet met Twilight's incredulous look with a simple shrug. Every single Home Guard drone was looking at the throng of Twilight's children swarm over seemingly empty space. "There's a whole lost era structure down here!"

By the way Twilight's drones were acting, it was obvious to Ratchet that _something_ had to be there. "Can you try tapping your vision into me?"

"Yeah, sure."

Within a few seconds, Ratchet saw a large ten by thirty meter dark stone structure materialize out of thin air. Already, most of the flashlights had been put on fixed stands to illuminate the area, and the drones were hovering or standing around it, too cautious to touch it for fear of setting off any traps.

Twilight was about to go join them when one of her sons flew over and bowed towards her. "My queen, this is simply a fascinating discovery! There's a multiphased perception filter matrix etched _into_ the decorative exterior."

Twilight clicked her tongue. "Let me guess: it's meant to render the archive invisible to changelings."

Riposte smirked with pride for his mother. "Astute as ever, my queen. Did you gather that from the Link chatter?"

"No, actually." That got a confused look out of him as she turned to face Thoran. "It appears that's why you can't see it." _It seems having a hybrid brain is more useful than I thought._

Twilight's triumphant smile faded at the state the Home Guard. They were crowding around each other out of fear. Many were shivering, while others were downright quaking in their chitin. "Are you all okay?"

Thoran pulsed a command to shape up over his Link. "Yes, your majesty. Although I must confess that whatever it is you found is… frightening. I think invisibility is not its only defense."

"I understand." I get the feeling this one might be dangerous. I want no slip-ups, everypony!

A chorus of acknowledgements almost drowned Aegis out. Mother, I believe we've found the entrance.

On my way.

Twilight located Aegis easily enough, and circled around the structure to find her and two other drones writing down the carving around the seemingly flat wall. Aegis looked up from her work at her mother's arrival.

"Found this." She pointed at a series of runes. "These look to be the same dialect found in the Rock Gorge hive."

"That was the oldest hive we've searched, until now. Do you have a translation for me?"

"Erm, I do, but it's not the same self-flattery from the other hives. The part on the left reads: Here within lies the Chamber of Chitin. Any who would steal the knowledge contained within this room shall be stricken from memory, and suffer true death. So saith Oʊ.vɚ Kwiːn Tia'vil'yet, and so it is written."

Twilight frowned at the warning. _Stricken from memory? Could that be why nopony remembers anything of the past beyond the First Mother?_

Aegis checked her notes and buzzed over to another part of the wall. "Now, if we go over to the left side of the door, the inscription reads: My passing will herald the final death of the 'this part's missing'. The memories will fade and be forgotten. We, The Changed, will live on anew, unburdened. The seals are—. And that's all of it."

Twilight studied the rock where the rest of the sentence would have been. "This part doesn't look like it was defaced. If I had to guess, I'd think the writer stopped before they could finish."

Ferrum traced a hoof around some damage caused by both blade and spell. "I'm hoping that means Tia'vil'yet didn't get a chance to destroy the records as planned. There could have been a bloody coup that ended up saving the archive."

"Hmm, perhaps. Maybe the archive has the answers. In any case, let's see if we can find the right opening trigger…" Twilight trailed off as she probed the wall with her magic. To the naked eye, the black stone archive would look like little more than a lump of ebony with carvings decorating its surface. To the arcane eye, it had very subtle wards and spells interwoven into the very rock itself. However, to the eyes of the hybrid changeling queen, there was something else there as well.

Aegis scratched her head as her notes only confounded her. "The illusion enchantments keeping the door hidden need to be triggered by something, but there's no indication as to what."

"Only the original owner would have known, so I doubt she left hints. But, I think it's more simplistic than we give it credit for… A royal's magic," Twilight replied at length. "That's got to be it! The queen who built this would have been able to pierce the illusions, and I bet she would have it so only she could open it in case somepony took control of one of her drones."

"But doesn't anypony's magic signature change slowly over time?" Riposte queried. "There's no way she could ensure her magic would always work."

"Normally, yes," Twilight replied with a short squeal of excitement. " _But,_ a queen's magic signature is irrevocably altered by the use of alchemy, and only queens, like myself, ever use it. Yes, our magic still changes over time, but alchemy always leaves a particular flavor to the practitioner's signature."

 _Don't the Home Guard have to use it to alter donated eggs?_ Aegis kept the thought to herself. _There's no stopping mother when she gets like this._

Twilight bounced on her hooves. "Finally! Four years of research and planning has led to. This. _Moment!"_ Her horn lit up with an excited static charge and slid into the door. _Keep it calm, Twilight, you still have to keep an eye out for traps. But I get to finally see my race's origins! I might even get to write the changeling version of Hearth's Warming Eve!_ She squealed and clapped her hooves excitedly, much to the amusement of her children.

A loud click resounded from within the structure, stifling Twilight's enthusiasm for fear of triggering something lethal. Acidic green magic formed arching lines across the stone surface, and the door revealed itself and opened. A wave of dust and musty old parchment wafted through the gathered changelings.

"Phew, that is _rank!_ I think something died in there."

Aegis' words fell on deaf ears, as a green wave of light pulsed from within the archive. The moment it touched them, the already cold air in the chamber dropped below freezing. A psychic whisper started growing into a screeching wail. Twilight's ears drooped at the sound of it. "That can't be good."

 **INTRUDERS HAVE BREACHED THE ARCHIVES! ARISE, MY CHILDREN! ARISE AND KILL THEM IN THE NAME OF TIA'VIL'YET!**


	14. Chapter 14

The Phantom Menace

Twilight and her brood recoiled at the psychic scream that attacked them. The entity within the archive wrapped itself around Twilight's hive mind and immediately tried to wrest control from her.

The immense pressure of the psychic command barely registered on Twilight, but her drones were writhing and clutching their heads in a desperate attempt to retain their sanity.

Make it stop!

Get out of my HEAD!

Kill th—no!

My queen is Twilight Sparkle, NOT YOOOOOU!

All of her drones started falling out of the air and thrashing on the ground as they tried to keep the psychic wail from dominating their minds. Twilight watched on in horror as her children writhed in agony.

The psychic command tried to lay claim to Twilight's mind, but her royal blood made her wholly resistant to it. Before she could even think on how to save her drones, the booming voice roared again over her hive mind.

 **THE CHANGED? WE THOUGHT WE MADE SURE YE WOULD NEVER SEEK THIS PLACE!**

Twilight was momentarily stunned by her drones' pain. Please, stop hurting my children!

 **THINE? THE CHANGED ARE** OURS **BY RIGHT! THOU WOULDST DO WELL TO REMEMBER** THAT FACT!

Twilight could _feel_ her drones' pain as they tried to cry out for mercy and relief. Tears started streaming down her face. Please, stop hurting them! Just tell me what you want!

Tia'vil'yet paused a moment, and her voice sounded strained. **WHAT WE WANT? SIMPLE, WE WANT THEE TO DIE!**

Twilight gritted her teeth. Let. My. Children. GO!

 **THOU SHALT NOT DARE TO COMMAND US,** TRAITOR! **WE ARE THY BEGINNING, AND WE** SHALL BE THY END!

Twilight dug her hooves into the ground and stared daggers into the open archives. If you won't stop, then I'll _make_ you stop! This is **my** hive mind, and you are _not_ welcome in it!

Twilight dug her hooves into the ground and squeezed her eyes shut to summon a tidal wave of psychic willpower, and she launched it through the hive mind with a growling roar of effort. Tia'vil'yet's superior chuckling died in an instant as she reeled from the wave front, costing her valuable ground in the chaotic mindscape. We see thou hast some talent, traitor! But we are as old as Equis itself. Thou canst not defeat us!

Twilight started sweating profusely, and her heart was booming in her ears as Tia'vil'yet redoubled the pressure on the Link. Why do you keep calling me a traitor? I was welcomed down here!

It matters not! The moment thou didst violate the sanctity of the Chamber of Chitin, thy life and the lives of thine hive were forfeit!

Twilight saw an opening and sent a lash of psychic energy to strike Tia'vil'yet directly, causing her to cry out in pain. Twilight smirked with satisfaction as her drones stopped squirming in agony, but were still too befuddled by the battle over the hive mind to regain lucidity. If that's your attitude, then I will defy you with every breath. And I'm winning.

Dark laughter echoed through the local hive mind. Queries from those aboard the _Phoenix_ and Cadista were hastily silenced by Tia'vil'yet. Thou hast power over thine own hive mind that we lack in death, but we need not use thine own brood to kill thee. The faithful shall see to that.

Sweat fell from Twilight's straining face as her eyes scanned the area around her. The stairs were twenty yards behind the archives, and several Home Guard drones were crawling over the archives with a murderous gleam in their eyes. Tia'vil'yet used the distraction to repay the injury with a scalding lance of energy that pierced Twilight's defences. The lance left its mark upon Twilight as blood started oozing out of a fresh wound in her belly. We know not why thou didst search out this place, traitor, but none shall ever know the secrets we took to the grave.

A dozen different plans cycled through Twilight's brain as she backed away towards the far wall, deflecting other psychic bursts while barely managing to send a few of her own. Tia'vil'yet chuckled at the trapped queen. We _would_ offer thee a quick death, traitor, but it have been so long since we hath had anything to do besides sleep.

With Tia'vil'yet's constant pressure over the hive mind keeping Twilight's drones incapacitated and the Home Guard marching towards her with lethal intent, Twilight was quickly running out of options. That is, except for one. If I can't push you out, _Tia'vil'yet_ , then neither of us will control them!

Twilight's horn flashed brightly as she short circuited the control structure of the hive mind, denying Tia'vil'yet of her ability to control Twilight's drones, and thus robbing her of her prize. The act lifted the painful fog from the drones' minds, with many of them shaking their heads to clear their thoughts.

What was that!? Tia'vil'yet raged, before scoffing. Dost thou really think that shall help? Without thy control over them, those drones have not the wits of a Ca'vekar, Tia'vil'yet sneered as she moved in to cut off any attempt for Twilight to reestablish control over her brood, making it impossible for either of them to control Twilight's drones.

Heh, I wouldn't be so sure. Children, defend your queen!

Tia'vil'yet would have laughed at the lack of control magic in Twilight's command, but a fearsome battle cry erupted from behind the Home Guard closing in on the hybrid queen. In a wave of purple fur, Twilight's drones descended on the Home Guard, brandishing fang and wrench to protect their queen.

Twilight used to the distraction to vault over the battle and fly towards the archive. Don't kill anypony, they are not themselves!

That was a lot easier said than done. The only thing most of Twilight's drones had to contend with the Home Guard's weapons were engineering and archeology tools. Knowing this, Twilight raced for the archives, only to hear Tia'vil'yet fly into a rage.

 **INSOLENCE! WE** SHALL **HAVE YOU!** Tia'vil'yet abandoned the battle over the hive mind to launch a salvo of psychic spikes. The lavender queen deflected half, but three spikes struck home and paralyzed Twilight. She fell out of the air and tumbled to the ground between two Home Guards. She was so focused on keeping Tia'vil'yet's follow up attacks at bay, that she didn't even notice the black drones' swords slicing the air towards her neck.

Twilight cracked an eye open to see a wire cutter and a wrench wreathed in lavender-orange magic fly over and thwack both black drones in the side of the head, knocking them out cold. Twilight felt like she was standing against a hurricane, searing and blasting against her in every attempt to dislodge her lockout on the drones' minds.

Aegis and Intel slid their way through the skirmish and helped Twilight climb to her hooves, but the war over control of the hive mind dominated nearly every iota of her consciousness. Aegis tried to rouse Twilight, while Intel pilfered the swords off the two Home Guard and gave one to Aegis, right as two more Home Guard dove in for the kill.

"Mother, we need to get you out of here, but that banshee's done something to the Link. I can't call the ship for help."

Twilight screamed as Tia'vil'yet dragged a hot serrated axe across her mind, blinding her from everything but the pain. Twilight wildly lashed out, sending freezing energy in all directions. Several drones on both sides were momentarily paralyzed by the frantic defense. One wave of psychic energy managed to ram into Tia'vil'yet, numbing her long enough for the searing axe to dissipate. Capitalizing on the opening, Twilight heaved a massive cold front at her opponent, buying her precious seconds to study the physical world. "Get…me in… the archive."

"Roger that." Aegis heard a feral growl above her and took Intel's offered sword in her magic and brought it to bear just in time for Thoran to slam down on her. Only by adding her physical strength to her magic, was Aegis able to shove Thoran away from her, and jumped into a low hover between him and Twilight. "This is a bit of an overkill for all those jabs about your job, isn't it?"

Thoran's eyes were glowing much brighter than normal. His voice carried an edge as sharp as his sword while he slid into an aggressive stance. "You never should have come here."

Thoran slashed left, only to be met by Aegis' hasty parry. The captain pivoted the blade away from Aegis' own and cut a deep line across her muzzle.

With a savage roar, Aegis blasted back with a kinetic pulse, knocking both blades away from them. That gave her the opening she needed to body check Thoran, knocking him back and buying Twilight some breathing room. "Is that right?"

Aegis scowled at the murderous glances Thoran kept stealing towards Twilight. _You'll never have her!_ Aegis found her sword and swung it at Thoran, only for it to be easily batted away by his own.

Thoran surged forward with his blade flashing towards her throat. Aegis tried to skewer him by throwing her sword, but he easily flew over it. Smirking at his victory, Thoran carved the air to remove Aegis' head from her shoulders.

*Clank* Odd, that was not the sound of iron cutting flesh. A strange cylindrical weapon stood between Thoran's sword and Aegis' throat.

Thoran jumped back into a defensive posture. "You throw away a perfectly good weapon for that toy? And there you were, mocking me all week."

Aegis smirked at him and brought her strange weapon to bear in a manner totally alien to the captain. "A sword's all well and good, boy-yo, but a pistol's better!"

Aegis, DON'T! Twilight was too slow. Chitin splintered as the shot tore through Thoran's right foreleg just below the knee. He howled in pain as his sword dropped to the ground, along with the rest of him.

Ignoring Twilight's protests, Aegis backed up to her queen to reload. "Intel! Stop horsing around and help move Mother!"

Intel had both his pistol and stolen sword dancing before him. "In case—" he ducked a vicious swing, "you hadn't noticed, I'm a bit—" he flattened himself on the floor to avoid a third guard's sweeping spear, "preoccupied at the moment!"

Twilight punished Tia'vil'yet with a fuselage of bug bites, momentarily gaining the initiative. "Aegis, if you so much as fire that weapon again!"

Ferrum flew over and bashed one of Intel's attackers away while disarming the second by ripping his spear away with his magic. That left Aegis alone to heave the large queen on her back. "You can punish me later."

Three more lavender drones broke off from the fighting behind them to guard Twilight as Aegis hefted her to the archives. With the rearguard established, and most of the Home Guard bogged down by the rest of the expedition team, it was a straight shot to the archive.

Tia'vil'yet saw it all through the the eyes of the enslaved drones. Stay away from us!

Fat chance! Aegis snarled as they made it into the Chamber of Chitin. There was a large, diamond-shaped, acidic green crystal with an encased brain sitting on an iron pedestal in the center of the room. "Mother, what do we do?!"

Twilight surveyed the crystal and the iron pedestal it rested on. "Push it off; she's drawing mana from the floor!"

Aegis nodded and set Twilight down to obey, but Tia'vil'yet lashed out with everything she had in a desperate psychic scream that blew everyone off their hooves long enough for the room to be enveloped by a green array. Don't you _dare_ touch us!

Everyone in the whole chamber was teleported to the stairs in a massive jumble. The mound of changelings was mostly incapacitated by the forced teleport, with only Aegis, Twilight, and three Home Guard remaining conscious. The act taxed Tia'vil'yet immensely, and she was forced to recede all attempts to take control of Twilight's hive mind.

Ratchet poked his head out from behind the inactive trio of Clockwerks, catching Twilight's attention as Aegis quickly pistol whipped the three semi-lucid Home Guard before they could become a threat.

Once Twilight extended her psychic protection over her consort and last remaining bodyguard, she faced the archives. Is that the best you can do, Tia'vil'yet? I can stop a forced teleport; it won't work twice! As if in response to Twilight's readying herself for another assault, a pale green shield dome erected itself around the archive. Twilight's attack bounced off the barrier without so much as a tingle on the shield. That won't work for long either!

 **We admit that the tenacity of thee and thy brood was… unexpected. But now it matters not. Our spell shall keep everyone else unconscious for hours. Hours which thou dost not have.** The sound of thundering hooves and buzzing wings from the top of the stairs started filling the chamber. **The rest of our loyal children shall be more than sufficient to finish the job. Thou wast a fool to come here on thine own. When thou art dead, the rest of thine hive shall scatter, and the secrets of this place shall remain with the dead.**

Not likely. Twilight faced the robots. "Clockwerks: Instructions: deny all entry into this chamber."

 **"Directive acknowledged."**

"Mother, those things weren't designed for combat, steel chassis or not."

"It'll be enough." _It'll have to be._ "Ratchet, you're with me."

The three of them sprinted to the archive's entrance as a massive crash of metal on metal resounded through the cavern from the direction of the stairs. The archive door was still open, but the green barrier served as better protection, at least in theory.

Twilight extended her senses to permeate the barrier, while Aegis and Ratchet cast weary glances at the throng of black changelings trying to hack their way through the three metallic bouncers. Come and _try_ to attack us now. We designed this shield ourselves. Neither thy magical nor psychic power can harm us now. For there is a world ley line running under this mesa, feeding it unlimited mana!

Twilight tried to block out Tia'vil'yet's taunting, but the disembodied queen was relentless. Thou shouldest savor these last moments, traitor. Thy living armor golems shall not hold back the tide of death that awaits thee. None shall remember thy name, and the world shall go on, and we shall still be here to ensure—

Twilight stole Aegis' pistol, wrapped the lead ball in a swath of magic and shot the barrier. The enchanted bullet wedged itself inside the shield and started spitting teal arcs of electricity through the barrier and into the surrounding crystals, fracturing them into dust. The barrier fizzled out at the same time the Home Guard managed to break through the Clockwerks. With a telekinetic fist, Twilight slapped Tia'vil'yet's brain crystal from its pedestal. In a snap, the magic surrounding the archive vanished, and the surging Home Guard dropped out of the air in a daze.

The archive fell dark, with only a few toppled flashlights outside casting erratic shadows upon its walls. Without the pedestal's magic, Tia'vil'yet's grip upon both hive minds evaporated. Ratchet poked his head in and whistled in astonishment. " _That's_ the mare I love! How'd you break the barriers?"

Twilight lorded over the crystallized remains of the long dead queen. "It wasn't that hard. Celestia taught me quite a bit about old magic. This particular barrier was created before mages learned how to combine magic wards and physically resistant barriers. Both spells' mana patterns cancel each other out, so all I needed to do was enchant the bullet to act as a conduit. Once both spells started feeding into each other, it resulted in a feedback loop that destroyed the emitter crystals."

Ratchet joined her by the dimly glowing crystal of Tia'vil'yet. "Huh, well you can't argue with results." He eyed the odd crystal as Twilight levitated it to her face for inspection, and he pulled a flashlight out to help her. "So this was the thing that made everyone go crazy?"

"Seems so." Twilight mused while turning around to see Aegis standing at the entrance. "Aegis, tell the ship to send down help and bring medical attention for the injured. I want a casualty report within the hour for both sides."

"Yes, mother."

As she ran off, Twilight focused on Aegis. We'll talk about your insubordination later.

A tremor of fear shot through Aegis, but she ignored it to follow orders. With everything soon to be taken care of by her hive, Twilight restored her subtle control over her drones, thus bringing the Link back to normalcy. With that done, she returned her attention to Tia'vil'yet's crystal. Now that that nasty business is over with, I'd like to have a little chat with you. I never got to introduce myself, my name is Twilight Sparkle.

She made sure her introduction was heard by both Tia'vil'yet and Ratchet. Th—thou thou thou, t—traitor traaaaaitor. Ch—ch-chamber of of of arc-archives o-o-off off off l-l-l.

Tia'vil'yet stuttered for a few more seconds before Ratchet laid a hoof on Twilight. "I think you broke it. What _is_ this thing anyway?"

Twilight moved the flashlight around to take a closer look at the crystal, while moving outside into the cavern for better light. "…If I didn't know any better… I'd say this was a mind imprinting prism."

"In Vespid, please."

"What I mean is, I don't think that this is actually Tia'vil'yet's brain in a crystal diamond, but an imprinted one. Probably from a drone or maybe even a royal daughter."

Thou—thou—de—de—danger… Twilight shook her head sadly at the sorry state the consciousness was in.

"Looks like the only thing holding it together after all these years was that pedestal. I can't put her back on there or she might try to attack us again."

"Well good riddance to her," Ratchet spat. "Somepony that can attack any nearby hive mind like that is just waiting to cause trouble."

Tia'vil'yet's presence over the Link faded completely, causing a few motes of green mana to fall away from the crystal as the bound magics finally lost cohesion. Twilight gently rubbed the crystal. _Imprint or not, she was still a changeling in spirit. I'll have to give her a proper burial._ A terrible thought struck Twilight. "The Home Guard!"

She flew over the archives to find both groups of changelings milling around the base of the stairs. Medics from the Home Guard had arrived and were patching up the wounded, with some of Twilight's drones assisting. Those still able to move were trying to organize themselves.

Twilight saw the black changelings were out of sorts, but otherwise no worse for wear. The same could not be said for her brood. Seven of her children were in critical condition, with four fatalities. The last thing Twilight wanted was to be reminded of their loss. It was hardly the first death among her hive, and it would not be the last. _Stay strong for them, Twilight Sparkle. I'll have plenty of time to grieve on the next Day of Mourning._

After shoring up her emotional strength and tying her grief up for another day, Twilight returned her attention to the Home Guard. _They certainly don't act like they've been severed from their hive mind._

She searched for Thoran, found him surrounded by two medics, and flew over to him. "Captain, are you alright?"

The medics were in the middle of surgically removing his foreleg's chitin to get at the bullet wound. "Please, my queen, we need space to work."

She nodded and backed off. Take good care of him.

* * *

The archive was pushed out of Twilight's mind as her brood worked to bring everything to order. She knew Aegis was trying to avoid her by sequestering herself in the Chamber of Chitin, but she was focused more on Thoran's recovery.

After a few hours, Twilight made her way to Thoran's quarters as one of her nurses exited the room. "How is he, Resta?"

"He'll be fine, my queen," Resta replied while double checking her clipboard. "The bullet shattered his chitin in two points and ripped a nice clean hole through the rest of him. It'll take time, something I wouldn't recommend using magic to accelerate, but he should make a full recovery in a few months once his new shell grows in. Until then, his subordinate will be taking over."

"Can I see him?"

"Briefly, please. He lost a lot of blood before somepony could get some salve on him."

"Thank you," Twilight croaked as she made her way into the bedroom.

Thoran was propped up on his bed with a ledger, but he was barely able to keep his eyes open to read it. He might have jumped at Twilight's entry, had his fatigue not kept him from it. "Your Highness, what can I do for you?"

"I came to apologize for the mess I made, and for what Aegis did to your leg."

"She certainly caught me by surprise with that weapon of hers," he admitted lightly.

"You'll be glad to know that the source of your hive mind was not the ghost-clone of Tia'vil'yet, but the pedestal she rested on. You shouldn't have any lasting effects upon your Link once my children finish double checking for any last minute surprises that may have been left for us."

Thoran sighed in relief. "Good. When she had taken control of us like that, I thought we had at last been granted a queen to serve. Not that she gave any of us a chance to serve her willingly."

"Sorry about that. Had I known knocking her crystal off the pedestal would have killed her, I would have found another way."

"Please, your highness, you do yourself a disservice. Whatever that was that took control of us, it had no right. You know as well as I that a queen is far more than just a leader."

Twilight nodded with a ghost of a smile. "We queens rule solely by our right as mothers."

"I knew you'd understand, Your Highness. A queen who cannot produce drones is no queen at all. I'm just glad she wasn't the source of our hive mind."

"Even so, that doesn't excuse what happened to your leg. Not when we managed to avoid shooting anypony else. So I've sent down several engineering teams to help you catch up on your restoration work while I see what the archives can tell us."

The thought of guilt tripping Twilight into helping with that _did_ cross Thoran's mind frequently. If for nothing else, than as payment for the hailstorm of questions he had been bombarded with over the past week. _It's even better since it was her idea._ "Thank you, Your Highness. I know there are several weakening structural supports all along the eastern wing and in the Summit chamber itself."

"I'll see what I can do."

Thoran sat up a little straighter as Twilight stood to leave. "Oh, and our hatchery could use some renovating. I've been meaning to assign—"

"Alright, captain, I'll get a crew for that too." She eyed him warily, some of her pity falling away.

"Any chance you can install one of those air conditioning units Ferrum was talking about for the living quarters?"

" _Captain!_ " Twilight interrupted tersely. "I will see to it, but I feel you should get some rest."

Thoran erred on the side of caution and fell back into bed. "I feel you're right, Your Highness. I trust whatever you find in the Chamber of Chitin was worth it."

"It'd better be."

* * *

Aegis was horn deep in her team's thorough combing of the archives. Now that the room had decent lighting, the actual layout was finally visible. Most of the archive was filled with scroll cubbies, with a large desk at the far end. The cast iron pedestal upon which Tia'vil'yet rested was covered in sigils of humming power. The wooden desk itself was covered in mold and other rot, and most of the scrolls had mostly broken apart after the moderately fresh air from the cavern rushed inside.

All that was left was being meticulously investigated while Aegis was left to probe the pedestal itself. **AEGIS!** The drone nearly jumped out of her skin and turned around to find Twilight glowering at her from the entrance. We have some things to discuss.

Aegis quickly prostrated herself in front of her queen while the rest of the drones redoubled their interest in their work. I offer no excuse for shooting Thoran.

Nor should you, Twilight replied coldly. Come, I'd rather not block the door.

Aegis followed Twilight to the far end of the cavern with flat ears and her tail between her legs. _Never seen Mother this angry before._

Twilight stopped abruptly and turned to face her daughter. "I had expected better of you, Aegis. Even without genetic enhancements you are my best soldier. You should have been able to disarm Thoran without nearly costing him a limb."

"Yes, my queen."

Twilight's anger abated at Aegis' obvious repentance. _Best soldier my hoof. She's spent more time digging in the dirt with me than in the training yard. My entire personal guard does…_ While Aegis couldn't see it, Twilight's face fell into a self-blaming frown. _I'll need to rectify that if I'm going to survive out here. If I had gone up against a living queen, her brood would have been more than a match for me._ She regained her composure to address her daughter. "For the crime of disobeying a direct order, you are to help nurse him back to health for the duration of our stay."

Aegis' face fell. "What!? Can't I be sent to the brig or given menial duty or something, please?"

Twilight arched an eyebrow at her daughter groveling at her hooves. "After you've razzed him all week about being a glorified custodian, and _then_ feel like you needed to fire your weapon to subdue him?" Aegis wilted and she hung her head in defeat. "Now report to Resta, she's overseeing his recovery."

"Yes, mother." Aegis moaned before taking to the air. _That's because he_ is _a custodian._

I want to hear you two becoming the best of friends by week's end. _Well that takes care of that._ Twilight flew towards the archive to find Intel taking a dinner break. Intel, we need to talk business.

He instantly dropped his steak sandwich. It's about how piss poor we did in the fight, isn't it.

"To put it bluntly, yes," Twilight responded once she was within speaking distance. "Ferrum and Riposte got seriously injured," she glanced at the salve covering his cheek, forelegs, and ten other places along his body. "You're not much better off, why haven't you reported to the medics yet?"

His first response was to grunt dismissively, but reigned it in. "Because I'm a member of the Jevruun Vrunningee. If your personal guard is lounging around in bed with these paper cuts, what does that say about the rest of our soldiers?"

Twilight gave him a weak smile. "Given how badly the day went, I'd say we still did poorly."

At this point, Intel's pride was as badly wounded as his body. "To be fair, my queen, you _did_ order us to use non-lethal force. Our options were limited."

"Be that as it may, I still think there's room for vast improvement. Since Aegis is busy with… other duties, I want you to contact Cadista's captain of the Guard and work up a new training program. And I want you to triple my personal guard."

He bowed his head. "As you command, so shall it be."

With Intel flying off to carry out his orders, Twilight made her way into the archive to find Ferrum leaning on a crutch while inspecting some partially intact scrolls. "Shouldn't you be in bed?"

Ferrum merely shrugged. "If I've got time to rest, I've got time to work… at least during business hours anyway. That is… unless you order me, my queen."

Twilight shot him a knowing smile. "Are you kidding? I kept trying to study Pinkie Pie once with worse injuries than that. So what did you find?"

Taking the indirect praise at face value, Ferrum felt his injuries become less troubling. "Only as much as we expected. Most of the paper documents are useless, but oddly enough, there are a lot of writings carved in chitin. Guess that explains the name of the place."

Twilight entered the archive to find Intel at the desk. The chair had broken into several pieces after he tried to sit in it. "On chitin? That's kind of morbid, don't you think?"

Intel glanced at Twilight before returning his attention to his work. "Aye, but for all we know, this could have been our ancestors' only way to preserve their records. Unfortunately, the only things I've translated so far are a bunch of day to day activity. Nothing about where we came from."

"Then it looks like we've got our work cut out for us."

* * *

So that's the long and short of it, Mother.

Cadista could barely believe what she was hearing. To think we've been genetically programmed to ignore our past.

Twilight spent half of her attention translating more texts. It would explain a few things.

Indeed. But have you found out _why_ the First Mother did that to us?

Nothing concrete. The record that explained what was done to our minds was incomplete, so I'd imagine the alchemy used to change us is lost forever.

Well, it doesn't seem to affect you, Twilight. Perhaps leaving your brain mostly in its original state prevented that from happening to you as well.

Heh, seems like it. I'm just glad Thoran was reasonable about the whole thing. The _last_ thing I needed was him calling the other queens down on me for killing Tia'vil'yet's clone. Even if it was unintentional.

Cadista's tone was far more dour than her daughter's. I would still take caution, young one. The Home Guard have always been moderately pragmatic, but they are honor bound to inform the other queens of what transpires within the Ebony Castle. Any one of them could take your actions as heresy.

Twilight's thoughts drifted to one queen in particular. Polybia. She already has it out for me. I should be safe here in the castle, at least until I know where to go next.

My thoughts exactly. I can't spare many, but I will have my scouts keep an eye on her and the other fanatical hives.

Then… oh my.

Cadista felt Twilight's growing excitement. Did you find something?

Possibly. What do you make of this line.

This… famine is worse than we ever anticipated. All attempts to grow the Carn fruit in the valley below the Lone Spire have proven successful, but something is wrong with us. We drink of its nectar day and night, and we still thirst, whither, and die. All Arcanum efforts to reverse what has happened to us have failed. We _must_ find something to slake our thirst again, or we shall surely perish.

Sounds like the early stages of prolonged love deprivation, Cadista commented. Strange that our ancestors wouldn't instinctually know on what and how to feed.

Twilight tapped her chin as she contemplated more text. Agreed… makes me wonder how they survived long enough to figure out what they needed, but the Lone Spire is what I'm interested in. I have an idea as to where that is, but I want to verify it first.

"Excuse me, my queen." Twilight turned to see Pepper, a drone that took every last scrap of bookishness from Twilight's genes and doubled it, hovering nearby with a clipboard. "You might find this of interest."

Twilight broadened her link with Cadista so she could listen through her daughter's ears. "Go ahead."

Pepper cleared her throat.

Fifth year of the Nocturne Moon, Twelfth day of Sun's Height. That our luck could turn from horrid to blessing in one fell swoop surely must be a sign from the Night Mother that we have been forgiven for our terrible sins! Two fortnights ago, a snap blizzard, in the midst of the growing season, ravaged the land. We had long seen the frozen lands to the northwest, and we feared that whatever dark magic kept the sun's rays from that lightless land would someday come for us. To punish us for our hubris.

The blizzard came upon us one day, shockingly swift. As if Gethar's vorpal blade has cut the Spirit of Sumar in twain. The worker caste managed to retreat to the Lone Spire out of fear. Strangely, the blizzard and snow vanished as quickly as it came. But we feared it was a ploy by Gethar, for he is as much a trickster as he is vile.

When we finally risked stepping out of our crystal caves, we found them. Equids, like us! They swarmed over the surface of our Lonely Spire and declared it their own. I wanted to warn them that Gethar might return, that they were all in grave danger, but the Seer Council, what was left of it anyway, decided to let the sun worshippers suffer whatever fate Gethar had in store for them, lest we invoke his wrath again.

Pepper put her clipboard down. "And that's all I got; the rest of the journal is missing."

"Equids, right after a sudden blizzard? Are you absolutely sure that's what it says?!"

"Yes, my queen. I always triple check everything."

"YES!" Twilight couldn't contain herself and jumped over to plant a big kiss on Pepper's forehead. "Do you know what this means!?"

That you know where to look, Cadista quipped.

Darn right I do! Lonely Spire, crystal caves, and a snap blizzard followed by the appearance of Equids? All crews listen up! Pack your bags, because we're going to Canterlot!


	15. Chapter 15

The Queen's New Groove

Dear Princess Celestia,

As I informed you in my last letter, I've been researching the origins of my people. After a… minor incident that I would rather not get into at the moment, I found a spotty, yet still rich treasure trove of knowledge. Ah, you should have been there, after the incident, to see it all. The records of a lost era, all waiting to be discovered.

Anyway, the point of this letter is to inform you that my findings have pointed me towards Canterlot, of all places, as a possible location to my species' birthplace. More specifically, the crystal mines that sit below the capital.

Strange, I know. Given the mines' history, I'm hoping the prospectors left something intact, or better yet, that they never unearthed my ancestors' primary living quarters. With that and the political climate of Equestria in mind, would I be able to bring my hive ship, the _Ashes of the Phoenix,_ into Canterlot without causing a panic? The last thing I want is to repeat the wedding invasion in ponies' minds.

I am adding a full written account of my findings in this letter.

Your faithful friend and ally,

Queen Twilight Sparkle

Twilight scanned her letter before deeming it fit. After rolling up a copy of her findings in with the scroll, she burned it. "There we go. Wouldn't want the princess left with the political nightmare of my hive rolling into Equestrian airspace unannounced."

The lavender queen stretched like a cat before peering at a desk clock. "Ooo, I have more than enough time to make it to my dinner date with Rarity."

Twilight trotted over to her mirror to primp her mane and inspect her wings. As Cadista had before her, Twilight left her crown sitting on the nightstand. _No need for it in my own ship._

Once her appearance was perfect, Twilight departed for the port upper decks where the primary mess halls were located. However, Twilight was not just walking through the ship; life was never so simple for a changeling queen. Every second of every day, two thousand minds conversed within her half of the hive mind, working together, gossiping, shop talk, researching, schooling, all of it passed through Twilight's brain, and she loved every moment of it. No, she _lived_ for it.

Yet even with the roughly four thousand minds of Cadista's drones also occasionally passing through, it wasn't enough. Oh no, not by a long shot. It was laughably easy for Twilight to direct her hive mind, not only because her drones were more than capable of handling the vast majority of tasks on their own, but also because a queen was built to expand, and expansion was always on her mind.

 _I wonder how large of a hive I can support in a decade or two… ten thousand? Maybe fifteen? Since we don't need to feed on outside sources for love, if I get an excellent location for the hive to settle, I might be able to support a few hundred thousand in a century or two._

A dreamy look crossed her features. _To hear the voices of a quarter million children… that would be a dream come true. I might even get to hear a million if I raise a few royal daughters._

Twilight halted in her steps as a thought struck her. Mother, does a royal daughter mature in the same way as a drone?

Cadista took a few moments to respond. Certainty not. A royal goes through a rather lengthy… childhood, I guess is the most apt term. A royal daughter will remain a princess for roughly twenty years before maturing into a proto queen.

Really? Twilight's face scrunched at the thought, before continuing to the mess hall. Why did I not even take a month?

Well, it takes _time_ to develop a brain that can handle any number of drones. The growth of a royal daughter is slow to ensure she can handle the load a hive mind places on a queen's mind with ease. You were a special case in the fact that you were already a full adult pony when you were converted. That, and you already had an acutely strong predisposition for organization.

Twilight snickered at herself. I guess I really was the perfect candidate then. So what's the general process to create a royal daughter?

Cadista hummed as she handled a few matters in person. Well, despite what you may think, you don't take a normal drone egg and convert it into a royal via alchemy. The parent queen has to suspend normal egg production and ingest royal jelly for the three day oviposit period. That's mostly so you don't end up laying thirty six royal eggs. The alchemy bit comes later after you've laid one. You should take extreme care in this though, as a royal daughter requires far more love than even you do now. Case in point, once you started needing love, you devoured the love surplus that I had been stockpiling for the past three centuries within a single month.

Twilight tripped over her hooves and face planted the floor, but that was least of her concerns. _Three centuries worth of love!?_ Are you kidding me?

Afraid not. Compressing fifty years' worth of development into two months was _only_ possible because of the vast stockpiles I had, and that you were already an adult. If I had been able to select a less… politically important pony in your stead, she would have remained in the chrysalis for at least forty years, and even then she would have put a sizable dent in my surplus. Converting a pony into a royal is **not** cheap.

"Woof," Twilight said in a daze. Okay, I'll keep that in mind. Good thing my hive produces love naturally.

Indeed. Why the sudden interest?

Oh, just wistful musings of what the future may hold. It _is_ my purpose after all.

Cadista tried her hardest to project her flat look over the Link. Twilight, my daughter, just because you're the first love producing queen to exist, doesn't mean you need to start producing more royals right away. I know the instinct to expand is enticing. Believe me, every queen feels that same motivation you're feeling right now.

You said it'd take half a century for her to mature, and there's still the alchemical planning stage. If it took Yumia and you so long to plan my rebirth, then I might as well start now, right?

Cadista grew weary of Twilight's chipper tone. _I don't think she's really listening._ …I suppose that's true. Since you are your own queen now, I can only advise you to take things slow. Give yourself a few hundred years to consolidate your power, find your hive's equilibrium after colonizing somewhere, and don't overpopulate. Just because you _think_ you can support a hundred thousand, doesn't mean you can.

 _Oh, theoretically, I can support over three hundred and fifty thousand._ Twilight mused. Yes, mother, I know. Don't worry, I'm a paragon of organization, she retorted with a self-satisfied grin.

I'd rather you extend that to caution as well. Twilight's grin faded. Just be sure of the consequences. The Summit will not turn a blind eye to you producing a princess so soon after earning your crown. Now, I'm afraid I have some issues that require my attention, if you have any other questions, contact me after the Day of Mourning.

That tempered Twilight's enthusiasm. You're right… I'll talk to you later then. Bye, mother. After Cadista ended contact, Twilight refocused her attention. Gentle Touch, I have something new for you.

The drone was in the middle of delicate work, but the inflection of Twilight's communication stilled her complaint, somewhat. You mean on top of my other duties? Please, mother, you have _other_ drones.

Come now, Gentle, you're getting a promotion.

The caretaker was dubious at Twilight's coy tone of voice. I didn't realize there was room for any more advancement in my field.

There is now. You are hereby relieved of your duties as Chief Caretaker, to be promoted to Attaché to the Crown. I will let you pick who replaces you.

Gentle Touch tried to stammer out a response, but words failed her for several seconds. Attaché to the Crown? Thank you, mother, but what of my work with the consorts?

Given the nature of such work, and the title, you will remain in charge of that in addition to your new primary duty. You and I are going to work on planning out a royal daughter.

 _That explains why she would pick me, of all Lings._ Begging your pardon, my queen, but isn't this a little premature?

Nonsense, Twilight retorted cheerfully. This is _just_ the planning phase. This isn't going to happen for a while yet.

 _Thank the First Mother for that._ Gentle heaved a sigh of relief. I'll get started right away, then.

Perfect, now I just nee— As the lavender queen rounded a corner, a certain upside-down cyan pegasus collided painfully with Twilight's horn. "Ow!"

Twilight rubbed her pained horn while peering at Rainbow Dash, who was dangling from the ceiling. "Rainbow? What are you doing up there?"

Rainbow grunted in pain as she tried to keep from falling to the floor. "Oh, hey, Twilight! Was just trying out these suction shoes. Doesn't work as well as I had hoped."

Gentle, I'll have to get back with you on this later tonight. Twilight lent a hoof and held her friend in her magic while popping her hooves free of the ceiling and gently placing her on the ground. "Why do you want to do that anyway?"

Rainbow shook her shoes off and placed them in her saddlebag. "Are you kidding? You guys can walk on walls and you don't prank with that? It's criminal negligence I tell ya."

"I'm _sure_ you'll rectify that in short order," Twilight quipped.

"It's my civic duty," Rainbow replied with a flourishing bow before her tone sobered in an instant. "So, what's this I hear about a Day of Mourning tomorrow?"

Twilight's ears drooped a little. "It's something Yumia started. On the first Sunday of every other month, the queen of the hive leads a service for all the drones who died in the past two months."

"Oh," Rainbow replied with a downcast, yet perplexed expression. "How come you never told me about this before?"

"Well, it's not held _every_ two months. Only when a drone dies. Both Cadista and myself were unlucky and we both lost children in the same month."

"Why not hold funerals for them individually?"

A weak smile crossed Twilight's lips. "It's mostly for my benefit; well, Cadista's as well. As time goes on, and old age starts to claim my children, I'd be in mourning every day if we did that. So I save my grief for the Day of Mourning, so that I can rule the hive without constant distraction."

"I guess that makes sense. Any chance I could attend?"

Twilight shot her friend a slight frown. "I would love nothing more than to take you up on that, but it might be kind of difficult. The service is held entirely within the hive mind."

An angry scowl fell on Rainbow Dash. "Why? Crate Altair was a good friend of mine! Are you not even having a burial?"

Twilight halted in her steps. The carefully wrapped box of grief threatened to unravel. "We bury our dead wherever they died, if possible. Rainbow, I know it's hard to explain, but there is little that can compare to a grieving hive mind."

 _Darn Changelings use that brain web for_ everything. "Well, what about Rarity and me? Isn't there some way to be a part of that? If only for the service?"

A tilted head was Twilight's only reply for a second. "You mean join the hive mind? Rainbow, there's no way for you to do that. Not without being rebirthed as a changeling, anyway."

 _"We'll see about that,"_ Rainbow muttered.

"What was that?"

"I said forget about it. I'll just hold my own personal memorial for Crate by myself. Rarity can come too." Not desiring to remain on such a dour topic, Rainbow derailed the conversation. "So, I hear we're going to Canterlot!"

It took a solid minute for Twilight to mentally switch topics like that. "Ah, yeah, that's right. I sent a letter to the princess already, so we should hear something soon."

"Great!" Her thoughts drifted to the Ebony Castle. "And _this_ time you have no excuse to leave me behind."

Some of Twilight's good cheer returned. "Wouldn't dream of it."

Twilight and Rainbow Dash stepped into the port side mess hall, but it was truly only called that for semantics. Like Stripped Gear, the dining area dominated nearly the entire port side of the deck, with the various kitchens and other services taking residence in the starboard side.

The dining area was nearly three stories tall, with quite a few tables occupying the ceiling. Of course, Twilight's eyes scanned only those along the floor. "Do you see Rarity anywhere? She said she'd be here early."

"Maybe she got caught in something," Rainbow offered.

"Yooohooo!" a call came from above. Twilight and Rainbow looked up to find Rarity sitting on a rigid underswing ceiling chair with a cup of tea wrapped in her magic. "I'm up heeere!"

Changeling and pegasus alike shared a puzzled look before flying up to meet their fashion minded friend. "Rarity! How did you get up here?"

"One of your charming sons lent a hoof, or wing as it were, to help me up here. Seasoned Leek, I believe his name was. I must say, Twilight, the view from up here is nothing short of spectacular," Rarity gushed as she pointed at the window. The entire port face of the second and third stories was a single glass plane overlooking one of the propulsion engines and the sunset-lit jungle below.

"I simply can't get over the aesthetics your hive puts into its engineering work. I truly have half a mind to forget about Canterlot and set up shop here on the _Phoenix._ "

Twilight flipped upside down and secured her hooves on the metal ceiling while a drone flew over to attach an electromagnetic chair for Rainbow Dash, who gave the apparatus a skeptical look. "Are you sure this thing is safe?"

Rarity answered before the drone could. "Oh, phsaw, darling, look at it." She tried to rock her seat loose with a few strong telekinetic hits, but her chair didn't budge an inch. "See? Perfectly safe… for a couple of hours anyway."

Rainbow eyed her ceiling mounted chair with a wary eye before settling down on it. "If you say so."

Twilight relayed their orders before all three turned their eyes back to the window. Rarity swooned over the cascade of oranges and reds scattered along the clouds. The _Phoenix_ briefly passed through a dense cloud layer that gave the onlookers a sweeping view of the majestic sky.

"Twilight," The queen gave Rarity a quizzical hum. "When you pick a place to settle, are you going to keep the _Phoenix_ in the air?"

"I don't think so," Twilight replied lazily, her gaze never leaving the view. "It'll be easier to simply ground the ship and let it act as a central hub and palace."

"Oh… a pity."

"Why don't you just make a flying shop then?" Rainbow suggested offhandedly. "You're going to dismantle the engines after you ground this thing anyway."

Twilight's eyes lit up. "That's right! Once that happens, the engines will be dismantled for parts, but if I saved a couple and built you an airship home, you could have an entire boutique on the go. You could travel anywhere in Equestria, and never leave your shop!"

Rarity gasped at the idea. "It's a generous offer, but I don't know the first thing about engines, let alone how to pilot such a home."

Twilight paused as the waiter delivered their meals. She noticed the lingering eye Rarity cast towards the muscular drone, and spoke once he left. "You could hire an engineer. I'm sure you could find one who would be more than willing to join you."

"Twilight, that is still such a generous offer. I couldn't possibly accept that of you."

Twilight laid a hoof on her alabaster friend's foreleg. "Rarity, I'm basically the ruler of a city state. One little house is the least I can do for all the support you've given me over the years."

"A little house indeed," Rarity bantered playfully before giggling at the possibilities. "I can't possibly thank you enough, Twilight. After spending so much time looking out across the clouds, I can see why Rainbow and you love to fly."

"Very true," Twilight commented. "So did you like the pictures I sent you of the Ebony Castle? I've barely heard from you for the past four days."

"I'm sorry, dear, they've hit me with such inspiration this is actually the first time I've set hoof outside my little corner shop. I have a whole line planned out for the three of us _and_ your personal guard for when we arrive at Canterlot!"

"I hope you're not planning on stuffing _me_ in one of those ultra frou-frou dresses I saw in your shop," Rainbow countered with a half scowl. "I have a reputation to maintain, after all."

Rarity let off a ladylike humph. "Never fear, Rainbow Dash, I am perfectly aware of your radicalness requirements." She eyed Twilight conspiratorially. "Incidentally, those ancient changelings had such a dark color palette. It's strange really, some of the patterns were almost familiar."

Rainbow was too distracted by the arriving food to pay Twilight's intrigued reaction any notice. "Familiar how, exactly? No _pony's_ ever set hoof in the Ebony Castle, and none of the other excavation sites had any preserved dress or artwork."

Rarity cooed at the tantalizing aroma, but still managed to give Twilight's question some thought. "Not sure. I could simply be mistaking it for a bygone fashion a few years ago, or I might have seen something similar in one of the museums around Canterlot."

 _A museum… Yes, the crystal caves were a mine long before the wedding. It might not be such a bad idea to check any historical relics that might be in the city. I'm going to have to write a second letter._

The group gnawed on their meal while exchanging small talk for over an hour. Little things like that eased the burden of Twilight's crown, an object that did not need to sit on her head to weigh down on her. Yet this peaceful moment in time was just that, but a moment. Gentle Touch brushed upon Twilight's mind while Rainbow regaled about the latest adventures of Daring Do.

My queen, I've finished my survey and projections for the next several years, and I have a list of consort candidates ready for your purview.

 _Glad I can multitask well enough to keep up with my friends' conversation._ Already? You certainly didn't waste any time. A nonverbal shrug somehow managed to traverse the Link in response. Right… how many candidates, and from what strains?

Four candidates have been made available for your use as of right now. They are all members of gene strains that my projections deem will still be needed in three years' time. I have ten volunteers willing to undergo rebirth. I made sure to screen the volunteers to those with… out of date strains, and who have suffered, shall we say… unfortunate luck in social interactions.

You raided the personnel files? You're not authorized for those.

The caretaker nervously teased a lock of her mane. I—I know, but since the rebirth process naturally wipes their memories clean, I figured it wouldn't matter once.

 _To think she's leveraged her attaché status so quickly._ Twilight wasn't sure if she should be impressed or worried. I'll let this go for now, but next time, ask me before you do that.

As you wish, my queen. In any event, I will let the candidates know they've been selected as consorts. Which strain would you wish to start breeding first?

Twilight was about to focus on a mild dispute in the engine room, when a cyan hoof waved in front of her. "Hey, Ling Queen, you awake?"

"Huh? " Twilight blinked before fully returning to the present. "Oh, sorry, I guess I got a little… sidetracked by my assistant."

"Care to enlighten us, dear?"

"Well… I'm not exactly sure how you're going to take this, but…" Twilight furrowed her brow as she tried to think of the right words. "Gentle was heading up a selection process for my consorts."

"Consorts?" Rainbow replied with a tilted head. "I thought you were already hitched with Ratchy."

"I am," Twilight replied with a nod. "But he and I talked about it… at length," she grumbled just loud enough to be heard. "We decided that he would take the position of prime consort."

"So ahh, where exactly are these consorts coming from, anyway?"

That was the one question Twilight feared most, but that didn't stop her from groaning at her prismatic friend anyway. "Girls, you _know_ where."

"Right," Rainbow replied off handedly while casting a glance at Rarity. The fashionista found her hoof exceptionally fascinating at the moment while Twilight fretted over her friends' response. "Not like it bothers me any that Rachy's your brother and I'm guessing the consorts would be your sons…"

Twilight placed a tentative hoof on her prismatic friend. "Of course it bothers you, Rainbow. But please remember that changelings don't work the same way ponies do. Getting consorts from another queen's hive is politically _not_ going to happen, Cadista notwithstanding. In addition, those drones would be incompatible with my hive. I…"

She sighed slowly to try to think of the proper words. "Its pragmatic, is what it is. As queen, it's my duty to see the hive's workforce is fit and able to operate, and I do that primarily through genetic manipulation. I've told you girls about alchemy a bunch of times."

Rarity leaned back in her chair, her eyes drifted back to the window. The sky had darkened to the point where she could only see herself reflected in the glass. "You have, Twilight. It's something that takes getting used to, that's all. However, I must say, if there's one thing I've learned over the years since that day I was chosen to be one of the elements, it's that friends can come from unlikely sources." She turned her gaze back to her friends. "But here, on this wondrous ship, I learned that doesn't have to extend only to personal friends. All of your children have proven to be good ponies…or changelings, at heart. I see no reason why, despite our differences, ponies and changelings can't be good friends with each other just as we are."

Rainbow was taking a long drag from her stein before slamming it down empty. "Hear hear! We can be Hearth's Warming Eve, take two!"

Twilight smirked between bites of an amazingly good beef stir-fry. "So we have Equestrians and my changelings, who's going to take the third slot?"

Rainbow tapped her chin for a few seconds before the figurative light bulb switched on. "Why not Luna's little group… what are they called again? Bat ponies?"

"Thestrals, darling. And that won't work because they're already Equestrian citizens."

"Yeah, so? Aren't Twilight and the whole hive citizens too?"

Both mares looked to Twilight who found her meal had lost a bit of its appeal. "I'm not sure if we are. It's been a while since I reviewed citizenship laws, so I can't tell you if my children are citizens. But regardless, why mention Thestrals in this?"

"Get with the program, Twi. Sure they're _citizens,_ but nopony really knows anything about them. In all the times I've been to Canterlot, I've never seen a bat pony outside of the Night Guard. Makes a pony think they're even more secretive than you changelings."

Twilight hummed at the mention of the thestrals and detached herself from the ceiling to come into a hover near the table. With a whoosh of lavender-orange fire, Twilight remade her appearance. Her purple coat took on a much darker shade, with the same happening to her mane. Her gossamer wings were replaced by leathery ones, and her horn vanished along with all the holes in her body.

Rarity cooed over the new look. "My word, you make a simply gorgeous Thestral, darling."

Rainbow whistled. "Gotta say, the fangs look better on a darker coat."

Twilight summoned her hoof-mirror and primped in front of it. "You think so?"

"I know so," Rarity gushed while leaning over in her chair to get a closer look. "I _do_ have an eye for that sort of thing."

"Interesting…" With a brush of magic, Twilight's changeling features returned, but her coloration remained the same. "What about now?"

"You look alright to me, maybe a bit spooky though," Rainbow blurted out while Rarity took a much longer appraising study.

"I don't know… maybe if you added some lighter colors to your mane. You _are_ named Twilight after all, maybe you should do something to play off of that."

 _"I thought her original coat already did that."_ Rainbow muttered as Twilight reverted most of her coloration back to normal.

The lavender queen focused on her mane and changed back to her original pony coloration. Then she changed a lock of hair on the left side of the pink stripe to a hue of bright vanilla. After that, she darkened the rest of her mane a shade or two . "There, what do you think?"

"Simply dazzling!" Rarity gushed, nearly falling out of her chair. "Oh you simply _must_ keep it that way. And in return, I'll make you an outfit to proclaim your new look to the world."

Rainbow looked at it through half lidded eyes. "She only changed a single stripe of hair. Hardly seems worth making a whole new dress over."

"Oh, don't listen to her, Twilight, poor Dashie doesn't have the eye for this sort of thing. Eh, no offense, dearie." Rainbow merely shrugged before chowing down on her meal.

Twilight smiled at her reflection before casting the mirror back to her quarters. "It'll take a little time for the new color to set in permanently, a week or so at most." She turned around to make the same alterations to her tail, which also caused her to look at her purple and orange cutie mark. _I'll keep the orange there. As a reminder of where I came from._

Her primping was cut short by a series of movements in her abdomen as more eggs were finally ready to be laid, but unlike her time as a proto queen, she was able to keep from having to lay at that very moment. _Blah, it still makes me feel a little bloated though. Still, it's not enough to drag me away from dinner._

Right as Twilight resumed her meal, Gentle Touch pinged her mind. Yes, Gentle?

Sorry to disturb you if you're busy, my queen, but my clock said the next clutch should be ready for fertilization, so I took the liberty of having one of your new consorts report to your quarters.

Twilight heaved a heavy sigh at her half eaten meal, prompting Rainbow to cast her a concerned look. "You okay, Twi?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," Twilight partially lied with a nod. "Some queenly duties popped up. You mind continuing this at tomorrow's dinner?" _I need to work up a mating schedule after this._

"Yeah sure, can't hog you all day."

"I'd love to, Twilight, it'll give me a chance to catch up on some back orders anyway."

With Twilight helping Rarity reach the ground floor, the trio split up. The lavender queen couldn't keep her mind from wandering towards Ratchet. So it came to quite a surprise to find him waiting for her just outside the mess hall. "Ratchet! I was just thinking about you."

"And I you," he replied with a smile before nuzzling her.

Ratchet never failed to warm her heart, or her passions. Twilight pecked him on the snout with her eyes lingering on his. "How's work?"

He cocked his head and flashed a coy grin. "Funny, I was about to ask you the same thing."

Twilight's smile faded. "Gentle asked you to meet me, didn't she?"

"Aye, that she did." Twilight's expression sank as she started walking towards her quarters with Ratchet following after her.

"Ratchet, are you really okay with this whole consort thing?"

The drone suppressed a sigh and head shake to exude the warm compassion he knew she needed. "Twilight, if anypony has reservations about this, it's you."

Twilight didn't answer. She couldn't, not when she knew he was right.

"Twi, you know what I think? You're just being jittery. Give the whole consort thing a week. By then, it should be as natural to you as laying is."

Twilight's ears wilted. _Well, I'll admit to enjoying the act of laying now._ "Are you sure?"

"Do I even need to mention the first day you returned to Ponyville, and the bathroom scene?"

"Ugh, _no._ "

"Or how you freaked out when you had a hive mind of fifty adult drones, thinking you'd never be able to manage it all?" he said with mild teasing.

"How was I supposed to know my physiology made it so easy?"

"Because mother told you, constantly. What about the time you started using alchemy to do more than just scan and repair genetic defects?"

Some of Twilight's confidence returned, along with an eye roll. "I know, I know, I was almost catatonic after thinking I did irreparable damage to an egg."

"You want me to stop, or list out the twenty other times—"

"No, no, you made your point…" Twilight chuckled at herself. "Thank you, Ratchet." She leaned in to kiss him in that slow but passionate way that he liked so much. "I needed that."

"Anytime, my love." When they arrived at the door, he stood off the side. "Now go on in and do our hive proud!"

 _Oh for the love of…_ Twilight glowered at his snickering face. "I look forward to having fun with _you_ later tonight."

Ratchet jabbed a wing at the door. "Only if he doesn't tire you out first."

Twilight did a double take. "I—is that a challenge!?"

"It is."

Twilight played the offended mare and stuck her nose in the air with a harrumph. "Well then, the game is ahoof." Twilight leveraged her bravado to shore up enough confidence to step inside. With the _Phoenix_ being a predominantly civilian vessel, the queen's cabin was quite large, but only half as much as her old quarters in the Stripped Gear palace. At the foot of her bed stood a rather imposing lavender drone that Twilight instantly recognized as one of her soldiers.

The new consort was fiddling with a clockwerk leg when Twilight cantered in. He yelped and hastily put the leg back and stood at attention by the desk. "Sorry, my queen, I ahhh…"

A small grin graced Twilight's visage. "That's quite alright, Iron Sight. Curiosity is the mother of invention."

That helped the soldier relax a bit, prompting Twilight to make her way over to the bed. "Let's get started, shall we? The sooner this happens, the sooner I can lay."

The following morning was the Day of Mourning, a day Twilight had been looking forward to since the last one. To an outsider, one would only see the lavender queen meditating on a pile of cushions. There was no special gown, no ceremonial paraphernalia, just a queen, her pillows, and the hive mind. It was the Link that made all the difference.

Within the mindscape of the hive mind sat a verdant field of golden grain, with the sun shining down with a gentle light on a cloudy day. The high rising cliffs of the caldera which houses Stripped Gear lay to the south, with the _Ashes of the Phoenix_ hanging in the skies above it.

Twilight stood in the field of grain swaying in a gentle warm breeze. She watched a living cloud of pale silvery motes of light pass overhead in a vast blanket above. The cloud was adrift in the slow wind towards the crescent moon which presided above a majestic mountain city of gleaming silver. From her earthbound position, the vast Silver City seemed to stretch on forever as the mountain reached to touch the moon itself. Dozens of endless waterfalls cascaded down the city's elegant streets. Roaring bonfires dotted the city, forming patterns not unlike the constellations of the stars above. Were one to listen during a northern wind, they could make out singing in the breeze. Pale white trees and their night blue leaves rustled in the distance as distant figures danced around them.

She watched the slow progression with tears slowly dampening her fur and a sorrowful sob passing through the swaying wheat. Cadista entered the mindscape silently behind Twilight and rested a comforting hoof upon her daughter. "I should have expected you to recreate The Gateway early." Twilight turned to embrace Cadista, her grief abated somewhat at her mother's touch. "Losses in battle are always the hardest to bear."

Twilight had no words to give. She let her pent up grief since the fight for the Chamber of Chitin pour out into Cadista's withers, just as she in turn, did the same to Twilight. This was one of the very few times and places where the crowns were absent. The two royals wept for several long minutes, but Cadista found a thread of joy.

When Twilight's tears abated, Cadista maneuvered them so they stood side by side to face the Silver City. They leaned on each other for strength. "Twilight… I know I've said this every other time we've been here, but I'm glad I'm no longer alone here, on the edge."

Twilight searched the wisps as they drifted towards the city. "Do you ever see Yumia out there?"

"I imagine it every so often," Cadista confirmed. She wondered if Twilight recreated the image of a distant queen every now and again for her benefit. "It was…" she choked back a sob to speak more clearly, "difficult, at times, to keep from ending it all to join her. But I still had a purpose to fulfill."

"And now?"

Cadista gave Twilight a weak smile. "Now I have a new purpose. Yumia was always a patient changeling; I know she won't mind waiting a bit longer." A worried look crossed Twilight's face, but she ultimately said nothing. "We should prepare ourselves. The drones will be joining us shortly."

The lavender queen lingered with her mother. "Does it ever get easier?"

"…Controlling your emotions does," Cadista replied after a few seconds' thought. "In the sense of keeping the grief in check, at least. It's one of the disadvantages of intelligent drones, we get attached to them as much as ponies do to their foals, and it's one I gladly bear."

"And I as well," Twilight answered back.

Both royals steadied themselves and waited. Within less than a minute, drones started appearing by the dozen. A large cloud of grey bodies flew in from Stripped Gear, while a smaller group flew in from the _Phoenix._ Being within the mindscape of the hive mind, the drones moved with unnatural speed to take their place in a semicircle around the pair of queens.

The rapidly growing audience gave the royals a few meters of space as they filled the air. There was little chatter among them. Half of them were there as personal friends to the fallen, while the others were there to support their queens.

Being so completely immersed within the hive mind, Twilight could feel the waves of shared grief and anguish washing over the gathering. Yet there was immense efforts to comfort and console as well.

 _I think we've waited long enough,_ Cadista mused before turning to Twilight. "This is your first Day of Mourning as queen. Would you care to do the honors?"

"I would, thank you." Twilight took a step forward and lit her horn. Not to use magic, but to signal the start of the ceremony. From the depths of the hive mind, Twilight pulled four changelings into being, all of whom had died in the caverns under the Ebony Castle. Cadista followed suit and summoned three drones of her own.

Tears streamed down Twilight's face, but her voice was as even and regal as ever. "Today, we commemorate those who have died in service to our united hives. We queens have judged them, and they have been found…" She choked up for a moment as her eyes drifted to the still figures of her children, brothers, and sisters. "Deserving. I release them from the Link, to join the honored dead in the hallowed silver city of Havengaal. May they find peace within its walls."

Twilight paused to collect herself, as an errant leaf danced across the field. Silence filled the air as the assembly of changelings sat in breathless anticipation of the time-honored tradition. When Twilight opened her mouth again, she did not speak.

 **She sang.**

Twilight's voice danced over the rolling hills, filling the air with melodious tones and evoking a myriad of emotions in the gathered changelings. Her voice was at once soft and powerful, gentle and mighty, hitting each note with practiced ease. One by one, the changelings that had perished drifted upwards, shedding their mortal forms. They joined the cloud of glowing white wisps floating towards the silver city as Twilight sang farewell to her fallen children. Then, it was over. As the last echoes of her voice escaped over the mountains, Twilight smiled at the procession.

Slowly, the gathered changelings departed the waking dream of The Gateway after they grieved all they could. Four hours later, only the queens remained behind. But even they could not remain here forever, and soon they too returned to the waking world, feeling emotionally drained, but happier nonetheless.

The Cresnox jungle was a place riddled with danger the likes of which would make the Everfree Forest look like a petting zoo. Carving a hive out of such densely predator-riddled lands was dangerous enough, so clandestine meetings were even harder to organize. Even if they were held in the skies above.

Far above the writhing woods, an ebony drone waited with the patience of stone. After what seemed like hours, a tan-colored drone buzzed in through the clouds and stopped in front of the first. Both drones barely gave each other any acknowledgment before both sent word to their respective queens.

Polybia assumed control first, and her drone's eyes dimmed to reveal their reptilian slits. She did not have to wait long for Chrysalis' to do the same. "Alright, Chrysalis, what's so important that you had to drag me all the way out here? You know this is Fire Hornet territory."

"No small talk? I was hoping I could hear how your heir was shaping up."

Polybia groaned. "I would rather not waste time flying a second drone out after this one is killed by the hornets, _just_ for some small talk."

The black drone nodded sympathetically. "I see you're in a foul mood. Perfectly understandable after hearing what that Equestrian in changeling chitin…or fur, as it were, did to the First Mother."

The tan drone growled in anger. "I already know! That bumbling idiot of a queen killed the First Mother's shadow! She should have accepted Her judgment rather than defy her."

"Yes… a pity. You were right, you know," Polybia's puppet shot her a questioning glance. "About how the First Mother still watched over us all."

"You called me here to patronize me?! You are nearly as bad as Cadista and her spawn."

"You've got me all wrong, Polybia, even _my_ eyes can be opened to the truth when it shines right in front of me."

Polybia's expression did not improve. "That's all it took to make you do more than lip service? An old mind imprinted security crystal?"

A sidelong smirk crossed Chrysalis' puppet. "You don't honestly believe that, do you? That wasn't a security system, it was a conduit for the First Mother herself!"

Polybia furrow her brow. "That's not what the Home Guard report said. It was just a mind crystal lying dormant."

 _"Now_ whose eyes are closed to the truth, hmm? Don't you think it was awfully convenient that none of the Home Guard were there to _see_ this alleged crystal while it was active?" Polybia's eyes narrowed as Chrysalis continued. "Who else but the First Mother herself could take control of another's drones without severing the link to their queen first?"

"It's been done," Polybia countered with a smug grin of her own. "I remember hijacking some of your sister Yeelindrus' brood during the last border dispute we had. I still have a few of her drones left on display in my palace."

"Taking a few drones is one thing, Polybia, but commanding a whole hive to follow you in an instant, and _then_ being nearly successful in controlling some of Twilight's drones as well? You know how hard it is to forcibly command those damned intelligent drones. The First Mother nearly succeeded in taking all forty of them at once, through a _conduit_ no less!"

Polybia turned away to think. "You make a good point. Those devoted to the First Mother are granted a portion of her gift."

"Velterantie, the Voice of Command. I'm telling you, Polybia, Twilight Sparkle willfully lied to the Home Guard, and by proxy, to us all. The First Mother obviously wants whatever Twilight is trying to find to remain hidden, and that Equestrian is ignoring her!"

"What of the artifacts of the true homeland then?" Polybia questioned as she turned back around. "Surely _she_ does not want us to be without them."

"Yet another one of Twilight's lies," Chrysalis replied with a snarl. "Don't you see what's going on? Twilight's trying to cover her flank. She falsified her 'findings' from within the Chamber of Chitin to point towards Canterlot of all places. _Canterlot!_ As the birthplace of our race!? She must have suffered some brain damage from the fight if she thinks the ponies' capital is our birthplace."

The real Polybia destroyed a few walls and columns in a fit of rage, but none of it showed forth in the puppet. "So," she said after regaining her composure. "I assume you've discussed this with the other queens."

"Most of them, but so far most are hesitant to see the truth."

"To see the truth? Or stare down the guns of the _Phoenix?_ Are the others still so afraid of the machines of Stripped Gear, even after three hundred years since the Battle of Dentar?"

Chrysalis gave her a scathing look. "You were still a princess back then, Polybia, a young one at that. I'm not surprised your mother never told you of the humiliating defeat Yumia inflicted on her. The Fernal Alliance collapsed after that, you know."

"So what are you suggesting, then? If you truly wish to honor the First Mother, then we cannot stand to let the blasphemer live."

"What I _suggest_ is that you show no overt hostility to Twilight nor Cadista, and in the meantime, I need to you build an army."

"With what?" Polybia challenged. "I have enough love for _maybe_ another few hundred drones, but I can't support more than that unless my collectors expand into Griffin lands."

Chrysalis snickered at the thought. "Don't worry about that. I can have dozens of prisoners transferred to you with but a word. You could siphon enough love off of them to satiate five armies."

"How did you arrange that?"

"It was simple really," Chrysalis tittered. "For all they champion the virtues of _harmony,_ ponies have quite a few prisons that nobody likes to talk about. All it took was a few greased hooves, some lined pockets, and some prison transfer orders. And it's not just with the ponies either. The griffins, zebras, and minotaurs are more than happy to empty their jails for me. You ally with me, and you'll have all the love you'll ever need."

"Alright, Chrysalis. You have a deal. But I want your assurance that Twilight will pay for her crimes."

"Ha! Oh, don't worry, Polybia, she will pay." _But she won't be alone._

Before either of them could say more, a swarm of burning hornets fell upon the drones, burning both of them to cinders before they could utter a cry of pain. Not that either queen cared, the messengers had served their purpose.

Two days later, Twilight was standing on the bridge, gazing out of the massive forward view of Equestria it provided. A powerful sense of belonging wafted over her. _Finally, I'm bringing my home back home._

Twilight pilfered a spyglass from beside her throne and looked ahead to find Canterlot off in the distance. _I'm sure Celestia and Luna wouldn't mind a little social call while I investigate the cave ruins._

She closed the spyglass as an errant thought came to her. _But then again…_ She turned to one of her daughters, who was dressed in a smart, crisp uniform, courtesy of Rarity. "Captain Veselov."

The drone moved away from the radar station. "Yes, my queen?"

"Have somepony work up a shore leave rotation. The kids need to go outside and play."

Veselov gave her a critical eye, but Twilight knew her brood well. Veselov's irritation slowly melted away into childish delight. "Any chance I can get on the rotation?"

Twilight inwardly chuckled. _They may be adults by drone standards, but they still have a child's wonder._ "Absolutely."


	16. Chapter 16

The Second Invasion of Canterlot

Princess Celestia liked to think she had an air of regal majesty that exuded confidence. She was right. Standing on the western airship docks, alone with her sister, Celestia watched a distant arrow shaped _thing_ suspended in the air several kilometers away. Unfortunately, her confidence was slipping at the sight of the metal monster.

"Sister," Luna inquired discreetly, "I know the aristocracy have a thing for… airships, I believe they're called, but what is _that?_ "

"That, dear sister, is Twilight's hive ship." Celestia stole a glance at the huge crowd of ponies waiting behind them. News of a giant airship coming from south of the Appleloosian Mountains spread so fast that Celestia barely had time to give a public address before panic set in. _I'm not going to make Twilight feel unwelcome by telling her to wait outside of Canterlot, let alone Equestria's borders._

Luna witnessed a small dot break away from the airship and start moving closer. "That thing dwarfs even the largest griffin airship I've ever seen!" she hissed to keep from appearing worried. "I knew Twilight was renovating a vessel for herself, but this is ridiculous."

"Not to mention frightening to the civilians."

A thought crossed Luna's mind, an idea she had not entertained for nearly a millennium. "Sister, if Twilight could build another one of those vessels, we could finally destroy the chaos spawn to the north. Changeling technology could be the key to bringing peace to those lands."

A frown creased Celestia's face. "Is peace won at the point of a spear truly peace, or simply delaying war for another time?"

"We're not talking about a rival civilization, or things even capable of building one," Luna rebuked with a slight condescending scowl of her own. "The chaos spawn are a collection of freaks that need to be put down for good. If they ever possessed the capacity for civility, they lost it long ago. They do not acknowledge honor or peace, only blood."

Silence fell over the royal sisters as Celestia mulled over Luna's words. _I've come this far to escape my bloodied past. Is she really so eager to return to it? ...Or perhaps I've been too aloof to the northern troubles._

The shuttle's droning engine could be heard well in advance of its arrival, sounding much like the train engines most ponies were used to, only with far more clanking and whooshing, and with less chugging. As the shuttle closed in, paparazzi started filling rolls of film to catch the gasbag-less airship settle down and the hatch open with a large exhale of steam.

The Royal Guard standing behind the Sisters redoubled their vigilance over the crowd as Twilight and four drones emerged from the shuttle. She calmly walked over to the alicorns where she dipped her head in formal greeting. Her horn lit up to carry her voice to everyone present. "Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, the _S.G.C.S Ashes of the Phoenix_ requests permission to enter Canterlot airspace for matters of state and shore leave."

"Permission granted," Celestia replied warmly.

"Welcome back to Canterlot," Luna added.

"Thank you," Twilight nodded a second time before sending a silent command to the ship. A few seconds later, the _Phoenix's_ guns fired off a twenty one gun salute to Canterlot. While the Royal Guards and aristocracy were familiar with the traditional greeting, many of the other ponies were a bit spooked by the distant thunderclaps.

As the guns fired off, Twilight inwardly sighed at the presentation. _I know that's usually done with spells, but it served the same purpose. Still, to think I had almost escaped all the pomp and ceremony when I moved to Ponyville all those years ago._

Once the salute finished, Twilight sent her captain a message. Alright, move her in, and let the first rotation of shore leave out to play. After hearing a reply, she briefly glanced at her personal guards, and noticed Aegis' squad was out of rotation. _I hope she behaves herself._

* * *

Aegis stood near the front of a long line near the port hangar deck. Her usual squad of four bodyguards was with her as the line moved efficiently along. Ferrum buzzed in the air with a grin that kept widening with every inch he moved closer to the banker. "Can you believe the other hives don't have currency?"

Intel leaned over Aegis. "You mean outside of SG right?"

"Obviously," he countered. "Could you imagine living a life like that? All work, and you sleep for fun? Baugh, that's terrible."

Aegis pushed her brother off of her. "You forget that they don't care about that kind of thing. Be glad Mom's the kind of queen to give us a vacation."

"Did granny Caddy give vacations to her drones?" Ferrum asked.

Intel shrugged. "I don't know. She probably thinks the downtime our aunts and uncles get is good enough. Besides, don't go thinking this is going to be a common occurrence. We're also doing this to show the 'civil' side of changelings to the locals."

Aegis flicked Intel's snout with a wing. "Don't be such a downer about it. All that means is we have to behave. Easy as pie."

"That'll be the day," Ferrum replied derisively before turning to the banker and grabbed his allotted coin purse and promptly buried it in his mane. "Get your flanks in gear and let's go!"

Aegis smirked and grabbed her allowance before chasing after him. "It's a shame Riposte's stuck in the infirmary. We should get him something nice while we're down there."

"Sounds like a plan," Intel replied with a nod. Ferrum voiced his agreement as well.

By the time Aegis reached the crowded hangar, the _Phoenix_ was less than a kilometer from the dock. One of the officers at the front was making an announcement. Alright, listen up! The princesses just gave us free reign in the common areas around the city, so stay away from the castle or guard posts. You are to remain grounded while at the docks and you are to go directly to one of the landing points. After that, you may go where you please. Jump off is in ten seconds!

With cheering and whistling heralding the way, Aegis joined the gathered drones in swarming out of the hangar in a mad dash for the docks. With Ferrum and Intel right alongside, the trio followed their brethren to the surface and galloped through the docks and into Canterlot proper. Never before in her short life had Aegis seen so many non-changelings, let alone so many different colored ponies. However, she noticed quite a few hostile faces amongst the crowd.

Guys, I think we should go keep an eye on mother.

Intel's cheer faded a little at Aegis' frosty tone. What's wrong?

Ferrum scanned the crowd. They were still close to the docks, so quite a few drones were still flowing into the city, but his attention was on the ponies. Most stood between fascination and fearfulness, while others pushed their foals away from the drones or outright refused to say a kind word. You'd think four years could ease the memories of a single attack.

Don't be so sure, Intel warned. The other hives skirmish against one another as tests of strength. These civilians probably haven't seen much actual war.

And we have? Aegis countered, drawing her brothers' attention. We've seen _one_ probing attack on the western hunting grounds, and the _Deception_ took care of that without even going to general quarters. The only thing close to real battle _we_ have is from mom's memories of the invasion and a few other scraps.

Intel gazed upon the ivory towers of Canterlot Castle. Well we can't go bother the queen, she's already made her way to the castle, and unless we're on duty, it's strictly off limits.

Fine… Aegis groaned with an eye roll. Then why don't we look for an artifact shop?

The two stallions shared a puzzled look while Aegis checked her map before zipping off, leaving her brothers to chase after her. "Why?"

Intel caught whiff of Aegis's reasoning and ran close enough to speak. "You really think we'll find an artifact of our ancestors in some random curio store?"

"Probably not," she replied with a wing shrug, "but you never know what might be there."

"We'd get some serious brownie points if we did," Ferrum added with a greedy glint in his eye.

"Exactly!" Aegis agreed as she poured on extra speed.

* * *

Twilight Sparkle's laughter danced around the small castle lounge. Celestia snickered behind a hoof while Luna chuckled. "So, then I tell Count Da'monaa exactly where he can stick his ridiculously self-centered tax reform. Tactfully, of course."

Twilight barely managed to carefully drop her wine glass between her laughter-shaken magic. "How did he think he could get away with raising the price of bananas by three bits a bushel?"

"Perhaps he believes he's the only one who pays attention to market fluctuations," Luna added mockingly before sighing contently with another sip of wine. "It's been good catching up on you Twilight. I think you carry your new title rather well."

"Thanks, although it was really little more than a formality at this point."

"And I must say, I love what you did with your mane," Celestia commented with a grin.

"It is rather fetching," Luna agreed playfully. "Did you change it for yourself, or for your stallion?"

Twilight teased a lock of vanilla blonde hair. "A little from column A, a little from column B. Rarity wanted to make a dress for the occasion, but she couldn't finish it in time."

"I'll have to host a ball later, so you have a chance to flaunt," Celestia replied. "If your hive's going to be joining Equestria, you'll need to get the nobility used to the idea of having changelings residing in court."

"I don't see why," Luna retorted with a huff. "Those windbags are quickly becoming obsolete."

"Either way," Twilight tactfully interjected, "I can suffer a few high society events for the good of the nation." _At least until I can con some of my drones into doing it for me._

"Your findings from the Ebony Castle were an incredible read. To think there might have been changelings living under Canterlot for centuries. Right under our very noses."

"That would explain how they kept infiltrating our cities before my… episode."

The royal sisters shared a brief, almost imperceivable glance. "The only question I have," Twilight said to break up the mood, "is whether or not my ancestors left a long time ago, or the miners drove them to leave out of fear of discovery."

Celestia nibble a bit of cake. "When I got your letter, I had my aides dig through the archives to find any records we still have on them. Luckily nopony bothers with the caves anymore, so you shouldn't receive any interference."

"Perfect, th—" Twilight's response was cut short by a royal guard knocking on the heavy oak door before poking his head through.

"Begging your pardon, your highnesses, but the heads of House Sparkle are here."

Twilight was instantly filled with equal parts joy and dread as she addressed the quartet of drones behind her. Okay, you four, let's put on a good face for your grandparents, and stand back a bit so I have time to properly introduce you.

The drones dropped the books the princesses had given them to comply. Luckily, the lounge was furnished for minotaur dignitaries, so there was plenty of tall furniture to tactfully hide behind as Night Light and Twilight Velvet entered the room. The three rulers stood up, with the alicorns stepping towards the rear exit. "We'll discuss your findings later," said Luna as she and her sister bid farewell.

Velvet stood back while Night Light bowed to the princesses before bounding over to Twilight. "Holy Toledo Twily, your letters said you had grown, but don't think you're too big to give your old stallion a hug."

Twilight's heart soared at her father's warm welcome, and they wrapped each other up in a crushing hug. "Maybe an inch or two."

Night Light pulled out of the hug to take stock of his daughter. "Well, you've certainly filled out at least. You're as big as the Princess now."

"Part of the package, I'm afraid."

"You still look as lovely as ever." He moved to the side to give his wife a pleading look. "Well, honey, are you going to say hello? It's been years since you talked to each other."

"That depends," Velvet replied coldly as she slowly walked over to inspect Twilight, "on whether or not there's anything left of my little filly in that thing."

Twilight bristled, along with her drones. Night Light bore a look of conflicted pain with a dose of impatience mixed in. It was the drones' presence that worked a wiry smirk on Twilight's face. "That's rather rude of you, _mother,_ especially since I brought some grandchildren with me this time."

Night Light was more than happy to entertain a distraction. Both of them had received letters about Twilight's brood. Well, Night Light had, at least; Velvet never received any letters from Twilight.

With Twilight dominating their attention, neither unicorn noticed the four drones slip out from behind the lounge's tall furniture until they surrounded their queen. Smiles, I at least want to stay on good terms with father.

The drones obeyed with mixed results, but Night Light didn't mind. All he saw was four young drones looking nearly identical to Twilight did four years ago. "Bless my soul, I've heard of a child looking like the spitting image, but you four take it to the next level. I—" He presented a hoof. "I guess that makes me your grandfather, I'm Night Light."

The drones nudged one of their number forward who shakily shook his hoof. "Powder Charge, but... most ponies just... call me Powder." When Night Light's smile only grew, Powder's nervousness began eroding away. "I've – eh – we've heard a lot about you from momma." Powder briefly cringed at referring to Twilight so informally, but all it took was a gentle touch upon her mind to soothe any worries.

"Only good things, I hope," Night teased. Velvet tsked dismissively, only for it to go unnoticed.

Powder nodded hastily. "Of course, she—I mean ahh—" She looked to Twilight for help, who only gave her a raised eyebrow of amusement. _Buck it!_ Throwing caution to the wind, Powder tackled Night Light with a hug. "I've always wanted to meet you, granddaddy!"

Night quickly found himself under a giggling changeling dog pile. Twilight was about to call them off when Velvet walked around the drones to approach her daughter. "Twilight, honey, may we talk privately?"

The lavender queen's eyes bounced between her drones talking to her father, and her fretful mother before nodding slightly. "…Sure."

Velvet led Twilight over to a distant chaise lounge and sat down. "Twilight, honey, I'm very scared for you."

 _Gee, I wonder why._ Twilight hid her snide remark behind a threadbare smile in an attempt to remain pleasant. "Whatever for, mother?"

Velvet swallowed her bile and cradled Twilight's hole-riddled hoof. "This whole changeling business has gone on long enough. You've had your way. There is peace between Equestria and the Queendoms, there are even rumors flying around that Cadista's hive might be granted dual citizenship soon. You've done what you wanted to do. Now please, I beg of you, come home."

Twilight sighed heavily. "I already have a home, mother, it's currently floating above Canterlot."

Velvet grappled Twilight in a desperate hug. " _Don't do this_ , Twilight! You were supposed to be the next archmage, the princesses' right hoof, a _unicorn!_ Come back to Equestria, Twilight! Come back to _me!_ "

It took all of Twilight's self-control to keep her voice civil. "We've had this argument for the past four years, and I'm sick of it! I am a _changeling queen._ That is what I am now, and it is what I always shall be. Nothing you or anypony else says will change that."

Tears started running into Velvet's fur. "P-please, Twily, my little foal. Don't do this. Don't let whatever Cadista did to your mind control you. If you just let me cure you, you'll see reason, I only—"

 _"No!"_ Twilight growled while inadvertently flashing her fangs. "How can you justify your 'fixing' would be any different than whatever fantasies you believe Cadista did to my mind?! It's always 'unicorn' this, 'change you back that'. Well, I've had it!" She slammed her hoof down with enough force to rattle a few pieces of pottery, drawing Night Light's and the drones' attention. "I am staying a changeling, _period!_ "

Velvet was on the edge of breaking down as she watched Twilight storm off towards her father. Night Light was at a total loss for words. Velvet bolted out of the room's other exit before anyone could hear her sobs. She looked back at her daughter as the doors closed behind her. _I will save you Twilight, even if you hate me for it._

Twilight scowled at Velvet's departure, even as a pit of guilt burrowed into her stomach. _Damn it all. Why can't she let me live my own life?_ "Dad, I thought you said she would be civil."

Night rubbed the back of head and heaved the tired sigh of a worn out soul. "I'm sorry, Twily." He flopped on his rear, true fatigue showing through his formerly jovial face. "She promised."

Concern and guilt fully replaced indignation as Twilight cantered over to sit beside her father with the drones still nestled around their grandfather. "What's going on, daddy?"

Night fell silent as he stared absently at the floor. "Your mother is very troubled, Twilight. She worries about you night and day."

"I understand daddy, but she keeps worrying over the wrong reasons. Why can't she see I'm not the monster Chrysalis tried to make us out to be?"

Night Light shook himself to bleed out of some of his fatigue. "You know your mother, she's more stubborn than a mule, and she may never agree with your choices in life, but I doubt she'd do anything regrettable."

Twilight glanced her drones, who were either sitting quietly or shrugged at her. "Maybe, but if I was anypony else, she'd have caused a diplomatic incident by now."

"If you were anypony else," Night replied reproachfully. "Velvet wouldn't be fighting so hard." Much of Twilight's ire deflated, along her father's. "She won't cause a public scene, I promise you." _I won't let her._

Twilight tentatively nuzzled her father. "If you need anything, anything at all, you let me know right away, okay?"

Pride cut through his dower expression. "No, no, that's quite alright. You already have a ton on your plate, and distracting you won't help. Now," he swept a hoof towards the door. "I don't know about you, but I haven't eaten yet, and I haven't sampled the palace cuisine in ages."

"Nor have I," Twilight giggled, grateful to have some mirth return to the room. "Come along kids, I won't have my guards going hungry."

* * *

*Ding a'ling*

Aegis nosed the door open of an out of the way curiosity shop to find a strangely darkened room, given the late afternoon daylight. The heavily shuttered windows and scattered candlelight gave the room a mysterious, yet strangely alluring atmosphere. The air carried a faint whiff of incense that dragged Aegis inside, her curiosity getting the better of her.

"Hello?" she called out experimentally as her brothers followed her in.

No one answered as the door closed behind Ferrum and the trio began snooping about. "Are you sure this place is open?"

"The sign said it was," Intel pointed out, "and the door was unlocked."

"I don't know guys. The last thing we need is somepony thinking we're breaking and entering."

Aegis turned to chide her brothers when a grey stallion's face appeared in front of her. "My, my, what do we have here?"

"AH!" Aegis buzzed into the air, while instinctively groping for her missing pistol.

The other two drones took up defensive positions, but the stallion merely leaned against a shelf and snickered. "Somethings strange have wandered into my shop. Are you strange-things seeking strange things, perhaps?"

The male drones let go of their tension as Aegis landed next to them. "You're not exactly normal yourself, Wrinkles."

"Ha! Strange knows strange, it seems. You may call me Curio," he said with a flourishing bow.

"…Aegis," she said while gesturing first to herself then the others. "My brothers, Ferrum and Intel."

"A pleasure," Curio replied while adjusting his half-moon glasses, only to hum in bemusement. "I must say, hearing about fur covered changelings was one thing, but to see not one, but three enter my humble shop is something else. Pray tell, what brings you here?"

And he called _us_ strange, Intel remarked.

Ferrum nosed his way past Aegis. "We were exploring the city. You saw our ship come in didn't you?"

"Aye, that I did. Tis a shame the vessel is so big, I'd love to have it in my coll—" A greedy glint caught his eye. "Say, why don't the three of you take a look around. I'm sure you might find whatever it is that _truly_ guided your hooves my way."

"What do you mean by that?" Intel called after him as Curio meandered over to the register.

"You'll know when you see it."

Left with questions they were not inclined enough to seek answers for, the changelings glanced around the store. After Curio lit several more lanterns, the group could see the plethora of trinkets, book, and baubles that occupied the shelves.

"You don't mind us looking around?" Ferrum called out.

"Not at all, your bits are as good as any other." Curio glanced up from his ledger. "You _do_ use bits, right?"

Aegis removed her coin purse and telekinetically tossed a bit onto Curio's desk. "That we do."

The grey pony flashed a toothy grin and swept a foreleg at his shop. "Then by all means, let your curiosity, be sated."

The trio of changelings shrugged before splitting up. Ferrum saw a collection of enticing books, while Intel was drawn to an unusual set of armor made for a minotaur, and Aegis sniffed her way around a few odd rings and amulets.

Most the objects Aegis looked at held her interest for a minute or so before the next items drew her away from the first. Items ranging from gold to lead, wood, bone, iron, and everything in between laid before her. Many were almost too enticing to go home without, but her coin purse was too light for much more than window shopping.

 _There's so many treasures here… if only my allowance was bigger,_ she whined to herself as her eyes fell upon an iron circlet. It bore a simple filigree along its band with two small diamonds set above the wearer's eyes. She was about to continue her search, but stopped when she felt the object tug on her mana.

Aegis picked it up to inspect it more closely. _There's something about this thing. Feels like its sucking on my mana a little._ Aegis tried to probe the object with her magic, but the circlet refused to give itself up.

She continued to scan the object with both her mundane and magical senses until a voice spoke right in her ear. "Find something you like?"

"Ahhh!" Aegis shrieked as Curio watched her bounce back into a solid wall. Ferrum flew over with a dozen small objects in his magic. Intel remained on the other side of the store looking over from an ancient sword. When he saw no one was in danger he returned his attention to the blade.

"You're really jumpy today, sis. Hey Curio, what is all this stuff?" He levitated his loot over to the shopkeeper.

The grey stallion was more than happy to answer. "Ahh, my lad, what you have here are the shattered fragments of none other than Swift Fire the Red's battlemage staff. He served the Diamond Kingdom for an age before being felled in the War of the Ring when a pegasus Legionnaire cut him down."

Aegis grumbled to herself as Ferrum studied the fragments in a new light. "So why didn't you fix them yet?"

"I haven't the skill, nor do I know of anyone who would, save for maybe the princesses. I can let you have it for say… fifteen bits."

"Sold!" Wait until mom hears about this thing guys!

Aegis shook her head in mild disgust at Ferrum's antics, and returned her attention to the circlet. _It stopped draining my mana… or at least it's so faint I can't tell anymore. Could it have been a mana battery?_ She waited for her brother to finish paying for his broken staff before presenting her circlet. "What's this thing?"

Curio furrowed his brow as he took the iron circlet from her. "Ah, yes, of course, this is Fleet Wing's Boon. An old little piece of iron enchanted to make anypony faster in the air…provided you have wings, which—" he spied the long gossamer wings on Aegis' back. "Shouldn't be a problem for you. I could let this little performance enhancer go for… eighty bits."

Aegis eyed the circlet as Curio gave it back to her with a little enticing shake. "I doubt it would work for me. Sounds like something meant for feathers," she added while buzzing her wings.

"I wouldn't be so sure," Curio rebuked with a smile. "But I might be inclined to drop the price to sixty bits, surely you have somepony you could gift this to."

 _I do actually,_ Aegis thought while maintaining an increasingly disinterested expression. "All the friends I know have wings like mine… but it looks pretty, barely. I could give twenty bits for it."

"Fifty bits."

"Twenty-five," she countered flatly.

"Thirty."

"Deal." Intel, can you spot me ten bits?

Why are you trying to spend my bits?

Come on, you owe me, remember?

You're impossible, Aegy. Intel flew over, with a sheathed sword in hoof. "I'll give you the extra ten, but only if you can give me this sword for fifteen."

Curio removed the blade from its scabbard, only to scoff in amusement. "Sorry my colt, but this is skysteel from the pre-Equestria era. I couldn't possibly let it go for anything less than thirty five hundred."

Ferrum did the math, and didn't like what he came up with. "Hey, why are you using _my_ bits now?"

This sword's for Riposte. You guys know how much he loves swords. Intel replied, earning quick acceptance from Ferrum and Aegis.

Even if we pooled our cash, we still wouldn't have enough for the sword though, Aegis pointed out.

Intel stared at the blade for a few seconds before making up his mind and pulled his watch out. "What if I throw this in? An authentic timepiece of the Jevruun Vrunningee. Only twenty have ever been made, and it keeps accurate time without magic."

A sly grin crossed over Curio's features. "You're a member of the Queen's Guard?! …Very well, I accept."

Intel gathered his siblings' coin into a single pouch. "How do you know Vespid, shopkeeper?"

"Just a few phrases, really. When somepony travels as much as I do, you pick up a thing or two. I hope you three enjoy yourselves now."

Intel tested his latest acquisition's edge, and found it to be a little dull. _That can be fixed._ "I'm sure we will."

As soon as he had his bits and new watch, Curio squirreled away to his register to count it out. That gave Intel an excuse to nudge his kin out the door. Ferrum deposited his prize in his saddle bags. What are we going to do without any cash? Go back to the ship?

Aegis bounded into the city street with her eyes to the sky. Not yet, I want to find Rainbow Dash.

Intel was itching to return to the _Phoenix_ to sharpen his blade. Can't wait 'till tonight?

She's a member of the Wonderbolts, remember? She might get reassignment orders, and I don't want to miss my chance to give her the circlet. Aegis queried the hive mind and it pointed her towards the western half of the city.

Understanding danced over Ferrum's features as Aegis bolted off towards Rainbow's location, with her brothers running to catch up. So that's why you wanted that thing?

Yeah, I figured since this thing is legit then she'd love it. And for all the flying lessons she's given us over the years, we owe her at least this much.

What makes you think he didn't just rip you off? Intel challenged. That thing could be junk, for all you know; like that shattered walking stick.

It's a war staff, not a stick, Ferrum growled.

Aegis shot a happy grin towards her brothers. Only one way to find out!

* * *

Long hours in front of a desk, a candle burning down to its base, and yellowing old pages from the palace's reliquary ledgers brought such a strong sense of nostalgia to Twilight Sparkle that she barely managed to break away from her studies long enough to look up and sigh contently.

The window to the left of her yawned open to reveal the day had long since given way to nightfall. _Has it really been half a decade since I lived in this tower?_ Her gaze fell upon one of her personal guards.

Despite the Night Guard patrolling the skies and hallways of the Royal Palace, Twilight's last visit in Canterlot still left a bad taste in her mouth, and she had brought her guard with her. Twilight's eyes shifted to Aegis. She quietly admired her child's dedication, but sensed Aegis was more chipper than usual. I take it you enjoyed Canterlot.

Aegis glanced at her mother for a moment before returning her gaze at the sky. It has its charm. Kinda primitive in a lot of ways though.

"Is that so?" she replied tersely. "Like what?"

Aegis' ears drooped and her wings flickered nervously. "Well, they're not nearly as technologically advanced as us."

 _Nice save._ "Then that means we have something to offer them, and they might just surprise you in turn."

 _I better get her back in a good mood._ "I found that out today, actually," Aegis commented, succeeding in derailing some of Twilight's irritation.

The lavender queen returned much of her focus back to the ledgers. "And?"

Aegis silently ordered Intel to take her place by the window so she could canter over to Twilight. "And I found out a valuable lesson in bartering."

Twilight's eyes dilated a bit, and she put her ledger down again. "Bartering?"

A knock on the door interrupted Aegis's reply. A Night Guard thestral poked his head in. "Announcing her highness, Princess Luna."

Twilight's drones scurried to stand at attention while their queen stood up to greet the lunar diarch. "Princess Luna, I thought you'd be busy dreamwalking."

Luna gave the drones a nod of acknowledgement before gliding over to their queen. "Normally, but the dreamscape is why I'm here."

"What do you mean?"

"Your hive made a strong impression today." The collected changelings gave their undivided attention at that. "The dreamscape has seen a sharp decline in nightmares about a second changeling invasion, but I don't know how much of that is due to fear of the chaos spawn to the north."

"Well, it's not like one day would fix everything," Twilight replied, "but I thought Equestria has the spawn under control."

"We do, but some of the nobility's been fear mongering the public with the Canterlot Times," Luna commented with a shadow of worry as she walked over to window Aegis had recently vacated. "Since the modern world believes in free press, and they aren't exactly _lying_ , I can do nothing about it."

Twilight abandoned her old desk to join the lunar princess. She wordlessly told her guards to give them some space. "I get the feeling something else is bothering you."

Luna's gaze turned south towards the noble district. "…Not me so much. The last dream I walked was that of your mother, Velvet."

The lavender queen groaned while rubbing her temple. "Let me guess, she has nightmares about the _horrible_ monster I've become."

"Indeed, and I fear this one was not the first. I did what I could to try and alleviate her troubles, but once she knew I was there, she rejected my help out of hoof." Luna heaved a heavy sigh. "I fear she may do something everypony will regret."

Twilight recalled what she knew of her first mother. _I better give word to the ship to triple security, just to be on the safe side._ "Princess, I won't act preemptively against her. As…" she had to fight to keep her voice from breaking, "much as Velvet hates what I am, I won't make the first move." Twilight gave Luna a stern glare. "But I _will_ defend my hive."

 _I was honestly expecting more._ "Reminds me of my sister's reasoning before I fell to nightmare. I trust you remember how close I came to drowning the world in shadow."

 _I thought I'd never get the taste of potion out of my mouth._ "To be fair, Luna, you're an alicorn princess and Velvet's a unicorn." The lunar diarch gave her a flat look that needed no words to convey her message. "…But I'll take your warning to heart."

"That is all I ask. I needn't remind you that we are at a critical juncture, and I wouldn't want an incident to taint your future proclamation to join Equestria."

"Nor would I."

"I thought as much. Now, I'd prefer to move on to a lighter topic. I'd like to join your little venture into the caverns tomorrow; not only as a friend, but as a show of cooperation to the public."

Twilight beamed a fang filled smile. "We haven't had a chance to spend time together in too long. I think it'll be fun and relaxing."

"Glad to hear it, I'll see you then." Without any further ado, Luna headed for the door before pausing. "Hopefully we won't run into a second unliving queen."

"Don't jinx it," Twilight tittered.

"Until then, Twilight, I will watch over your dreams," Luna replied before spying the bat signal and departing into the night.


	17. Chapter 17

Machinations

The crystal caves under Canterlot were a strange and dour place. The upper levels under the castle were little more than drab grey rock and dull inert crystal that exuded a miasma of lifelessness. Twilight was thankful that she failed to notice that the last time she was here. Dark shapes danced about the craggy chamber as Twilight's entourage of seven drones tried to occupy themselves with shadow puppets using their flashlights.

The hour was late, but that was part of the plan to allow Luna to join at a more convenient time for the nocturnal princess. At present, Twilight focused in on herself, or to be more precise, the clutch of eggs residing within her. Her magical senses probed each one as she sat on dusty stone ground. _Only ten of them have been fertilized, and it's been over two hours. I may need to have a second round with a consort to finish the job._

The sound of feathers on the stale air dragged Twilight's attention to the eastern entrance, fully expecting Luna, but getting someone else instead. "Rainbow? What are you doing here?"

The cyan mare spun in the air before she descended to the ground near Twilight. "What'd you expect? You were trying to go on an adventure without me again," she replied with pseudo indignation.

Twilight easily saw through it. "I didn't think you'd want to go. We're only going exploring in a cave system for archaeological reasons."

"Oh yeah? Didn't you go to the Ebony Castle for the same thing?" Rainbow challenged with a condescending lift of her eyebrow.

"Er, well," she looked to her drones for help, but most only shrugged or couldn't comment. Twilight suppressed the urge to roll her eyes and simply climbed to her hooves. "If you want to come, you're more than welcome to." That placated the pegasus, which gave Twilight time to spy the bejeweled iron circlet on Rainbow's brow. "I didn't know you were one for jewelry, Rainbow."

"Oh this awesome thing?" she replied while patting it with a hoof. "My girl, Aegis, gave it to me. This thing is pretty sweet!"

The drone in question flew over after hearing her name. "You don't have to wear it just to be nice, Aunty. I know you didn't like it," she said with mild bemusement.

Twilight arched a curious eyebrow as Rainbow Dash waved a dismissive hoof. "It wasn't you, kid. I was just angry at my reassignment orders."

"You're really getting transferred? To where?" Twilight asked morosely.

"It's the wing I'm assigned to. We're being rotated to the chaos spawn border in a week," Rainbow replied while trying not to sound terrified, and only partially succeeding.

"Oh…" Twilight's ears fell flat. "I wish you luck then."

"Hey, I'm not leaving yet, and besides, I already did a tour of duty a couple of years ago. They didn't touch me then, and they're not going to get me now!" Rainbow hoped she sounded braver than she felt.

Aegis felt her mother's growing distress over the link and tried to steer the conversation off topic. "So, you really _do_ like the circlet?"

The query had the desired effect. Rainbow adjusted her headgear to have her mane flow over it. "Yeah, it's kinda grown on me."

"So does it really make you faster like Curio said it would?" she asked with wided eyed enthusiasm.

Rainbow started to say something, but stopped herself to give it real thought. She rubbed her chin for a few moments. "No, if anything it's slowing me down a bit. Iron isn't exactly light material, you know."

"Bu—" Aegis tilted her head in bafflement. "Then why are you still wearing it? The whole reason I got it for you was to help you fly faster."

 _Silly filly, it's hard to remember sometimes you guys aren't even five years old._ Rainbow laid a matronly hoof around Aegis. "Girl, let me tell you something about gift giving."

As Rainbow assured Aegis her gift was well appreciated, Twilight fell back to give them space. As she did, the hauntingly familiar scent of changeling magic leaked out of the circlet. It was so faint that she only noticed it after Rainbow poked the item with a hoof. She was about to start discreteely probing the circlet with her magic when Luna's timely arrival distracted her.

The lunar princess, along with two Night Guards, trotted through the same entrance Rainbow had used, carrying heavily laden saddlebags; although one wouldn't be able to tell given the spring in her step. "Good evening, Twilight, Rainbow Dash, I pray I haven't left you waiting for too long."

"Not at all," Twilight reassured warmly. "We were just making final preparations, plus I already have several squads combing the upper levels of the mine. I left the juicy stuff down below just for us!"

"What are we sitting around for then?" Rainbow blurted. "Let's go spelunking!"

The drones cheered their agreement and doubled checked their equipment before flying down the circular pit where a winding mine cart track descended into the lightless depths. There, they hoped to find answers to questions Tia'vil'yet had suppressed since times beyond remembrance.

* * *

Far to the south in the starlit jungles of the queendoms, a lean grey drone slunk through the dense wet underbrush of a small ravine. The never-ending light drizzle of the mistlands tried in vain to seep into his clothing as the drone jumped over a log on rubber shod hooves. The noise of drones approaching from the east caught his ear, making him shuffle behind some dense foliage.

The noise of gossamer wings on the air passed directly overhead and to a small natural clearing adjacent to a short waterfall. His genetically enhanced eyes saw the three dozen black drones carrying twenty cigar shaped pods of various sizes, before placing them near the riverbank. Observer, are you there?

As always, Cypher. Do you have something to report? a curt masculine voice replied.

Cypher watched the gathered drones as lightning struck a highly combustible Calero tree, blasting the area with noise and bathing the pods in orange light. Within them, he saw figures of various sizes. Aye, it looks like Queen Jstrul is rebuilding her stockpile of love prisoners.

Jstrul? Observer queried with a touch of worried concern. I thought you were stationed in section one one D zero.

I am. Cypher replied bluntly. Does anypony else know why Jstrul would be so close to Polybia's territory?

It's possible they struck a deal. Even so, our treaty with the Equestrians declared kidnapping a forbidden practice.

Several of Jstrul's drones fanned out from the center and started sweeping the underbrush. Cypher wedged himself between a hollow log and a jagged boulder where the overhanging branches of a recently felled tree completely concealed him. Still wouldn't explain what the drones are doing here.

Agreed. Can you determine the prisoners' species? Are any of them non-ponies?

That _would_ be an exploitable loophole, Cypher grunted quietly.

One of the hostile drones started moving towards Cypher's position. With expert control over his magic, he changed his disguise to that of rotting leaves without the telltale flash of magical fire, although he was unable to obscure his equine silhouette. The black drones sniffed around, trying to use their superior sense of smell to locate any predators or threats, but the mists made that nearly impossible. Even though Link speak was completely silent, Cypher dared not even think as a drone hovered directly above him.

He knew the light rain fouled most attempts at sniffing something out, but that didn't stop a dose of fear from slipping through Cypher's professionalism. The sniffing drone's head jerked to the side, as if it caught whiff of something.

With his horn coated in a resin to hide the light, Cypher noiselessly slid his knife out. The hostile drone slowly looked down right at him, and in an instant, found Cypher's blade buried in his throat. The scout cursed his luck and prowled away with the corpse in tow. He made sure the blood trailed behind him. I think I've been compromised, Observer.

Did you follow protocol?

Doing it now. Hopefully the others will think a beast made off with the body, but they'll be on high alert at best. Cypher angled his ears back towards the other drones, and heard several of them racing towards his last position. He made it to the ravine and dumped the body. He barely had a few seconds to hide under a broad-leaved fern before several angry drones buzzed past his location.

There he waited for five minutes as the ebony changelings searched for the body, only to assume the worst and return to the drop site. Much to his displeasure, Cypher's prediction proved true, and the drones started moving in teams of three. _Better keep my distance._

Status report, Cypher. Are you able to determine the prisoners' species?

The scout swore under his breath. I'm fine, but I can't get close enough, I'll have to use the spyglass. He found a good perch in a tree and climbed up into it before withdrawing his glass. By now, the pods were surrounded by a ring of bioluminescent bladders, casting the pods in a gentle teal light. Half of the drones were busy fending off several small predators trying to eat their captives.

However, Cypher's attention was focused on who the prisoners were. _Odd,_ he mused before addressing his handler. It's a mixed bunch, half are assumed ponies, could be zebras, but there are minotaur, griffin, and donkey prisoners as well.

Observer brooded for a few seconds. _That doesn't make sense. Jstrul's hive doesn't have drones modified to work in Griffin and Minotaur territory. Smuggling such prisoners would be difficult, given that Kreesus controls the old western roads into Minatoria._ Are you sure, Cypher?

It's pretty hard to confuse a bipedal bull ape with a pony, Observer, he quipped derisively.

Amusing, Observer replied flatly. Stick around. It may be obvious that Polybia is in league with Chrysalis' sisters, but I want evidence before this is presented to the queen.

I don't think I'll be waiting long. The buyer's already here. True enough, an equal number of Polybia's drones arrived from across the waterfall and gathered up the pods without uttering a word to the first group. _That's Polybia's brood alright. I'd recognize that Tyrant strain anywhere._ A shiver ran down his spine at the sight of the three tank-sized flying monstrosities being loaded down with half a dozen pods each. Observer, it's Polybia, no doubt about it. But why are they trading in secret like this?

That's Central Intelligence's job. Fall back to the rally point; the blood from the corpse will likely bring slicer flies into the area, if they haven't arrived already.

Happy to oblige. The faint smell of burnt rose petals struck his nose. _Damn, those flies are fast. Maybe they'll snag some of the no-brains._

As Cypher slid away from the meeting place, a black drone at the top of the ravine silently watched him leave through reptilian eyes. _The bait's been taken; now I just have to wait for Cadista to leave herself vulnerable._

A mirthless laugh bubbled from the puppet's throat as it left to join its brethren in the inky skies.

* * *

If there was one thing the bowels of the crystal caves and the wetlands had in common, it was humidity. Unfortunately for Aegis, the caves did not share the jungle's warmth. Her teeth chattered quietly as she tried in vain to bundle up in her light uniform. _Hate the cold; hate the cold; I really, really hate the cold._

She scanned her flashlight across the painfully drab room, seeing nothing but full crystal formations and slug-like rock biters that scurried away from the light. Several drones and a pair of thestrals were carrying supplies and accompanying Twilight and Luna as the royal mares led the way deeper into the mines. _How could anypony live down here?_

A friendly hoof landed across her withers, causing the teeth-chattering Aegis to turn to Rainbow Dash. "You look down, kid. You alright?"

Aegis cleared her throat to buy time to look tough for her favorite aunt. "It's just a little chilly. I'm used to the jungle heat and all that."

Rainbow took her leg off of the drone to walk normally. "I get ya. The cold's not that bad for me, but that's what I get for growing up in Cloudsdale. I could do without the constant murmur these caves are putting out, though."

"I don't hear anything," Aegis replied with only a brush of concern. "It's probably the raw mana around here. The ancient hives used to settle around ley lines, and I believe Canterlot was founded above one."

"Oh, I guess that makes sense," Rainbow Dash sighed. _Glad I'm not going crazy._ "Say, once your hive settles down somewhere, you want to see Cloudsdale with me?" Rainbow offered, trying to distract herself.

Aegis' eyes lit up and hugged her. "Really, you mean it!?"

"Sure. You, me, and anypony else who wants to go. Just be sure to bring a jacket."

Aegis bounced on her hooves. "Ah! You've got to show me the wea—" With some of the flashlights partially illuminating the pegasus, something about her seemed off. _Is her facial fur darker than normal?_

Rainbow waved a wing in Aegis' face. "Hello, anypony home?"

"Huh? Oh, sorry, I think the mana around here is playing tricks on me again. But yeah! I'd love to go!" She would have said more, but an intense wave of surprise cascaded through the local Link, causing Aegis to run over to Twilight.

"I think we found something, everypony," Twilight called out as she surveyed the underground stream before her.

Strewn across the room was a dense carpet of bones broken only by the flowing water. Some were still in nearly intact skeletons, while other bones were lying by themselves. Broken pickaxes and shovels were scattered around, causing the two royal mares to contemplate silently as their escorts started moving carefully around the area.

Luna cast her senses across the foreboding chamber. The feeling of the room caused her horn to ache. "There is primal magic at work here. We must be close to the ley line fount."

"There was a ley line fount under the Ebony Castle too." Twilight dislodged a pickaxe head from a broken skeleton. "All of this should have decayed centuries ago. Not to mention..." She surveyed the carnage and couldn't help but to imagine the fighting and the dying. _Stay objective, Twilight._ "If I didn't know any better, I'd think they attacked one another. Did you get a chance to review the old records of why they closed the mine?"

Princess Luna bent down to carefully inspect the ground for any more subtle clues. "No. Canterlot's founding and the mine's closure predates my sister and I's arrival in Equestria by a few thousand years. As for the records," she groaned while pinching the bridge of her muzzle, "after I asked for them, the archivist would have laughed me out of the library had I been anypony other than a princess. All the old records were lost in a series of fires spread out across the last five thousand years, _and_ being the ageless alicorn that I am, she thought that would be common knowledge for me."

"Was she aware that you two haven't ruled for even half that?" Twilight asked with polite incredulousness.

Luna shrugged her wings in defeat. "I don't know. The archivist does her job, but her nose was lost in a ridiculous tabloid when I approached her, so she just might have been that ignorant."

"I knew the city was old but… I had no idea it was so ancient."

"A lot of old history was lost in the Shadow War with Sombra," Luna commented. "Thanks to that, exact dates from historic events are smudged, and most writers just like to say 'a thousand years' for dramatic effect." She picked up two halves of a shattered bone. "This was done by a shovel."

Spread out and search for any evidence of actual weapon use, Twilight commanded. "If I had to guess, I'd say the miners turned on each other."

"Think your ancestors had something to do with that?" Luna's tone was more clinical than anything else.

"Hmm… Given how deep into the mountain we are, I'd hazard a yes." Twilight stood up to scan for a likely path further into the depths. "We must be close, just as the miners were."

"And they were killed for it," Luna remarked, earning a worried look from Twilight.

"I'm sure they had good reason," Twilight replied, hoping to alleviate any negativity.

"Oh, undoubtedly," Luna assured as she followed Twilight down one of the tunnels. "History likes to forget that early Equestrians were horrifically xenophobic. As was my sister in those early years."

Rainbow Dash decided to remain in the air and hovered near the alicorn. "But I thought Hearth's Warming Eve taught them the value of friendship with others."

"Ha!" Luna chortled darkly for what seemed like minutes. Twilight shared a few uncomfortable glances with her drones and the Night Guard until the princess finally recollected herself. "Sorry, you weren't there. Let me just say, that just because the tribes were finally able to overlook the racism between themselves, and only for mutual benefit I might add, doesn't mean they were suddenly lovey-dovey to everyone else. As I recall, they waged war on the zebras a few times just because their stripes were seen as the Mark of Felnaroth. And don't get me started on the atrocities committed against the griffins, even if they were justified."

"...Wow… I guess that explains why ponies are so slow to welcome my kind." Twilight traced a hoof across the tunnel walls. "On a brighter note, this feels smooth with traces of wax. This might be the right direction."

Rainbow Dash flew over after Luna called out for everyone to move out. "Any chance we can get out of here any time soon? This place is really starting to creep me out."

Twilight lit the downward sinking tunnel with a spell while giving her friend a cautious grin. "A graveyard isn't exactly what I was hoping to find first thing either."

"Well, that too yeah, but…" Rainbow scratched her head as if to try and dislodge a pest. "There's a noise around here that's bugging me. Ah, no offense."

Luna stopped to face the pegasus. "It's probably the echoes of the stream or subterranean life. There's nothing here that poses any real danger, unless you fall directly into the ley line or the changelings left any traps behind."

"I wouldn't bet against that," Twilight remarked while casting Aegis a knowing glance. The drone fretted over the memory, but tried to keep her nervousness concealed.

The group descended deeper into the mountain for several dozen meters through twisting tunnels that seemed to be designed to mislead any would-be intruders. Yet to one who knew what to look for, each step revealed a more artificial touch upon the walls, until they came to a crystal door. It was inlaid with worn runes forming a circle around the center. Both royal mares made sure enough light was on the door before Twilight bent down to read.

Luna took stock of their location with a geological spell. "By the stars! For all that walking, we're only five meters below the site of the massacre! Looks like the miners dug too greedily and too deep for the changelings' liking."

"Sure looks that way," Twilight agreed. "The door's enchantment seems to have faded long ago, but I think the crystals that were used are still intact."

"Allow me to assist; I am familiar with old changeling magic," Luna offered.

* * *

As the two mares toiled away for over an hour, Rainbow Dash was finding it increasingly difficult to put on an air of cool confidence. Hundreds, no, thousands of voices whispered in the back of her mind. Her eyes darted back and forth at the brightly lit tunnel as the drones and two thestrals settled in to wait for their respective rulers. Some of the drones pulled out playing cards to occupy their time. Only one of the Night Guard decided to join the drones in a friendly game of Blackmare. Ferrum, the dealer, waved a hoof at Rainbow Dash to join them.

However, Rainbow Dash didn't register the invitation as she scratched her forehead to try and ease an itch, but the voices were growing maddeningly loud. _Shut up, SHUT UP! Get out of my head!_ A gentle hoof on her shoulder made her jump.

Aegis carried a gravely worried look. "Rainbow, are you alright?" She brought her flashlight up to inspect the pegasus' face, only to gasp in shock. The fur around the pegasus' head and face were a stark violet, and the roots of her mane were turning rich lavender. "Rainbow! Mother, something's wrong with RD!"

Dropping everything, Twilight bolted over with Luna not far behind. Rainbow was sniffling out of fear. "Get them out of my head, make them **stop!** "

"Everypony get back!" Twilight warned. "I don't know if this can spread."

Everyone quickly obeyed while Luna scanned Rainbow for any sign of a mundane disease. Finding nothing, she switched to magical ailments. "Something is attacking her, but I've never seen anything like it."

Twilight lightly tapped Rainbow's cheek to get her to speak. "RD, what's wrong? Does it hurt anywhere?"

The pegasus' eyes were darting in every direction, and her ears were pressed flat, but the noise was only getting louder. "No! But these damn voices are making it hard to think! Get me out of here; I need to leave, now, now, NOW!"

A terrible thought crossed Luna's mind, and she searched herself. _I'm not hearing anything._ She turned to Twilight. "We should take her to the surface; we can find out what's going on there."

"Agreed, but we can't teleport this close to the ley line—" She stopped dead cold. Amidst the sea of voices that made up the hive mind, one of them was panicky, terrified, and frighteningly familiar. "No… How!?"

Luna levitated the stricken pegasus onto her back. "Twilight, we must hurry!"

"Wait a minute," Twilight urged as she scanned Rainbow for a different magical signature. Her discovery made her breath quicken. "It's not a curse; she's being converted by alchemy! But that's impossible!"

Twilight only half heard Luna's stunned response as she quickly isolated Rainbow's presence in the Link. _I don't know how this is happening, but at least I can ease her pain._ Fearful that a complete cut might damage her friend's mind, Twilight opted to deafen Rainbow from the hive mind. The effect was immediate, and she slackened on the princess's back.

Luna turned to her guards. "We're too deep to teleport out safely; get to the surface and tell the archmagus to meet us halfway. Go!"

She watched her thestrals depart for a moment before casting a worried glance between pegasus and queen. "You said alchemy? But I thought you needed a whole apparatus for that."

"Normally…" Twilight's senses directed her to the circlet, which she promptly ripped off Rainbow's head. The act stunned Rainbow into a barely lucid state, but her fur stopped turning purple, and her mane mostly remained the same, albeit with different colored roots.

Twilight motioned for Luna to place Rainbow on the ground so they could inspect her. The lavender queen checked her friend from hoof to ear. "The alchemy's gone; she won't change any further."

Luna cringed at the sight of the pegasus. The fur starting from mid way down her neck and up was completely violet that graded into darker shades, with the top being solid lavender. "How can you be certain?"

"She's alchemically inactive." Twilight took out her canteen and gave Rainbow a few sips before the stricken mare fell unconscious. "RD, are you okay? Speak to me."

Rainbow Dash's mind was experiencing too much shock for her to register Twilight's plea, which only served to send Twilight closer towards the deep end. "We have to get her to the ship, it's the only place I can make sure she doesn't have any deformities."

Luna carefully placed the stricken mare on her back. "We should move her to the castle instead. It's closer, and you can have any necessary equipment you need delivered easier."

"That'll work, but we need to move!" Twilight said before addressing her escorts. "Start searching for a way to open this door; I'll summon an extra detail to give the bones a proper burial."

"Yes, my queen!" They all replied.

Twilight fretted over the sleeping pegasus. While Rainbow couldn't hear the hive mind, Twilight could still hear her. _Hang on Rainbow. I'll fix this, somehow._

* * *

Later, in the wee hours of the morning, Rainbow Dash awoke on one of the sofas in Twilight Sparkle's tower. It was a new moon, so the only light in the central chamber was from the candles surrounding the exhausted mare's desk.

Lying on cushions scattered around her sofa, Rainbow saw several drones were sleeping around her. Aegis and her squad were the closest. "Gah, what happened?" she moaned quietly. She blinked slowly at the lavender queen before drowsily taking wing to fly over to her. "Twi?"

Twilight jolted from her study of the circlet to face the violet/cyan mare. "Rainbow!" She gripped her friend's head on either side. "Do you remember who you are? Who I am? Anything?"

Rainbow Dash arched a sardonic eyebrow. "Ah, yeah. You're the biggest egghead royal bug I've ever met, and I'm the best Wonderbolt there is."

The pegasus suddenly found herself being squished in a crushing hug. "Oh, thank the First Mother! Your memories are still there." Rainbow struggled to breathe, prompting Twilight to loosen up. "Are you feeling well? Any pain or discomfort? I checked for nerve damage and tissue malformation, but I didn't find any—" A cyan hoof planted itself in her muzzle, but her mouth was moving so fast she didn't stop talking for a few more seconds.

"Twilight, what's going on? Why are you asking me all this?"

It took Twilight a few moments to recompose herself and remove the hoof from her muzzle. "Please, answer my questions."

Rainbow shot her a weird look before rolling her eyes. "I'm feeling fine, I'm not in…" She took a moment to pad herself down. "No pain anywhere. Happy?"

"Very; thank you. Do you remember anything of what happened last night?"

That was where Rainbow Dash was drawn up short. "Umm, I take it you mean besides the caves and the bones?" The lavender queen nodded slowly. "Well there were like a kajillon voices in my head. Is that the sort of trap the old 'Lings left behind, or did we piss off some ghost down there."

Twilight fumbled with the circlet for several seconds to find the right words. "Rainbow… There were no traps or ghosts or anything. You were hearing my hive mind."

That earned a tilted head from the Wonderbolt. "You wanna run that by me one more time?"

Sighing, Twilight levitated the circlet to hover between them. "This thing partially converted you into a changeling; specifically, Aegis' template."

"You're kidding... right?" Rainbow hoped, only to find a mirror, wrapped in Twilight's magic, fly over to her. Her face fell at the violet furry face staring back at her. Rainbow's mouth hung agape as her brain failed spectacularly to process what it was seeing.

Twilight could _feel_ Rainbow's growing panic over the Link, but refused to bleed it away out of respect. "RD, I want you to know I'm going to do everything I can to fix this."

"M-my fur… it's supposed to be blue. Blue. _Blue!_ Why am I purple!? I—" To both mares' astonishment, Rainbow Dash's fur shimmered an extremely faint lavender before returning to its normal cyan color, and the discoloration of her mane also faded away. "I—I… I'm blue again. Are you doing this?"

"No!" Twilight's heart soared and she latched onto Rainbow's face again. "Amazing, I knew your transformation affected your fur the quickest, but I didn't think it was a complete conversion! I need to run more tests on you to gauge the extent of your changes… for science! By the way, it's very light cerulean, not blue," she added academically.

Rainbow was finding it hard to speak with Twilight's hooves squishing her face. "Cwan yu wet go wow?"

"Oh, sorry!" The queen released her friend immediately. "I'm just shocked that you can use your disguise at all." _The partial conversion must have allowed her to generate some changeling mana._

Unfortunately, now that Rainbow's panic was slowly bleeding away at the sight of her restored fur, whatever control she had over her abilities fell away and her coat faded back to violet. "No! Go back, go back!"

"Rainbow—" Twilight started, only to be given pause by a raised wing. The pegasus growled into the mirror in her hooves to change back, and her violet fur shimmered a bit, but couldn't fully stabilize. Twilight pushed the feathered wing out of her face. "Rainbow, I can teach you how to control this, at least long enough I figure out how to reverse this."

For several minutes, Rainbow tried to reclaim her original color. She would succeed for, at most, several seconds before the strain was too much and she reverted back. In the end, she turned to her lavender friend. " _Can_ you reverse this? Like, before I go on deployment with the 'Bolts?"

Despite Rainbow's irate exterior, primal fear seeped through the barrier Twilight had placed between her and the hive mind. Twilight hugged her friend tightly. "I promise, Rainbow, I'll do everything I can to fix this. But I don't know how long it will take."

"Hey, come on," Rainbow scoffed, trying to reassert her bravado. "If you hadn't been there, I'd be a hundred percent 'Ling now, wouldn't I? So my fur's a different color, _big_ deal. Nothing a dye job can't fix, right?" Twilight let go of her friend, giving Rainbow time to fully inspect herself. "I mean, awesome mane: check. Sky blue - er - cerulean coat: mostly check." She flexed her wings into different positions and gave her feathers a good tug. "Radical wings: double check!"

Twilight hid an inner cringe. _Oh no, she's doing a checklist…_

As Rainbow finished her self-inspection, Twilight recollected her notes on her earlier inspection while trying to ignore the connotations of Rainbow's inspection method. "From what I gathered, your fur and skin from the neck up are nearly a complete conversion. Oddly enough, it's only skin deep."

"Am I going to have to worry about shedding or something?" Rainbow said, trying to inject some humor.

Not that it worked, since Twilight could sense the pegasus' lingering terror under the surface. "Ah well, no more than usual, although you might find humid heat to be more to your liking," Twilight explained, glad to bring her friend into a more amicable mood. "I stopped your transformation before your horn could start growing in, and as far as I can tell, nothing's been changed below the neckline except for one thing."

"So I don't have to worry about eggs?" Rainbow asked with sudden intense dread. "I mean, eggs are good, but that's all you, queen bug."

Twilight attempted to give a flat look but it ended up turning into a sleepy yawn. "No, you're entirely pony below the neck, except for an alteration to your metabolism and digestive tract."

"Metabo what?" Rainbow couldn't stop running her tongue over her distinctively _not_ flat teeth. "Is that something do with my teeth being weird?" Before Twilight could speak, Rainbow's eyes lit up like the sun. "I get it! Sharp teeth means you eat meat! I can eat meat now!?"

Twilight was at a complete loss at her friend's sudden enthusiasm. "Umm…technically ponies have always had the ability, but—."

"Yeah, yeah, most of us'd get indigestion. But are you saying I can actually eat meat totally safely now?" A confused nod was Twilight's only answer. "This is awesome! All those years of Gilda dangling chicken in front of me, and recently with your hive…"

The pegasus was practically drooling over Twilight's scrolls as she rambled about dining on Pepper's famous Beer Roasted Beef with Onions. Twilight simply couldn't find any words, although she could sense over the Link that her friend was grasping at straws. Anything to distract herself from how close she came to becoming a drone. Even with that in mind, Twilight had difficulty finding any semblance of logic to Rainbow's incoherent mumbling about other changeling cuisine. "I'm starting to think the circlet actually _did_ do something to your mind," she muttered half-jokingly.

"You think my taste buds are more inclined to like meat now too? Because your kids eat more beef than ponies do hay."

Twilight threw her hooves up at the figurative curve ball worthy of Pinkie Pie herself. "That's it, I give up. I'm going to bed. But before I do. Would you allow me to teach you how to control your disguise? I can do it in a short minute via the Link."

"Ahh…" Rainbow reimagined the constant nonsensical chatter that assailed her under the mountain. Her ears folded back and she started to hyperventilate.

Twilight felt a wash of terror from her friend. "Sorry, I should have known you'd be af—"

Rainbow's ears shot up and a determined look crossed her face. "No!" Twilight stopped as the pegasus wrestled with her fear. "Will it hur - no, will it mess with my brain in any way? I want to still be me."

"The hive mind is for communication; you'll still be Rainbow Dash. You've seen my children; they have as much personality as any _pony_ out there," Twilight reassured. _Although not as much as you half the time._

The pegasus forced her breathing and fear under control through sheer force of will and stared at her lavender friend. "Do it."

As Twilight gently imparted the knowledge, the drone of the hive mind was unintelligible for several seconds until Vespid passed into her knowledge, followed by the nuances of wielding a disguise.

A thought struck Rainbow while it all happened. "Why does it not sound as terrifying as last time?"

"If I had to guess, it's because you know what the voices are, and that they won't harm you."

 _Duh._ "Okay. Um… That make sense." She was having difficulty thinking with a few thousand voices in her mind. "How do you deal with all the noise?"

"You want the simple answer or the long one?"

"Simple, please."

Twilight poured the last of her cold coffee in a mug and took a few sips before giving the cup to Rainbow. "Simply put, a changeling's brain is wired to work with a hive mind. Given enough time, you won't want to be separated from it." Rainbow put the mug down, but Twilight jumped out of her chair. "Which is _why_ I'm limiting you to just a thread connection until I'm sure I can sever you safely."

"Now hold on!" Rainbow half shouted, stopping Twilight short. "You've gotten into all kinds of trouble over the years, and I wasn't able to help you because I never knew about it until _after_ all the action was over. You're not getting rid of me that easy."

Some of the drones awoke from the raised voice, while Twilight was frozen by the idea. "A-are you seriously suggesting—"

Rainbow waved her hooves defensively. "Not the whole thing, just you. So long as I'm part 'Ling here, I at least want to stay in contact with _you._ "

"I guess I can do that, but I'd really like to get some sleep."

"Sounds good. But before you go, what did you find out about the circlet and where Aegis got it from?"

 _And there goes what little of a good mood I had,_ she inwardly groaned. "The shopkeeper lied about knowing what the circlet really was. He thought it was some old junk that he could con somepony into taking off his hooves."

"You don't really believe that do you?" Rainbow rebuked. "A pony like that's gotta know what he's selling."

"Luna wasn't convinced either—" Twilight yawned loudly, "but since he had a disclaimer sign at the door and register, and you didn't die, we can't prosecute him."

As Twilight finished gently granting Rainbow the knowledge of proper disguise use, the pegasus felt some of Twilight's drowsiness leak into her. "Maybe I'll try it out in the morning. Night, Twi."

"Good night, Rainbow Dash."

Just outside of the window, a Night Guard listened in on the entire conversation. Rainbow's rapid turnaround deeply troubled him. _Nopony could be so accepting of having that plague brought upon them. That queen_ must _have planned this. The boss will want to know. We have to stop the plaguebearer from spreading her curse any further._

With utter silence, the guard fell away from the window and powered his way to the noble district.

* * *

During the following day's lunch in Twilight's tower, Aegis' squad watched on in mute awe as Rainbow Dash shoveled a roast beef sandwich into her maw. Moans and gasps of ecstasy escaped the mostly cyan mare between bites. Her plate had been filled with four different changeling dishes. There were no survivors.

Aegis nervously fidgeted with her hooves and couldn't truly face her adopted aunt. While all of them felt guilty for not presenting the magical items to Twilight for inspection first, she was the one who had purchased the circlet. Rainbow took notice and spoke after washing her sandwich down. "Aegy, are you going to wear that apologetic look all day?"

"Sorry," she whined. "I shouldn't have been so stupid as to trust that crook to know what he was selling."

"So you messed up, it's not the end of the world." Rainbow pulled Aegis into a sidelong hug and shot her a winning smug grin. "Sure, the purple fur's not my thing, and I keep biting my tongue on these new teeth," some of her cheer started fading, "and I have short fangs… and a bit of a love addiction…" Aegis's mood plummeted. Rainbow cleared her throat and took a swig of her beer. "Look, it wasn't your fault. And besides, Twi stopped it before I went full drone, and she's cooking up a cure right now, _and_ I get to eat meat, so that's like a triple plus."

It wasn't enough to bolster Aegis' spirits, and she leaned her head into Rainbow's neck to whimper. _I'm so sorry, Aunty._

A loud knocking on the door stifled any further discussion. Intel jumped out of his seat right as Twilight spoke from the upper levels of the tower. Can somepony get that? I'm in the middle of a delicate experiment. Rainbow successfully reverted her coat color before Intel could obey.

He found a nervous looking bellhop with a pair of brown boxes bearing the royal seal on his back. "Delivery for ahh..." the earth pony pulled out a scroll. "Queen Twilight Sparkle and Dame Rainbow Dash."

Intel eyed the pony, and then the boxes, with curiosity. "I can take those for you."

"I need your signature here, p-p-please." He flipped his scroll over and offered an inked quill. Once Intel did as requested, he pulled the two packages off the earth pony's back. "H-have a good day, sir."

The bellhop ran off like a shot, prompting the drone to tilt his head. _Maybe he's just another superstitious pony._

Once the door was closed, Rainbow let go of her partial disguise with a labored exhale. "That" *huff* "was harder than I thought." *puff*

Aegis gently patted her adopted aunt on the back. "Even though mom gave you the knowledge via the Link, it'll take time to get used to using it. But you're doing great for a beginner!"

Intel placed the packages on the table, while Rainbow gave her niece a crooked smile. "Thanks, kid."

"So, were you expecting anything?" Ferrum asked while prodding the boxes to see which one belonged to Rainbow.

As soon as it was identified, the violet/cyan pegasus started ripping her package open. "The address said it was from Princess Celestia."

As Rainbow finished tearing her box apart, Twilight fluttered down from her study. "I think I figured out what the circlet is." She paused at the table. "What's in the boxes?"

"Apparently, they're gifts from Princess Celestia," Intel replied evenly.

Twilight eyed the medallion Rainbow pulled out the tattered remains of her package. "You don't sound convinced."

Given the recent trouble with the circlet, Rainbow Dash was wary to do any more than look at her gift. "I think I'm the only one who has reason to be paranoid about jewelry right now."

"Did it come with a note?"

"Uhhh…" Rainbow put her medallion on the table and searched through the box to find a folded piece of paper.

I'm terribly sorry I couldn't deliver this gift personally, Rainbow Dash, but my duties hold my attention elsewhere. Nevertheless, I discreetly commissioned my personal enchanter to create a masking ornament for you. I hope it is to your liking, and that Twilight finds a speedy solution.

-Princess Celestia

Ferrum prodded the medallion with a hoof. "That was awfully nice of her, wasn't it?"

"I guess…" Rainbow admitted reluctantly.

"This would give you plenty of time to master your disguise," Intel added reassuringly. "I mean, I know jewelry isn't your thing and all, but..."

"Yeah, yeah I get you, but sorry, I'm not wearing that thing," Rainbow huffed as she pushed it away. "Gift from the princess or not, I'm not wearing any more magic items unless it's called the Element of Loyalty, and I don't see that happening anytime soon."

Rainbow's growing phobia made Twilight scoff. "Don't be so melodramatic, RD. It's just a simple illusion charm."

"Oh yeah? And what if this enchanter guy messed up and it turns me into a newt?" Rainbow Dash said while crossing her forelegs.

"Look," Twilight placated, "what if I scan the medallion right here and now, to quintuple check that's perfectly safe?"

 _If I say no, they'll think I'm being chicken._ "Yeah, sure. Just make sure it's safe, and then I got no problems."

"Good to hear." Twilight nodded warmly before directing her senses to Rainbow's medallion. She took the time to visually inspect the medallion first, which a finely crafted gold necklace with bronze enclosing a gem-quality crystal. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, she scanned her magic over it. "It's just as the note said; it has a basic illusion charm on it. Nothing to worry about," she said while nudging the necklace towards the hesitant pegasus.

Rainbow Dash decidedly pushed it back. "Legit or not, I'm _not_ touching it. I'd rather muscle my way into learning my… disguise rather than be tricked twice by some piece of metal."

"You're hopeless; you know that?" Twilight groaned.

"Hey! How do I know the thing wasn't cursed before the archmage got ahold of it? He coulda gotten this thing from Bargain Bin Warehouse for Cursed Junk, for all I know."

Twilight twisted her muzzled into a disbelieving scowl. "Alright, alright; if I take a more detailed inspection, will you wear it?"

"Ahh…" Rainbow glanced at the drones and could just _feel_ her cool factor draining fast. "Yeah, sure. If you can make it a hundred and twenty percent safe, then yeah, I'll wear it."

Twilight levitated everything off the table and shooed everyone away so she could focus entirely on the medallions on the center of the table. Her magical senses wrapped around Rainbow's gift, again detecting the illusion charm. However, now that she was taking a scrutinizing look, she saw that a thread on the twelfth matrix line was slightly misaligned. _Wait a second; that would mean the charm was altered to have an overcharge, but that wouldn't be necessary to simply mask some of Rainbow's fur._

She pushed her senses upon the awry matrix line, only to push through it to discover a very different enchantment underneath, one that caused nothing but confusion. "There's a wearer's enchantment linked to a locator beacon."

"A locator beacon?" Aegis chirped with bemusement. "But those are only used for tracking."

"Or for a remote teleport array to lock onto," Ferrum added chillingly.

Rainbow hovered next to the queen with a smug grin. "I knew that thing was bad news… So what does it all mean though?"

Twilight's mind churned troubled thoughts. "The wearer's charm activates any linked enchantment when the object is worn, and it only works when the owner of the object puts it on, hence the name. The idea of it being linked to a teleporter is troubling."

"Is there any way to be sure?" Aegis piped with as she brought a hammer over. "If not, we can either smash it or take it to one of the princesses so they can confront the archmage."

Ferrum interposed a hoof between the medallions and the hammer. "Hold on a sec. It's possible the package from the archmage was intercepted and this trapped necklace was put in its place. We could be dooming an innocent pony by doing this."

Rainbow flew around to hover between Ferrum and Twilight. " _Or_ we could be right and that archmage is up to something." She snatched the second package up. "What about your package, Twi? I bet you fifty bits it's a trap too."

No one took that bet, as all it took from Twilight was a repeat scan on her own gifted medallion to find the same hidden enchantments. "Then we are at an impasse," Twilight declared reluctantly. "We either ignore it, warn the princesses and the conspirators, or we take the bait and hope to fight our way out."

Aegis felt a deep frown crease her face. "I have a plan, mother, but you're not going to like it."


	18. Chapter 18

Motivations

Princess Celestia loved politicking. For all her years, it was one of the few games that always kept her on her figurative toes. One might think even politics and the various players it brought to the board would grow stale, even for an ageless alicorn, but mortals always managed to find new ways to surprise her.

At present, she was attending a minor ball, a social gathering really. Barely a dozen aristocrats mingled with a few prominent businessponies and government officials mixed in for good measure. The thing that made the ball most interesting to the solar diarch was the lone lavender changeling in a dress Celestia could only surmise as Rarity's craftsmanship.

Celestia lounged on a cushion, content to observe, rather than participate. _I wonder how well Rolled Scroll will do here. Twilight sent a rather young drone to begin more diplomatic relations with the court… but I suppose her options are rather limited in that regard._

However, before she could truly pay the drone any real attention, a scroll materialized in front of her. _Odd, I wasn't expecting any letters today._ While the letter had an unadorned seal, she could tell from the penmanship that Twilight Sparkle was the sender.

Princess Celestia,

Please make no unusual reaction to this letter, as I have reason to believe you are being watched by the anti-changeling group. If you commissioned Archmage Aged Page to enchant a pair of medallions for Rainbow Dash and myself, please rub your chin, if not, flick your ear.

Celestia leveraged her millennia of composure to maintain a neutral expression while delicately rubbing her chin with a wing elbow. She caught Rolled Scroll spy her actions in the corner of her eye. Despite her compliance with Twilight's request, the letter was troubling. _Has she become paranoid, or did her last visit here put her on edge, or… Is she correct?_

If yes, then this is potentially more troubling than I feared. The reason I ask is because I received those medallions, thanks for the thought by the way, but hidden under Rainbow's medallion was a tracking spell which I believe is linked to a remote teleporter. A similar trap was buried within my medallion as well. So either Aged Page is in league with them, or his package was intercepted and a highly skilled enchanter hid this new enchantment under Page's. Either way, I have a plan to uncover this and use the trap against them, but I would prefer to act with your approval. Please nod or shake your head accordingly.

An immaculately dressed pegasus cleared his throat while bowing to Celestia before she had a chance to read the rest of the letter. "Princess, may I trouble you for some consideration on ordinance 398?"

"Of course Chairpony," she said, keeping her exterior calm. _Twilight has never given me cause to distrust her._ She starkly remembered how her former student tried to oust Chrysalis before the wedding. _I won't make that same mistake again._ Acting as if she was nodding to the supplicant, she looked directly at Rolled Scroll to convey her meaning.

* * *

Rainbow Dash paced back and forth in midair while Twilight painstakingly carved a series of runes into a heated glass orb. Aegis' squad was keeping watch over her while Ratchet tried to distract himself with a tech manual, but his heart wasn't it in.

"When are we going to punch some sense into those traitors?" Rainbow asked anxiously.

"As soon as I finish my carvings," Twilight replied patiently as she focused on her work. The orb was roughly the size of her hoof with her magic burning the patterns into place.

"You said it's a teleport beacon, right?"

"That's right," Aegis answered for her queen. "I have three squads with armored support preparing the other half of the array, once mother empowers the orb, we'll drop in right on top of her. The ship's the only place where we could gather enough mana for a long distance teleport."

Rainbow tapped her chin thoughtfully. "You guys really think these creeps aren't in the city?"

"It's a possibility," Twilight said as she finished carving the last line. "But going beyond the Canterlot area would require a portal, and these amulets are far too weak for that, so they can't take us _too_ far."

Ferrum couldn't help but study the cooling orb with wonder. "I checked with grandma Cadista. I don't think any of the other hives have teleportation magic quite this advanced."

"What Equestria lacks in technology, they more than make up for in magical prowess," Twilight replied academically. "Perfect, the orb will do its job." She levitated a runed glass orb near her mouth and spat a large wad of salve on it and used her magic to keep the viscous liquid around the orb as it hardened.

Ratchet put his manual aside and walked over to nuzzle his queen. "Are you sure you have to do it this way? You're letting yourself get pulled into a nest of vipers."

Rainbow and the drones decided to give the pair some space. Twilight let the orb hang in the air to dry so she could bend down to embrace her prime consort. "I know it's going to be dangerous, but this is the only way I know how to locate the group and uproot them. Plus I have to know if the archmage is involved… He was an old friend of mine, a mentor really. Celestia will want to know the facts either way."

He hugged her tightly. "Please come back safely, Twilight."

She gave him a longing, passionate kiss, flooding him with her unconditional love. "I promise, Handsome."

The couple remained in each other's embrace for a few precious moments before letting go. She brought over a pair of saddlebags filled with various items she could stand losing, and placed the glass beacon carefully within. "Alright everypony," she said with practiced calm. "I have no idea what will happen when we get there, but I'm going to try diplomacy first. Hopefully when they take me prisoner they'll be more willing to talk."

"I still think you should let my squad go with you, my queen." Aegis struggled to keep her objections from getting any louder than that. _Can't believe she wouldn't let me take her place._

"Don't worry Aegis, if I need your help," _Which I probably will._ "I'll summon the rest of the Jevruun Vrunningee. I need you to report to Celestia so our actions have her public support. Rainbow, are you sure you want to go through with this? There's no telling what these ponies might do to us."

Rainbow landed next to the lavender queen and shot her a derisive smirk. "After all the fights I've missed? Not a chance!"

She sighed with a chuckle at her friend's bravery. "Alright, but don't say I didn't warn you." Twilight took the two medallions from Intel and gave one to her friend. "Aegis, stand ready and… you know what to do if I don't return."

The thoughts that entered the gathered drones' minds were far from pleasant. "Yes, my queen."

Nodding solemnly, Twilight donned her medallion with Rainbow Dash doing the same. Everyone waited with bated breath for their queen and adopted aunt to be taken from them.

They waited for five minutes with nothing happening, save for Rainbow looking like her normal pony self thanks to the necklace. Ratchet and Aegis were close to being nervous wrecks at the potential loss of their queen. "So ahh… Twi, are you _sure_ these are linked to teleporters?"

A collective exhale at Twilight's overreaction washed through the room while the lavender queen rubbed the back of her neck. "I was sure that's what it was for… What good would simply tracking our movements be when I'll be going back to the ship after we've uncovered more of the subterranean ruins?"

Ferrum tapped Rainbow's necklace, producing nothing more than a light tink. "Not for nothing, mother, but maybe Canterlot's got you a little paranoid, per chance?"

Ratchet could only sigh in relief. _For being mother's dream child, Twi puts herself in way too much danger without having an heir yet._

Twilight scowled at her necklace. "Hmmm…" _Maybe I'm giving the specists too much credit._ "You could be right—"

A wave of teal magic rapidly enveloped pegasus and queen alike, and whisked them away in an instant.

* * *

Twilight's world was replaced by a darkened room with a spotlight and a teleporter array under her hooves. "Or maybe not." She erected a formidable barrier around her, and started probing the room with her magic.

"I would advise against that, changeling," a weathered, yet strong voice commanded. "You should at least remember what happens to shields when coming into contact with void stones."

Several more lights came on, revealing five sneering earth ponies with the accursed stones adorning iron armor. "Archmage Aged Page, it's been too long," she said with thinly veiled scorn while dropping the shield. She scanned the room for the Archmage, but he remained cloaked in darkness. She could barely make out his silhouette a few meters away from her. _I better not mention RD, and let them think she was in a different room when I was taken._

"Go ahead and place the warding iron on her, gentlecolts, she will not struggle."

Twilight glared at the lead stallion, who turned to the aged unicorn. "You can't trust the bugs to be civil. We should just revert or kill her and get it over with."

"No need for that at present," Page replied with a casual wave of a hoof. "We know the _queens_ at least are capable of civility, one of them was able to successfully impersonate a princess for a time, after all. Isn't that right, _Queen_ Twilight Sparkle?"

"You obviously haven't been paying any attention to Gloss," Twilight spat. She glared at the earth pony who grabbed her by the withers and dragged her low enough to slap a bangle around her horn.

"My associates and I have reason to believe that Gloss is an aberration among your kind, not a reflection of the whole." Once he was sure Twilight's magic was locked away, he waved the earth ponies away. "You may leave."

"The boss wanted her to undergo treatment immediately."

"We have the former Element of Loyalty to test on first. Better to try on a half changeling, than some pony who's been subverted completely."

"That's not what she ordered," the lead earth pony warned, catching Twilight ear, and Page's growing irritation.

"For someone of her age, you would think she would know patience. Tell her she will have to wait until I know the procedure works."

"And what about her?" A different earth pony jabbed hoof at Twilight.

"I wish to speak privately with her… to get a measure of how the other queens think." A few of the ponies were about to voice concerns, but he cut them off with a commanding tone. "With her magic no longer an issue, even these old bones can handle anything she may try."

The earth ponies shared a worried look before filing out of the room. Once they were alone, Aged Page lit several candles, revealing the room to be his private study in his mountain retreat. Twilight fought to keep from picking at the bangle on her horn, and glanced around. "Celestia will find me. A teleport of two ponies over such a long distance is quite traceable."

Page procured a bottle of wine and a couple of glasses. "And I'm sure you're telling your brood exactly where we are as well. Even so, we'll have plenty of time to talk while Dame Rainbow Dash is treated."

Rainbow Dash, are you alright? She received no answer. "I want to see her!"

Page studied Twilight carefully as he levitated a glass of wine to her. "Tell me, do you care for her because she is your friend?... or because you are trying to maintain your grip on your hive's newest acquisition?"

Twilight only eyed the drink for a moment before focusing on the unicorn. "What are you talking about? Rainbow's transformation was an accident, and **I** stopped it before it could finish. I would never force that change on anypony!"

"So you claim. Personally, I actually _do_ believe you in that aspect." He glanced at a mirror on the other side of the room before looking at the queen. "Accident or not, you had plenty of time to turn Loyalty into an _insect_ during her time in the jungles. Given how much you're pushing the princesses with this PR campaign of yours, the timing is all wrong. In the end however, Rainbow Dash is not my ultimate concern…" he took a long drag from his glass before studying Twilight's moderately hostile expression. "You are."

 _If he's willing to talk…_ Twilight relaxed some of her tension and took the still hovering glass. "Because of my relation to Celestia, my lineage, or because you still care for me?"

He sighed slowly as he ran a hoof along one of the wall mounted bookcases, nostalgia coloring his tone. "Do you remember your time here? You never could get enough of that book. Now where was it…"

Twilight arched an inquisitive eyebrow and carefully started walking over. "Why are you doing this, Page? You always taught me to embrace the other races of the world. That diversity brought strength. The princesses share in that view, as do I."

"One does not let a fox guard the chickens simply because the fox _can_ fight." He pulled an aged tome and levitated it over to the queen. "Star Swirl's Thesis on Magic Theory, you nearly broke my old copy's spine."

Twilight frowned at the book. "Is this another one of your tests? It was Star Swirl's Thesis on _Arcane_ Theory."

Page hummed approvingly. "Glad to see your memory's intact, but I wonder if you truly _are_ Twilight Sparkle, and not merely a puppet of Cadista."

"Page, you know me, haven't I proven through my acts by now that I'm still Twilight Sparkle?"

"Are you?" he challenged with magic empowered steel. "The Twilight Sparkle that I helped teach, when the Princess was busy, would disagree."

"People change, Page, be they pony, griffin, dragon, changeling, or any of the other races of our world. Even if I was still a unicorn, there's no telling what my life would have become."

"A fair point," he conceded as he walked towards his oaken desk. "I have seen promising pupils lose their way as Sunset Shimmer did. Gallant knights, who I thought were destined for greatness, fall to corruption and dishonor." He turned to face Twilight with a sad frown, his ears drooping. "A pony, destined to be a princess, be taken from us, from the Princess, to be twisted by the very beings who would see us enslaved. Did she tell you that?"

Twilight's face slumped and she scuffed the ground with a hoof. "Yes. When I visited Canterlot last year." That drew a surprised look out of him. "I was to be her heir, but I ended up becoming Cadista's instead."

"It devastated her, you know," Page sat down at his desk and pulled a scroll over to write. "I fear that, were it not for Princess Luna, Celestia might have never recovered from her depression from your loss."

Twilight scowled at him. "I may not be able to be a princess anymore, but I was _not_ lost. I'm standing right here. My loyalty to Equestria has never changed."

"Truly?" Page's tone was even, but he weaved the power of truth in his speech. "All I know of changelings is from Chrysalis' overt invasion, and now, your covert one."

Without her own magic to defend against his, Twilight couldn't filter what she said. "Mother's not trying to invade Equestria. I just want my hive and Equestria to be one nation."

"As equals, or as slaves?" Aged Page expected Twilight to resist answering; to fight his magic fang and hoof. _She should know that without access to her magic, no pony can resist the Invocation of Truth._

Yet Twilight surprised him by replying instantly. "It saddens me you even have to ask. Of course I want us to be equals. Come on, Page, do you really see me as your enemy? You can't judge us all because of one queen's actions."

"And what about the foalnappings? The infiltrations, both amongst commoners and government officials alike? You can't tell me to simply forgive just how close your kind came to conquering us, can you?!"

Twilight adopted a regal posture but kept her voice as friendly as possible. "Yes, I can. For was Equestria not founded by those who had all the reason in the world to hate one another? It took them all nearly coming to extinction to finally look past their distrust. I would like to think modern Equestrians could remember those lessons, without the threat of annihilation hanging over our heads to do it."

"…You almost sound like that little filly I used to know."

Twilight took a risk and gingerly laid a hoof on the greying stallion's withers. "I will not deny that I'm not really a pony anymore, **but** I still wholeheartedly consider myself an Equestrian and loyal citizen to Equestria. Give me a chance to prove it."

The Archmage brooded over her words, his loyalty to the crowns, and most importantly, to his people. He glanced at the bangle around Twilight's horn to reassure himself she couldn't wield any magical suggestion. He brushed Twilight's hoof off of him and walked nervously over to his desk to withdraw a wand. "History will call me a fool…"

* * *

A stinging headache welcomed Rainbow Dash to the world of the living. The noise of clinical ramblings of a physician off to her left side quickly made their way to her ears. That made her keep a groan from escaping her lips as she came to her senses. Each limb was locked in place with her wings pinned to the table as well. She took a moment to scan the room. It was little more than a converted storeroom with various simplistic, but thankfully clean, medical equipment.

"I don't understand it," came the teal colored unicorn doctor, "her brain and skull have completely reoriented themselves to support a horn, but the transformation was stopped before it could actually form. Why would the changeling queen stop the transformation so early?"

Rainbow craned her neck to see a peach colored pegasus mare standing next to the stallion. Both of them were looking over x-rays. "Maybe she timed it wrong, and didn't want to arouse too much suspicion with Princess Luna."

Rainbow inwardly groaned. _Oh please, these guys are so pathetically paranoid._

"I hope you're right. It could mean Twilight hasn't had enough time to charm both diarchs after all. In any case, we just need an uncorrupted tissue sample to proceed."

That got Rainbow to speak out. "Hey, whoa, whoa, whoa. You jerks better keep your samples to yourself."

The nurse hummed in contemplation, but betrayed nothing. "It looks like the shock of the long range forced teleport has worn off. I trust our accommodations are not too uncomfortable. We do not wish any permanent damage on you."

"Well isn't that sweet," Rainbow growled as she remembered this was supposed to be a surprise. "So who the hay are you guys?"

"We're members of the Ponies for the Conservation of Equestria, your saviors," the doctor said in a lofty tone. "At least we will be once we cure you of your condition."

Rainbow glared at the two ponies as they came over to talk. "You're nothing but a bunch of traitors!"

The nurse barely flinched at Rainbow unconsciously baring her short fangs. "The princesses will pardon us all once Twilight Sparkle is free of changeling influence."

"Suuuure, and how do you plan to do that? Last I checked, Twi's gone 'Ling to the core."

The stallion produced a cloth and wiped his glasses. "Perhaps," the doctor agreed reluctantly, "or perhaps her mind is enslaved by that hive mind of theirs."

"Just like yours is," the nurse commented sternly.

Rainbow arched an eyebrow as her ears drooped a bit. "What?" she deadpanned.

"Oh we don't expect you to admit it," the doctor replied, "assuming you're even aware of it."

"Or acknowledge it if you are," the nurse added as she twisted Rainbow's head around to inspect the fangs more clinically. "It also possible your partial transformation's slaved you completely to her will."

Rainbow shook her off to glower at her. "You guys are insane if you think Twilight or Cadista are anything like Chrysalis."

"Are we?" the doctor countered as he took a pair of shears in his magic. "Chrysalis masqueraded as Cadance for who knows how long before Twilight finally ousted her. Equestria was caught off guard the first time, and she was the only one who saw through it. How _convenient_ that she was nearly killed and the _only_ way to save her was to corrupt her into an abomination."

"You're sick in the head lady. You need to get laid, badly." The nurse snubbed her nose at the verbal barb.

With one swift motion, the doctor sheared a small tuft from Rainbow's tail. The liberated hair flew over to hover in front of the unicorn. Rainbow tried to twist around at the noise, and her jaw dropped at seeing the loose hair. "You cut my tail! Let me off of here so I can plant my hoof in your face!"

The stallion ignored her ramblings. "Nurse, be a dear and have the sample tested for purity."

Rainbow Dash's first instinct was to keep shouting obscenities at her captors, but a newer part of her mind wanted to know more. "Why are you even bothering with that? If you were so hard up to 'cure' me, then why not just cast a normal transformation spell?"

"While I would expect a pegasus to be ignorant of that," the doctor commented with a derisive chuckle, "I'm not surprised a Wonderbolt would be aware of it though. What with your organization being well versed in magic and all. In any case, transformation magic is normally temporary; a day at the very most without constant maintenance. Even then, it wouldn't revert the damage done to your mind. No, we need a more permanent solution."

The doctor walked off to assist the nurse, giving Rainbow a few precious moments to think. Not that she used that time to do so, and instead struggled against her bindings. She tested her left foreleg's restraints especially hard. _I just need one freaking hoof!_

The leather straps had reinforcing steel chains around them and refused to yield to the grunting pegasus. "Arrraagg, let me go!"

The nurse turned away from her work. "I wouldn't bother, Rainbow Dash, those bindings could hold a champion earth stallion."

"Blow it out your a—" Rainbow's voice caught in her throat as her captors rolled a large device over towards her. It was the size of a carriage, featuring a runed mythril swing arm having a large grey crystal mounted on its end. "Da 'ell is that?"

"The solution to your problem," the doctor said with pride. "This experimental masterpiece of mine is designed to permanently reconfigure anypony to whatever sample I give it. In your case, your pure pony hairs will remove the changeling taint from your body."

"Uhh, I heard experimental in that. Shouldn't you test that on something first?"

The nurse chuckled darkly, the unsettling sound fluttering around the room. "You misunderstand your position, Miss Rainbow Dash, you _are_ the test. We have to make sure it works before using it on Twilight Sparkle."

"You might feel some discomfort," the doctor commented with an attempt to repair the bedside manner. "It's completely safe, I assure you."

"Yeah, sure it is," Rainbow chided as her eyes darted over the machine. _I gotta think of a plan to get out of this mess. After hearing how much Twi said about alchemy, these guys are way out of their league if they think magic alone can reverse it._

"Final adjustments are set, doctor." With a flick of a switch, the machine thrummed with power. A series of crystals started giving off an earthy brown glow while a dozen inlaid arrays lit up in a similar color.

"Good, now, Rainbow Dash, are you ready?"

"Like I got a choice? I'm telling you clowns that Twilight's on the level about wanting to help Equestria. Why can't you guys see that?"

The nurse snorted in disgust. "Nothing but pro-changeling propaganda Cadista no doubt flooded your mind with. We'll fix that soon enough."

 _Oh geez, think of something Rainbow! You're a Wonderbolt, think!_ She tugged at her wing bindings, but they were even more tightly secured than her legs. _If only I had my wings free, I could fry them!_ She stopped her struggling for a moment when a thought struck her. _Say…_

Any further contemplation was interrupted by the humming power reaching a crescendo as the unicorn fed his mana into the machine. The large arrowhead shaped crystal on the swing arm was moved to point at a very nervous pegasus.

Rainbow Dash flinched as a dense beam of brown magic shot out and smothered her, making her skin tingle. _Hey, this might actually work._ She started running her tongue over her teeth to see if they were flattening as the tingling sensation spread throughout her entire body. The two medical ponies kept glancing between Rainbow and the machine to check for progress.

After two minutes of rubbing her tongue raw, Rainbow stopped waiting and the tingling was becoming a bothersome irritant. _Well this is bunked, and now officially a waste of time. I need to get out here, 'Ling style!_

"Why isn't it working, doctor?" The nurse's mouth was a pressed line as she checked the machine's readings.

"The changeling curse must be stronger than we expected. I'll up the power."

 _Now's my chance._ Rainbow tried to focus on her disguise and slowly started to revert her color back to normal.

The nurse noticed the change immediately. "It's working, doctor, keep it up!"

 _I better sell it._ "No! I'd rather die than betray the true queen! _Kill_ me!" Rainbow begged in faux pain.

"I knew it!" the doctor shouted triumphantly. "Hang in there, Miss Dash, you'll be free soon."

Rainbow Dash masked her difficulty in slowly forming her disguise as pain and frantic struggle. Inch by inch, her fur returned to pristine cyan, and her fangs retreated into nothingness. "Nooo – uahg." She grunted while slumping into silence. It took everything she had to hide her struggle to keep her disguise active, and appear limp.

"I think we have her, doctor, shut it down." The nurse gingery inspected Rainbow's face, finding no sign of changeling features anywhere. With the room completely saturated with loose mana, the doctor didn't bother trying to probe her to see if it worked. "Dame Rainbow Dash, are you okay?"

The sudden warm bedside manner almost made the pegasus chuckle. "Wha… where am I?" She cracked her eyes open to look at the earth mare. "Who are – wait, you guys were trying to save me."

The doctor let off a heavy breath. "It was difficult, but successful, right?"

His question prompted the nurse to finish her inspection over Rainbow. "She's still very tense, but otherwise in perfect shape. Miss Dash, are you up to talk about Twilight or Cadista?"

Rainbow acted befuddled for a few seconds, while repeating both names. Suddenly she started repeating them frantically. "No, Twilight, I have to save you!" She was starting to slip in her disguise's control so she started frantically struggling against her bonds to mask her efforts. "I'm going to kill that conniving queen! Let me go!"

"Miss Dash, please relax. We have Twilight here with us. We just need to use the transmogrifier on her, and then she'll be her old self again," the doctor said soothingly.

"No, you don't understand," _think of something, Rainbow!_ "Ahh, Cadista won't let it happen. You've got to cut Twilight from the hive mind or else Cadista will melt her brain when you try to cure her!"

The nurse tried rubbing Rainbow's mane to calm her down. "Don't worry, Miss Dash, we have void stones covering the building. There's no way Twilight could talk or hear over that thing."

"Don't you get it!" Rainbow raged, "That _witch_ put a command word in my friend. If she even _thinks_ she's about to get cured, she's to kill herself." The two other ponies cast worried looks at each other, giving Rainbow a few precious seconds to shore up her disguise a little.

"The wretch," the doctor spat at no one in particular. "Implanting command words like that is strictly forbidden, punishable by exile or execution. If we don't cure Twilight Sparkle, we'll be branded as traitors for life."

"How do you know this was done?" the nurse asked with suspicion.

Rainbow tried to kick herself out of self-anger. "Because I was _unlucky_ enough to see Cadista use it once. She caught me and put me under one of the brainwashing spells like what they did to the Captain of the Guard. I bet it was her who gave Twilight the circlet to make sure I would never talk if I broke free."

"Then it's a good thing Luna was there to keep you from being converted completely," the nurse commented with a grin. "That's proof enough that at least one of our princesses hasn't been subverted yet."

"Yeah, yeah, that's great and all, but I have to use the command word on my friend to keep her brain safe _and_ return to her senses! I still remember what the word was!" _Good one, RD!_

The nurse's expression darkened a bit. "Tell it to us, and I'll go do that. You need your rest after all."

Rainbow's disguise was fading out way too fast for comfort. The nurse's eyes started to drift away from Rainbow's face. _No, no, eyes to me!_ "That won't work! It's in that freakish bug language of theirs and you have to say it exactly right or it'll lock her brain up for good! Please, she's my friend. I failed in my duty as a Wonderbolt and Element of Loyalty to keep her safe. It's my obligation to do this personally."

The nurse wasn't entirely convinced, but the doctor nodded. "I lost my wife to one of those body snatchers. I only wish I could do the same for everypony else who's suffered because of them. Come on, let's get you off of here."

Rainbow pressed her head against the table to hide the growing line of lavender fur creeping towards the front of her face. Fortunately, it went unnoticed as the two ponies undid the straps around Rainbow's forelegs and wings. Once their attention was fixed on her hind legs, she dropped her disguise completely and sat up with a superior grin.

She flared her wings the moment the last restraint was undone and empowered them with lightning. She briefly noticed the cracking energy was predominantly lavender with traces of orange flittering through it. She ignored the color for the sake of the moment. "Thanks for freeing me, now try a taste of the Wonderbolt Special!" With speed worthy of her name, Rainbow slapped the unicorn with her left wing, shocking him into unconsciousness.

The nurse ducked under the first blow, but had no chance against Rainbow's speed. She found a wing whacking her in the face and 50,000 volts to go with it. With her captors out of the way, she cut the electric magic off. "Damn thing always rankles my feathers; I don't know how Spitfire does it without needing to preen."

Hey, 'Ling Queen, I'm free and ready to kick some serious flank. What's our status?

* * *

Aged Page was rambling about old times, giving Twilight a few moments to talk. Good and bad. Aegis informed me she and a contingent of Royal Guards just raided the Archmage's estate and found it was empty. It seems the room I'm in is a facsimile of the real one.

Tsk, smart. _Damn it's weird talking like this. It's going to take some getting used to thinking in bug speak._ She finished restraining her former captors on the main and secondary operating tables before creeping over to the lone door to peer outside.

I have to try and convince Page to side with us. But in case that doesn't happen, can you find your way to me?

I can try. I'll contact you if I run into trouble.

"You're good, I'll give you that," Aged Page said a little louder than normal, bringing Twilight back to the present. "My heart wants to believe you, but my mind is not so old to fail me yet."

Twilight huffed while claiming a cushion near a telescope. "I remember you being a very open-minded mentor, Page. Do you remember Steel Beak?"

The Archmage briefly turned away from the tome at his desk. He searched his vast memory for a few seconds before it came to him. "That boorish 'diplomat' from a few years ago? What of him?"

"You remember what I first thought of griffins thanks to him?" she replied with a gruff tone.

He sighed in fond remembrance. His mind's eye wandered to better times when a certain lavender filly filled the air with questions and the energy of youth. Now when he looked at Twilight, all he could see was the enemy wearing his former pupil's skin. He had to give her credit for not trying to hide what she had become, but the sight of her sickened him. _Is she just the first?_ "I know where you're going with this, and it won't work."

 _What happened to the kind old stallion I used to know?_ "It should," she challenged heatedly, seeking to get a rise out of him. "How many centuries were we at open war with the griffins? How long did they used to hunt us for food before civility finally won out?"

"Too long," he answered begrudgingly, "I'll concede that point." Page took a long drag from his wine glass. "But you forget that fighting griffins was by far more straight forward than countering you changelings."

"Funny," Twilight replied with more than a little sarcasm. "History says that same argument was made about the zebras when peace with the griffin empire was first proposed." She skillfully hid her smug grin as Aged Page shot her a sour look.

His face smoothly returned to its mostly aloof expression. "At least Crimson Feather spoke for the entirety of the Griffin people when the accord was signed. Can you or Cadista say the same for your kind?"

That caught her short. It was an argument she had expected, but never could think of a winnable counterargument. "No, we can't. Technically, each queen is beholden only to herself." _I won't speak of the Summit with him._

"Then even if I could trust you, there would still be hostile changelings out to destroy Equestria."

"I don't believe this!" Twilight grumbled under her breath. "We have to start somewhere, Page. My kind began with freeing the prisoners. We offered the hoof of friendship, and the princesses reciprocated. Why can't you honor that agreement, and the will of the Princesses?"

The greying stallion was silent for several seconds as he read his tome. At first Twilight thought he was stooping to simply ignore her. But he finally spoke with an emotional quiver he could not conceal. "Are you familiar with my son, Inked Quill?"

"Vaguely. Didn't he go off to serve as a government administrator in Trottingham?"

"You memory serves you well. Due to the treaty between us and the queendoms, it was revealed that my son had been replaced a decade ago by one of your infiltrators. I stood there with my daughter-in-law and three grandchildren at the train station for his return for a week before hearing news of his death in one of those prisoner pods. The imposter had the gall to charm my daughter-in-law into bedding with a look-a-like so he could fake the foals being truly my grandchildren!"

The old stallion's eyes projected his deep pain and anger, making Twilight wilt under the gaze and news. "I had no idea. I'm sorry for your loss."

He huffed indignantly at her. "Your platitudes will not undo what your kind has done. I tire of this exchange, the guards will see you to your cell."

A small bell on his desk was ensnared by his magic and was about to ring when Twilight called out. "Wouldn't your son want his death to have some meaning?" The bell stopped, hovering in midair. Page's left ear angled backwards, but he made no other indication he was listening. "Bringing the Queendoms and Equestria into open war will only make more families suffer the same pain you feel right now. If you forcibly change me back into a unicorn, Cadista will sever all ties with Equestria and the other queens will resume their old practices." She cautiously approached him, trying to reach the bell, while not disguising her movement. "Give us a chance, Aged Page, I beg of you."

He said nothing as Twilight gingerly walked over and attempted to grab the bell. He moved it out of her reach at the last moment, but remained silent. Twilight's wings buzzed in trepidation. "Celestia and you always taught me to give ponies a second chance. If not me, then trust in the princesses."

"…You're right, I can't trust you. But." He put the bell down and took a deep breath. "Perhaps I've been too clouded." _I should have retired years ago._ He faced her at last with a stern look that demanded obedience. "You've proven to me that you at least can mimic my old pupil. If you have any real shred of honor, changeling, than swear this to me: serve Equestria and her ponies to the best of your ability, even if that means warring with the other queens. Pledge your undying loyalty to Equestria right here and now."

Twilight shored herself up to give his request the utmost seriousness, but she never got a chance to utter a word as the western door crashed open to reveal Twilight Velvet. "What is the meaning of this, Archmage!"

" _Mother,_ " the queen spat, "can't say I'm surprised."

Velvet ignored her to focus on the unrepentant Archmage. "You said you were going to cure her!"

He huffed impatiently, drawing a curious look from the changeling. "I said nothing of the sort. My words were: that I would take my measure of my former apprentice, and act accordingly. I have seen enough to believe her heart still belongs to Equestria and those who call it home." He faced the expectant queen. "Provided you have no trouble reaffirming your allegiance."

"None whatsoever," Twilight replied with forced friendliness. Velvet's presence completely ruined her mood. _What is she doing here?!_

A vein throbbed on Velvet's neck as she tried to process the archmage's actions. "I won't _stand for this!_ I've come too far to let my daughter continue suffering as one of those demons! Guards!"

Aged Page struggled to stand as five ponies filed out from behind Velvet. Each of them were armed with nets or other restraining implements. "Leave the Archmage alone unless he intervenes, and drag my daughter to the good doctor."

Just as the guards started to advance, the northern door exploded off its hinges, sending dust and splinters in all directions, causing everyone to duck for cover. Twilight used the opportunity to snag the pliers she spotted on a nearby table to get the bangle off her horn.

Everyone else however, stared at the smoldering remains of the door to find a purple/cyan pegasus standing just inside the doorway with her wings crackling with lightning and a daredevil grin smeared on her face. "Looks like I'm just in time for the party!" _For once._

Everyone stood motionless for a few brief seconds, waiting for a signal to move. Twilight eyed her mother with an emotion she never thought possible, hatred. After being spurned and denounced every single time she had tried to mend their relationship, this final act was too much. Rainbow, don't hold anything back.

The guards were recovering quickly from the shock of Rainbow's grand entrance, and were looking to Velvet for orders. The aging mare tsked at Rainbow's interference. _This ends today, either my daughter is returned to me or she dies._


	19. Chapter 19

Mothers

The tension in the archmage's study was oppressive. Velvet and her minions tried to split up between Rainbow Dash and Twilight, who was trying to pry the bangle off her horn. However, the lightning enveloping Rainbow Dash's wings had been replaced by a faint lavender-orange glow that gave Velvet pause.

 _Damn it! Of course she'd be a practitioner of Arcane Wing._ "I'll handle my daughter, take care of the Wonderbolt!"

Three earth ponies charged Rainbow to buy their unicorn brethren time to weave spells. A snide grin crossed Rainbow's face as she jumped over the first, sidestepped a buck from the second, and slid under the third's high swing to place herself in front of Velvet who skidded to a halt. "You dun goofed, lady."

"Out of my way!" Velvet raged as she fired an energy bolt at point blank range.

Rainbow barely ducked underneath it in time, giving the attack a clear line of sight for Aged Page. The elderly stallion was too slow to react as the bolt slammed into Page's chest, knocking him to the ground.

"Page!" Twilight called out while scrambling over to him.

Rainbow growled and lashed out with a fiery wing, scorching Velvet before she could shield herself and bounce back. Rainbow's advance was checked by one of the unicorns latching onto her with his magic and hoisting her into the air. "That was easy enough."

The trio of earth ponies bolted over to strike the helpless pegasus, only for Velvet to yell at the unicorn. "Stop, don't hold her!"

With a savage grin, Rainbow's wings started glowing pale lavender with erratic orange streaks coursing through them. The altered wing magic generated massive feedback that caused an explosion at the tip of the unicorn's horn. The concussion wave cracked his horn, and knocked the other spellcasters off their hooves.

"Stop her!" Two pegasi came in from the northern hallway to keep Rainbow occupied. Velvet left them to it so she could refocus on Twilight who had finally pried the bangle off her horn with Page's help.

Velvet weaved a powerful sleep spell over her daughter before she could regain even a shadow of her normal power. Twilight barely caught it in time as drowsy tendrils ensnared her mind, but it wasn't enough. Her eyes felt heavy, her head stared to droop while her legs collapsed.

"Enough of this," Aged Page grunted through the pain of burnt flesh as he forcibly countered Velvet's spell, and conjured a pressure wave to blast her back and into the air. One of the pegasi saw the flying unicorn and caught her. The act gave the archmage enough time to speak as Twilight shook off her fatigue. "Vindicate my trust in you, Twilight. Spare your mother."

Twilight deflected a series of firebolts from an opportunistic unicorn, and absorbed an electric jolt from Velvet. _Why should-_ A particularly large chunk of arcane energy exploded on her shield. _I even bother?_ She telekinetically latched onto one of the unicorns' head and smashed him against the floor, stilling him for good. "I'll try," she grunted unenthusiastically while pulling the air out of the lungs of a second unicorn.

Page found himself bodily lifted and tossed behind a table with Twilight right behind him as the floor exploded out from under them. He shielded his face as splinters flew everywhere. "I know that tone, young filly, spare your mother or you'll never forgive yourself!"

Incoming! An unconscious pink pegasus sailed overhead, courtesy of Rainbow Dash.

Twilight ducked under the flying mare before letting a series of arcane lances keep Velvet and the last unicorn back. "Page, she's trying to kill me!" A violet beam carved a burning line through the table. "In case you hadn't noticed!"

"That's not an excuse, Twilight!" he barked scornfully.

Velvet grimaced at Rainbow Dash punching the last earth pony to the ground, his fur smoking from several different places. "That's it, everything dies!" She launched a blob of raw, condensed mana into the center of the ceiling before bolting for the west door. Those ponies who were still conscious fled with her. Rainbow Dash was about to go in pursuit when a loud cracking noise from above stopped her in her tracks.

Rainbow Dash, get back here, hurry! Twilight yanked her saddlebags over and charged a teleport spell as hundreds of spider webbing cracks ran along the ceiling. The whole room began collapsing a thunderous groan of stone and wood.

Twilight snap-teleported all three of them through the hole in the floor right as fifty tons of stone buried the study. All three of them tumbled out of the teleport across a dusty old carpet in an unlit hallway. None of them were given a chance to catch their breath once they heard the ceiling beginning to groan under the weight.

Twilight was the first on her hooves with the saddlebags hovering in her magic. "This hall's going to collapse too, we need to get out from under the study!"

Aged Page pushed back the darkness with an orb of light and shot it down the passage ahead of them. "Go, that way is your safest bet."

Rainbow hefted the aging unicorn on her back, much to his protests. "Sorry gramps, I don't trust your legs for this."

"Humph," he grunted before teleporting to the far end of the passageway. "You best hurry young ladies," he yelled over the buckling walls. Both mares went into a dead sprint across the fifty meter hallway right as the walls gave way. The crashing stone raining down behind them brushed the edges of their tails the whole way. Rainbow made the mistake to look up to find boulders floating above her head. Page leveraged his magic to keep the path clear until both mares skidded to a halt at his side.

"As soon as you two are done catching your breath, we should be leaving. Velvet has a small army here, and we need the assistance of the Royal Guard if we plan to make it out of here alive."

"A small army!?" Twilight half shrieked. "Do so many ponies fear changelings that she could raise an army?"

"Well no," Page replied half worriedly as he led them down a fork in the tunnels. "Most are mercenaries. Their pay depends on you getting captured and changed back."

Twilight gritted her teeth and her wings buzzed angrily. " _Not_ going to happen!"

Aged Page paused. "We can catch our breath here for the moment."

Rainbow Dash scanned the high class décor of the new hallway that was cast in the pale light of a solitary mote of mana. The walls had maroon velvet wallpaper with ivory sconces holding unlit lamps at regular intervals. Page took one of them off the wall and brought it over before lighting it, casting the group into deep shadow.

Despite her novice experience with the hive mind, not even Rainbow Dash could miss the boiling fury wafting off of the lavender queen. "Twi, when you said 'don't hold back', did—"

"What do you think I meant?!" She retorted harshly. "She's a traitor!"

"Velvet is your mother, Twilight Sparkle." Aged Page stood up to give his old apprentice a stern gaze, only to find that Twilight was more than capable of leveraging her regal bearing to rebuke him.

"Is she? I've tried diplomacy, I've tried reconciling with her, bonding, ignoring, silent treatment, **everything!** " Rainbow stepped back from the heated mare while the archmage stood his ground, letting the wounded mare vent. "She doesn't care how many hoops I jump through to win her back over, all because I won't jump the one she wants."

"Twilight," he began calmly, "she wouldn't be doing all of this if she didn't love you."

" **But she doesn't LOVE ME!** " She screamed with all her might. Despite the rage across her visage, several tears betrayed her. "Y-you don't know what it's like, Page. I c-couldn't feel any love from her… Not even a speck."

"Then why is she doing all of this?" Rainbow asked incredulously.

Hot tears flowed freely, creating dark lines down Twilight's face. "She can't love who I am, only who I used to be."

Rainbow was partially affected by the sorrow via the link, but she didn't let that stop her from comforting her friend with a hug. Aged Page laid a wrinkly hoof on the weeping mare's withers. "Twilight, I know this is difficult for you, and if Velvet was anypony else I'd say you were right to do so; but I'm begging you, don't kill your mother."

Twilight breathed heavily to get her composure under control. She cast her red puffy eyes at the old stallion with more steel than he's ever seen her carry. "I'd never do that to daddy or Shiny, but I _refuse_ to call that witch my mother anymore."

Rainbow Dash took the hint and backed up to let Twilight stand up while she rummaged through her saddlebags. "We're going to need help if we hope to go up against these guys."

"I agree," Aged Page commented dryly, thankful Twilight had been talked down. "I trust that 'hive mind' of yours allows communication, but you have no idea where we are."

"That was the point, wasn't it?" Rainbow rebuked curtly. "That whole room you guys were in was a fake."

 _How do you know that?_ He discarded the question for the time being. "Look, it won't be long before Velvet's search through the rubble reveals we're not dead. We're in the old Celvard cliffside monastery on the far side of Canterlot Mountain."

"I thought these walls felt familiar," Twilight nodded in thanks to Rainbow and took the offered orb into her magic along with a canteen of water. "I'll send word to Celestia, but we need reinforcements now!"

Knowing his former student, he waited expectantly for whatever plan she had to unfold. Rainbow Dash on the other hand was debating with herself for a solid minute before speaking. "Twi, I want you to let me link with the troops when they come through."

 _I wish this salve would melt faster._ She turned to her friend with a mildly perplexed look, one that was shared to a greater extent by Aged Page. "Sorry, I can't let that happen."

The stallion's confusion only doubled at that, while Rainbow stood her ground. "Come on Twi! I've seen how the drones coordinate themselves. They do it all over the hive mind. How am I going to be able to fight alongside them without having that connection?"

"I understand, Dash, but it's just not a good idea."

"What? You don't think I can handle it?" she fumed quietly.

Some of the glass was finally visible under the melting salve. "No, quite the opposite." Twilight saw the unasked questions in both their eyes. "Okay, look, once you're a part of a hive mind, you'll never want to leave it. That's why I've limited you to only me until I can fix everything."

"Forget it, I _know_ how 'Lings fight! The only way to keep all of us from crashing into each other is with the hive mind. Come on, Twi, I think I can handle an hour or two," she pleaded with clasped hooves.

Twilight glanced at her old mentor, only to receive a reserved shrug in reply. The glass orb filled with her magic while floating over to an empty section of the hallway. "…This is a fine line you're walking, RD. Trust me, I know. Once I was fully integrated into Cadista's hive mind, I never wanted to leave."

"Is it really so addictive?" Page asked with a mix of curiosity and condescension.

The lavender queen gave him a hard look. "It's mostly out of convenience than anything else. Remember all the times you sent me out to fetch reagents for your work back in the day?"

He arched a bemused eyebrow. "Yes, what of it?"

"Well consider how much faster it would have been if you could mentally talk to the various herbalists the moment you needed something, and they could send a delivery out to you scant seconds later?"

The wheels in Page's old but sharp mind chugged along as other possibilities jumped to the forefront. "Yes, now I see what you mean. The applications for such a communication method are endless. It _would_ be difficult to give that up. But what if I don't want to talk to a particular—"

Rainbow butted back into the conversation. "We don't have time to argue about this, Old Guy. Twilight, I can take care of myself, please let me help."

Twilight wrestled with herself and turned to Aged Page for guidance, only to receive another shrug in response. "…Alright, Rainbow, but I'm cutting you off from them the moment we're finished here. Prepare yourself."

A dozen incoherent voices suddenly entered Rainbow Dash's mind. They were quiet at first, barely a whisper tickling the back of her skull. The sound rose sharply up to the point where it felt like she was in the middle of a small chatty diner. Now that she knew what to expect, the noise did little to frighten her. _This is nowhere near as bad as the academy's mess hall was._

Okay, Rainbow Dash, don't focus on the voices as a whole. If you want to speak with them, they will hear you, and vice versa. Your mind can handle it, you just need to let it come naturally.

With only a dozen minds to sift through, the unintelligible conversations quickly organized themselves into the background. Right as Rainbow Dash was on the cusp of understanding them, Twilight finished energizing the orb and fourteen figures materialized in a blinding flash of lavender light, drenching the hallway in a star's radiance. The glass orb was pulverized by the magic coursing through it, but it had served its purpose. Aegis and her full squad took up position at far ends of the hallway with a pair of heavy Clockwerks. Page couldn't help but give his old student a nod of respect. _I had my suspicions, but I was right. Twilight_ did _know it was all a trap. Let's see how you play your cards from here._

Aged Page pressed himself against the wall at the sight of the mechanical changelings, but was able to pass off his fear for curiosity. _There's strange magic within those golems. Something wholly unnatural._

Rainbow Dash shook her head to try and separate her thoughts from the new arrivals. Four faces in particular caught her eye. "Aegis, Intel, Ferrum, ah Riposte! Finally out of bed, eh?"

"With a new sword to boot," the swordling replied with a flourish of his skysteel weapon.

The rest of them shared a perplexed look once they realized they could hear Rainbow's passive voice over the hive mind. Aegis spoke for the group. "I would ask why I can hear you over the Link, Aunty, but we have bigger issues."

"Indeed," Twilight started, "no doubt the garrison will have noticed I'm still alive after your entrance. We need to find a way to extract ourselves and Twilight Velvet so she can stand trial."

She turned to Page to take the lead. The old stallion was visibly put off being crowded by so many changelings, even if they did possess fur. _I never did like leaps of faith_ "Your m – target would likely be tending to your father."

Cold fear crept into every changeling's heart, Twilight's most of all. Her voice carried more fear than anything else. "Why is he here? I thought he had to work today."

"To keep him away from the Royal Guard. All I know is that he found out what she's been doing for the past few years, and she had to _detain_ him up in the main cathedral, two floors up."

A single thought hammered itself into the focus of her mind. _I have to save daddy!_

Before she could voice that one driving directive, a war cry resounded from the north end of the hallway, followed by a trio of gunshots. A scouting party, one got away, my queen, if they didn't know we were here before, they do now!

Given Twilight's familiarity with the place, she shared that knowledge with her defenders. Aegis looked to her queen for permission, which was given with a quick nod. Alright, we're breaking up into four teams to keep the enemy guessing and sow chaos. Alpha Squad you're with me, that means you too Aunty. Riposte, get top side and cut down anypony that tries to flee. Ferrum, stay close and watch our flank. The queen will be the enemy's primary target. Intel, I want you to float. Go where you're needed, but don't get bogged down.

Ferrum glanced at Riposte with a toothy grin before facing all three of them. The cream of the Jevruun Vrunningee are back in action. Let's show these idiots why we're the best!

For the Queen! the entire squad cheered, sending a thrill down everyone's spine.

As one, the groups split off in both directions with Twilight, Page, and both Clockwerks going with Aegis. Rainbow Dash stayed close behind her, finding it strange how she always seemed to have some indication of where the drone would turn next, when she stopped to scout a bend in the corridor or at the foot of the stairs when they came to it.

Even above the heavy steps of the clockwerks, hooffalls could be heard coming from above. Aegis readied two pistols in her magic, with the rest of the group doing the same. Keep your horseshoes on. We don't know how many void stone wielders we're dealing with here. Aunty, you're up front with me.

"Got it!" With a flick of her wings, lightning crackled over her feathers and Rainbow surged up the stairs with a smug lopsided grin.

She barely made it up a single flight before the first unicorn came into view. He fired a panicked magic bolt that Rainbow easily dodged by pushing off the wall. She sailed up and over him to slam down on the earth stallion behind him. The unicorn never got a chance to take revenge when Aegis followed up and shot him between the eyes.

We have to get out of the stairwell!

Rainbow gritted her teeth as she sidestepped an earth pony's spear, but the tight quarters of the stairs worked against her. She tried rushing him, but the stallion backed off and kept her at bay with the point of his spear. That was until Aegis poked her head out from behind the bend in the stairs, along with her pistol, and planted a bullet in his chest.

With the last hostile down, Rainbow was free to race up the last flight of stairs to find herself in a wide grain silo. She crept over to the door and carefully peeked outside to find the mountain complex to be much like Canterlot, hanging off an artificial ledge, but on a much smaller scale. Five structures were within her immediate line of sight, with a cathedral dominating the center of the narrow shelf. A bell tower stood on the far end of the chapel. The entirety of the monastery was crumbling stone and eroded walls having long since been abandoned after the arrival of the alicorns.

However, ancient décor was the last thing on Rainbow's mind. A cloud of pegasi watched over the skies while their ground bound brethren poured out of the chapel towards the side buildings where the other changeling squads were making a show of it to draw attention onto themselves.

Twilight and Aged Page joined her at the top. " _When you said a small army, I was hoping you were exaggerating a little,_ " she whispered with a frown.

" _Well, half of them are mercenaries, the Headhunters if I'm not mistaken._ " Page rattled on as the radicals and soldiers of fortune organized themselves. " _No idea where they're from though._ "

" _We can figure that out later,_ " Twilight whispered back. " _They look like they're just trying to contain us._ "

" _Yes, teleports can come in, but the void crystals running along the rooftops and carried by the pegasi will keep us here._ " Page replied irritability. " _I hope you have a better plan then this, oh queen._ "

" _I do actually._ "

* * *

Celestia tapped an irritated hoof as Twilight's first diplomat into her court, Rolled Scroll, gave her a play-by-play recount of everything that passed through his queen's ears. Her trust in her student was absolute, but what she was hearing only made her wish that was not the case.

"Sister, you know what the law demands," Luna said with grim stoicism. "Velvet raised an army within Equestria's borders without our consent. Not to mention the rest of her crimes if she truly has been leading the PCE all this time."

The solar diarch's tapping slowed. In her mind's eye, she vividly remembered the day Twilight Sparkle was selected to be her personal student. She inwardly smiled at the little purple filly bouncing around out of pure joy, and the filly's mother wiping away tears of pride. Celestia recalled days later, how Velvet bit back a mother's anxiety as Twilight entered the castle for the first time, how she was there at every graduation, award ceremony, every birthday. Every single event Celestia had been able to attend, Velvet had been there too, along with Night Light, Shining Armor, and even Cadance. All of them showered Twilight with affection and praise, Velvet chief among them. In all her years, so had never seen a parent so proud of their child.

 _How has it come to this?_

Celestia, ever the regal princess on the outside, was emotionally devastated. _I've failed you both. I saw the signs, but I failed to act. I should have—_

"Princess?"

Celestia's musings were derailed at her Guard Captain's query. "Glinting Lance, tell the Guard to expect casualties, and inform the press of my decision." She looked to her sister. The alicorns shared a look that communicated on a level only siblings could fully understand before addressing Rolled Scroll. "Tell Captain Veselov that he may proceed."

* * *

Aegis winced as a crossbow bolt dug into the stone wall next to her face, showering her eyes in gravel. She leaned out and took aim at the arbalist pegasi perched on the roof of the chapel and fired. The shot went so far wide that the pegasi didn't even bother to duck as they reloaded their weapons. She grumbled at herself. We need shield support to get close enough to take those shooters out!

Twilight yanked a void crystal tipped bolt out of the carpet under her hooves and tossed it out into the sun baked walkway. Not going to happen if they can pop it with one shot.

Aegis bit back a curse and silently glanced at the small pile of bodies littered around the silo's exterior. The mercenaries had learned quickly about the limited range of the changelings' firearms, and were keeping them locked down.

Her first instinct was to double back through the underground passageways to find another route, but all it took was the sound of gunfire and the clack of steel to know they were trapped in the silo. Or at least, that's what Aegis wanted the mercenaries to think. Aunty, how are you doing down there?

Rainbow Dash stood over the prone form of an earth stallion, a snarl remained on his dying lips. Taking lives, even for the veteran soldier that she was, was never easy. No matter how evil or demented her opponents might be, they still had someone who cared for them. And there she was, taking that husband, son, daughter, or friend away from someone else.

But this is where her chosen path had taken her. When diplomacy and harmony was not enough for some people, she along with every other Wonderbolt both past and present stood vigilant.

Just fine, Aegy.

Rainbow looked up, scanning the eyes of the four ponies who pressed forward. All of them bore seething rage at their comrade's fate. But Rainbow's mana coated wings gave the mercenaries pause. She was a Wonderbolt, a demon in the air. She should be grossly handicapped in the height confines of the narrow hallways, barely three ponies abreast. Unfortunately for them that couldn't be further from the truth.

Rainbow Dash gave a short warning shake with her head, but it went unheeded as the first grey earth pony charged in, her sword carving a lethal arc. The unicorn behind her cursed her recklessness and started weaving a spell to support her.

Rainbow flicked her wings, instantly changing the mana from an amorphous mist to tight banding ribbons, giving her wings a hard edge. She slipped under blade and moved to slam her left wing into the mare's skull, but a warning over the Link made her fall flat on her belly as a scything wave of burning magic passed through the mare and singed the top of Rainbow's ears.

The Link told her the mare had been unharmed by the spell, and rolled left to avoid a vicious downward slash. The moment the blade dug into the carpet, Rainbow kicked the blade out of the earth mare's mouth and brought a wing up on her neck, collapsing her trachea.

With Rainbow still low to the ground, the changelings behind her fired upon the remaining mercenaries, downing two with the fourth barely managing to slip inside a broken door. Rainbow, fall back you're getting out of range of our pistols.

Got it, she called back as she ran to the grain silo's doorway. She ducked behind a narrow corner where she slumped to the ground to level out her breathing. A nearby drone turned to the clockwerk. "Clockwerk unit Resolute: instructions, barricade the doorway."

 **"Complying."** The Clockwerk stepped forward and took a heavy pill shaped grenade off its back and threw it a few meters down the hall. With a massive *phoomph* two meters of corridor was crammed with quick drying foam akin to porous stone.

"That'll hold them for a while," the queen's guard announced with a smug grin. Captain, we're locked down here, our only exit is now top side.

Aegis took another potshot at the arbalists, if for nothing else than to keep from feeling impotent. _This is not how I expected to be fighting ponies for the first time._ She turned to find a grim face upon her queen. It was hardly a surprise, given the circumstances.

A few moments later, the arrows stopped coming. Aegis and the rest shared quizzical glances before poking their heads out. The sight drew Twilight's ire in an instant, which only caused every changeling in the area to feel it as well.

The chapel's main doors yawned open after silence fell over the monastery. Three unicorns escorted Velvet as she marched over towards Twilight's position. The queen stood in the doorway, but made no move to leave it, having lost trust in her first mother. Velvet stopped several meters away, sighing at the dead and dying. "I want this bloodshed to stop, Twilight. If there is even a single trace of equinity left in you, surrender now."

"You speak of equinity, Velvet, but you seem to have forgotten about what it means to be a good mother." Velvet bristled at Twilight's chiding tone, but the queen brooked no interruption. "You would have me condemn my hive to death? Not a chance!"

"You know _nothing_ about being a mother!" Velvet raged to the point of scratching her throat. "I've seen enough changelings behind bars and on the dissection table to know there is no way they could ever be worthy of the term: child. How far has your mind been twisted to see these _tools_ as children?"

"Who are you calling a tool, bitch!" Ferrum shouted, drawing attention and a hoof across the back of the head, for a moment before Twilight spoke again.

"Were you blind the day of the Phoenix's arrival, or when I introduced my drones to you and father?"

Velvet slammed her hoof down. "I did not come out here to debate! You will surrender here and now, or more ponies will die to end your threat to Equestria, one way or another."

"I'm not the one sending them to die, Velvet. Their blood is on your hooves!" Twilight shot back. A few of the mercenaries felt the queen won that little shouting match, but the bits were too good to pass up, and they had the changelings cornered.

Velvet stared into Twilight's face. She no longer saw a changeling wearing her daughter's skin. _She's faded away completely. I should have done this long ago._ "So be it, Queen Twilight Sparkle. Then I will carry that blood willingly." She turned to the mercenary lieutenant at her side. "End this. Release my daughter's soul from this living hell."

"As long as you got the bits, lady."

A distant shadow passed over the sun baked marble stones between the chapel and Twilight's position. Velvet didn't need a telescope to know what it was. "It's the _Phoenix,_ she means to send her entire swarm down on top of us!"

* * *

High above the monastery, the hive ship descended at a seemingly lethargic pace. Its biggest guns remained unmoving, but the dozens of smaller turrets readied themselves and aimed at the structure below. Despite the danger, numerous pegasi from Canterlot followed the airship at a distance, baffled by its sudden departure from the city's airspace.

Captain Veselov's eyes bored into the ceiling mounted clock hanging above the ship's wheel. Each second was too long in his book. Fire control, how long until we are in range of the target area?

Entering maximum effective range… now.

Good. He stood up to join the younger drone at her station. My queen, we are ready to lend fire support on your order.

Celestia gave us the go ahead. Do it, captain!

As you wish, my queen, commencing bombardment.

* * *

Twilight ducked back inside the small grain room and threw up an atmospheric barrier around the interior of the silo as moments later, well over a hundred shells in the first volley exploded all around them. Instead of the fire and shrapnel that Velvet and the mercenaries expected, whitish smoke filled the air. The entire monastery and a twenty meter radius around it was smothered in the clinging opaque gas.

The mercenary lieutenant's first thought was a smokescreen, and blew the whistle around his neck. "Move it lads, get in there and squash those bugs!"

Most never got the chance to comply as the smoke revealed itself to be a choking cloud that burned their eyes and noses. All but a handful of pegasi dropped to the ground as the gas sent everyone into a coughing and sneezing fit. "Why aren't the void stones working?" One called out between sneezes.

If any answer was forthcoming, he never got to hear it as the changelings surged out of their positions and waded through the crippled mercenaries and purist fanatics. The lieutenant tried to cover his eyes with one leg while pushing Velvet back towards the chapel. "Rally inside! Move it, move it!"

Velvet barely got inside when the lieutenant saw past his watering eyes to witness a prismatic blur racing through the gas with a glass helmet on. He tried to weave a fireball into being, only for his mana to immediately drain into the dozens of void crystals the pegasi had dropped. _Ah bloody 'ell,_ was all he could think before Rainbow Dash planted a hoof across his jaw. With a quick one-two punch, he went down like a sack of potatoes. The cyan pegasus didn't linger as there were still plenty more mercenaries and fanatic heads to crack.

* * *

Night Light had gone through a range of emotions ever since waking up in a bell tower, chained to the railing with a warded lock. Disbelief and confusion were chief among them before settling into depression. _Velvet… What have you done?_

It had been two hours since his wife left him there with lunch and a promise to heal their family. "Heal the family indeed," he fumed. "Twilight's perfectly happy how she is; you're the only one who needs healing."

His anger fizzled out at the sight of the meal. _Cucumber Gratin and truffled potatoes… our favorite. Oh Velvet, I hope our daughter can keep you from doing something we'll all regret._

With all the recent commotion outside, Night Light was torn between trying to find a way to remove the chain around his right hind leg and getting the mana locking bangle off his horn. He noticed the white smoke crawling its way inside almost too late to react, and finally recognized the cause of all the coughing and sneezing outside.

The wooden slats covering the exterior of the tower snapped with a massive *crrrrack* and a controlled gust of wind blew the gas back out of the tower as Twilight Sparkle landed next to her father. She ripped off her gas mask and squashed her father in a crushing hug. "Daddy! Thank the First Mother you're alright!"

A massive smile crossed his lips and he hugged her back with all the strength his aging bones could muster. "Twilight! I was so worried your mother was going to do something we'd all regret."

Her smile fell. "She did. We'll talk about it later, right now I need to get you out of here."

A hatch off to the side burst open to reveal a coughing and hacking Velvet stumbling out. Twilight immediately let go of her father to storm up to the helpless mare. "If we were back in the jungle, Velvet, nopony would bat an eye if I killed you right here and now."

Velvet kept trying to rub her eyes clear, but the gas had clung to her fur, making it even worse. *hack* "So, are you *cough* finally going to reveal that *sniff* corruption for all to see?"

Night Light rushed over to restrain his daughter, but hesitated to do more than laying a hoof on her withers. "Twily, please, don't do this. Let your mother stand trial."

"Raaa!" Velvet shot an energy bolt blindly in Twilight's direction, but the shot went wide and carried past Twilight and straight for her husband. Night flinched at the oncoming bolt, but it never reached him thanks to a last minute shield from Twilight. Growling, Twilight grabbed Velvet in her magic and yanked her over so she could speak directly in her ear. Night Light was dumbstruck by how low his wife had sunk.

"I am a daughter of Equestria, Velvet, I won't harm you. The whole nation will hear of what you've done in court, I can _assure_ you of that."

*wheeze* "Bah. *hack* The battlefield may change, but I will _never_ give up the fight to free my daughter's soul! Sooner or later, **monster,** somepony will kill you, and free her from your grasp."

Shame burned in Night Light's gut. For his wife, his lack of foresight, for his inability to protect his only daughter, and now that his family name would get dragged through the mud. "Velvet, you need help. No matter what the princesses' decision will be, I'll make sure you get it."

"I'm not the one who needs help, Night, Twilight is—"

" **Enough!** " Twilight roared as she suffocated her mother with a sleep spell so strong it would keep her in a coma for a week. She let her mother drop to the floor while taking several long deep breaths to cool down. Only, she cooled too quickly as all of her anger, hate, and everything else she had bottled up for the past few years broke through. Twilight Sparkle's lip quivered at the sight of her mother.

After inadvertently inducing a dreaming sleep, it was the first time since she had awakened from the chrysalis that she saw a truly peaceful look on Velvet's face. Night Light instantly switched to supportive father at the sound of his daughter's sniffles and pulled her into a deep hug. "Why can't she love me, Daddy?"

Their position allowed him to look upon his wife and her euphoric expression. "I don't know, Twilight… I honestly don't know."

* * *

The main audience chamber of the chapel was clear of smoke, thanks to several pegasi pushing it back, giving the rest of the fanatics some breathing room. Not that they had to worry too much about it. The _Phoenix_ stopped firing after the second volley and the high winds were already dispersing the gas.

Rainbow Dash stood at the head of a dozen changelings who emerged from the fading gasses. Aimed at the fanatics were and an equal number of pistols, two Clockwerks, and one blood-soaked skysteel sword. Most of the surrounded ponies kept giving the Clockwerks and their blood covered hooves fearful glances. Rainbow briefly glanced at Riposte, who was quite happy to have an opportunity to wield his new sword before fixating on the trapped ponies. "Stand down," she barked loudly enough to focus all attention on her, "and you'll not be harmed."

A bronze coated unicorn pushed past his weary comrades. "Never trust a changeling. They'll kill us or corrupt us, and you're proof of that, Dame Rainbow Dash!"

Aegis couldn't help but send her apologies over the Link, but Rainbow ignored it. There's nothing to forgive, Aegy. Stay focused!

A trio of dark contrails roared in from one of the broken windows and stopped abruptly between both groups. It was a Wonderbolt strike team led by none other than Spitfire herself. "By royal decree, everypony stand down!"

Both sides held fast. The fanatics were unwilling to yield against the perceived changeling threat, and the drones only unquestioningly obeyed the voice of their queen. Despite Spitfire's proximity, some of the fanatics tried to get a clear line of sight on Rainbow Dash, while the drones' pistols shifted targets.

Rainbow stared the fanatics down, daring them to try. When she saw their hesitation, she glanced at the drones at her back. "Do as she says, everypony, fight's over."

Without hesitation, the changelings holstered their pistols. Some of the younger fanatical unicorns saw the opportunity and began weaving spells at Rainbow. Before they could execute any of them however, a lightning bolt in the form of Spitfire came down on the lead unicorn's head like a ton of bricks. Her wings crackled with electrical power before she brought them down on the other two, dropping them as well. Several more Wonderbolts moved in to surround the mercenaries and fanatics. "Anypony else want to test me?"

Shaking heads and reluctant 'noes' answered her. "Good. Now all of you against the wall."

* * *

It did not take long for the Royal Guard and Spitfire's squadron to lock down the rest of the monastery. The mercenaries were not paid enough to go up against Celestia directly, and surrendered en masse. The fanatics tried to flee through various means, but most were rounded up within an hour.

Spitfire watched a handful of chariots arrive from the city to escort the prisoners away while barking orders to a few Royal Guardponies as they arrived. Rainbow Dash zipped down from above and snapped a crisp salute. "Lieutenant Rainbow Dash, reporting as ordered, ma'am."

Spitfire returned it. "At ease."

Rainbow could tell her commanding officer was put off by her altered appearance, even if Spitfire was good at hiding it. "Just finished sweeping the lower levels, the non-combative criminals destroyed a lot of equipment once our reinforcements arrived. There's barely anything left to retrieve for evidence."

"Typical. This group did the same thing to their last base of operations we raided." Spitfire took her goggles off her eyes. "It's disgraceful to think ponies have come to this."

The thought of it disturbed Rainbow greatly, but her military bearing kept the sentiment mostly out of her tone. "I hear you on that, Commander."

"Walk with me, Lieutenant," Spitfire ordered curtly before finding an eroding grain silo for some moderate privacy. She scanned the immediate area to make sure they weren't being watched before speaking in a lower-than-normal tone. "The princess said something had happened to you, but I didn't think it was this."

Rainbow's ears fell flat at Spitfire waving a hoof at her face. "Yeah, well, when you mess with old artifacts without thinking, you can get into some real trouble." She resisted the urge to nervously scuff the ground.

"This isn't good, Dash. If the PCE were able to fund a small army right under our noses, then we're in even worse shape than I thought. The military has to take steps to demonstrate we're not slipping under changeling infiltration, no matter how unfounded such talk may be."

Rainbow was taken aback. "Wait a minute, you're not actually going to kick me out of the Bolts are you!?"

"Not quite," Spitfire replied with curt reassurance. She sighed while resting a hoof on her subordinate. "Look, Dash, you've earned a place in the Wonderbolts fifty times over. Hay, you would be my XO if it wasn't for the damned nobility raising a stink. But if the PCE already knows about what's happened to you, then you can expect all of their sympathizers to know as well. The climate's too volatile right now."

Rainbow had to leverage a monumental amount of self-control to keep from bucking the wall. _Damn all those bigots to Tartarus!_ "So if you're not kicking me out, what _are_ you doing?"

"Until you're cured, or ponies calm down about changelings, which ever happens first, I'm taking you off rotation into the chaos lands. I'll see about making your liaison assignment to Twilight permanent." She could see Rainbow's temper flare under her professional exterior. "It's still prestigious enough to keep you on the career track."

 _Barely._ The one place Rainbow Dash did not want to be right now, was standing out in public with her CO. Her blood boiled and she ground her teeth together. "You know what really sucks? It's that I know you're putting yourself on the line just to do that much…"

"Sorry, Lieutenant, but that's how we're going to have to play this out. I'll send the necessary paperwork to your quarters."

"Yeah…" Rainbow muttered to keep her anger in check. "Thanks." She flew off into the blue to blow off some steam before it could boil over.

* * *

Later that night, Pinkie Pie was laughing maniacally as she bounced on her hooves while circling Applejack and Fluttershy as the group exited the train at Canterlot Station. She was wearing a foal harness with her little colt, Pie Slice, giggling at his mother's antics.

"I can't believe it girls, Twilight's finally back in Equestria! I have to prepare the biggest Hive Warming party for her." She bent her head around to gaze upon the teal coated foal on her back with a huge grin. "You're going to help, right Slice?"

"Ya momma!"

Applejack let off a warm-hearted chuckle. "Ah remember when Apple Bloom was his age. Cutest filly Ah ever did see."

Fluttershy kept pace with her friends while flying just above the ground. "Speaking of foals, I can't wait to see Twilight's nursery. All those cute little drones scampering around," she added wistfully. "I'm still in shock that Canterlot Regional Medical Center asked me of all ponies to do it!" She hid behind her mane to conceal her bashful excitement.

"Well of course they'd ask you, Fluttershy. Ah ain't seen no pony as good with critters _and_ trusted by Twilight enough to do all that."

Pinkie Pie settled her bouncing path to be between her friends. "And critter foals are the best critters!" She turned around to nuzzle her son. "Isn't that right Slicy Whicy, you're a silly willy critter witter!"

Pie Slice giggled madly as he brushed his mother's snout. Pinkie's right ear started flopping. "Oop, I think somepony's getting hungry!"

As Pinkie tended to her foal, Applejack noticed an older pegasus colt standing on the street corner ringing a loud bell as ponies all around gathered around him. "Extra, extra, read all about it! Noblemare Twilight Velvet arrested for treason against the crowns! Trial to be held this Friday!"

Applejack stopped dead in her tracks when the announcement fully registered. _Oh no._


	20. Chapter 20

Fallout

Twilight Sparkle walked through the marble hallways of Canterlot Castle with a calm presence in her step and Ratchet at her side. The morning was just starting to creep over the horizon so the tall regal passageways were still lit by torchlight. As the moon slowly gave way to the sun, a few yawning Night Guard were leaving their posts as their day aligned counterparts relieved them.

A few of the passing thestrals gave the pair of changelings a passing glance or respectful nod. Whether this was respect was towards Twilight's station or for her person the pair didn't know.

Ratchet glanced at his queen every so often, unsure about what he wanted to say exactly. "Twilight, are you sure this is a good idea?"

"A good idea? Perhaps not, but I feel it is something I have to do. There were too many witnesses, and the press is classifying the whole monastery furball as a diplomatic incident."

"Which means…"

Twilight stopped walking with a heavy sigh. There were a few passing servants and guards silently walking past, but she didn't care for privacy. "Which means the princesses have to get involved with mother's trial personally, and they have to come down hard. So the PCE and Vel… my mother will be petrified in stone."

A hot tear dampened her face. She could feel more slowing creeping down her face. "I just have to see her."

He nodded silently. "I'm afraid I don't understand, but I'm here if you need me."

"Thank you, Ratchet." She leaned forward and kissed him. Although the act was simple, the warm blanket of her freely given love addled his mind for a brief moment with its intensity.

* * *

There were two types of prisons in Equestria, one for commoners, and one for the nobility. The latter was rarely used, if only because none of them dared do anything to end up in one. The only real difference between the two was one being located a floor higher than the other.

She found the warden, a stocky earth stallion, sipping his coffee upon her entry into the cold unwelcoming stone prison. "Ah, Queen Twilight," he said with a hasty bow. "I honestly expected you earlier."

She draped a wing across Ratchet. "I needed a couple of days to cool off after everything that's happened."

"Aye, you don't have to explain anything to me. I don't know what I'dda done in your shoes."

The sleepy warden quickly shut up at the somber expression leaking through Twilight's regal mask and grabbed the keys before heading to the cells.

Twilight turned to Ratchet before leaving the warden's office. I'd rather do this alone.

…As you wish, my love. Just be careful around her.

Thanks, I will.

* * *

Cold grey stone, iron bars, wooden cots, and a musty stench lingered through the air. It was the last place she ever wanted anyone to end up. Then again, she never thought a family member would try to kill her either.

The warden was a few paces ahead of her and rapped his iron shoed hooves across the bars. "You got a visitor."

The warden stepped aside to let Twilight enter. Velvet had not moved from the warden's call and had propped herself up on the edge of the barred window to watch the sunrise. The view of the sleeping city backdropped by the rising sun among the clouds would have brought a tear to her eye on any other day. "Tell me, _changeling,_ did you spare me to maintain your cover, or to use me for a show trial?"

Without the adrenaline rush from her last encounter with Velvet, the festering hate wafting off of her would have caused some to be ill at ease. However the loss of a mother's unconditional love and hate being its chief replacement was physically painful to the point where the nerves all over Twilight's body felt like they were being dipped in acid. She briefly contemplated leaving the room, but held fast against the intense agony. The building migraine didn't help either.

She did her best to try and ignore her agony, but it was far from easy. "As ashamed as I am to admit it, neither. It was only because Aged Page talked me down that I spared you." Velvet turned her head askew to eye the queen. "All those times you've called me a monster…" She briefly wondered if she was only giving Velvet more ammunition, but it had to be said. "Y-you don't know what that does to an empath… Especially from somepony who I thought loved me."

"I love my daughter Twilight Sparkle, the unicorn, student of the princess," Velvet replied with a vicious scowl. "You are _not_ her!"

Twilight had prepared herself for hostility, and each drop of verbal venom felt very much real. "Am I really so alien that you cannot accept me as your daughter?"

"Do you even need to ask, _empath?_ " Velvet returned her gaze to the window. Her tone never lost its hostile edge. "Why do you even bother with the act anymore? You've got the princesses wrapped around your hoof, and now I'm going on trial for treason. You belittle us both continuing with this facade!"

"It's not an act, mother, it never was." Velvet finally backed away from the window and shot Twilight a disbelieving scowl. Twilight grit her teeth from the waves of disgust and loathing but refused to show it or raise her voice. "Okay, I'm different than I used to be, I'm a changeling through and through, but I've never, not even _once_ hidden that fact."

"My issue was never with the fact that you hid what you were, but the fact that you never wanted to be a pony again," Velvet said as if she had been repeating the same reason a million times. " _My_ Twilight Sparkle would have agreed to this… _procedure_ to save her own life, true, but to _stay_ as one of you freaks? No, you are somepony different. The only thing you have in common with my daughter is that you stole her body!"

 _She's… she's gone completely insane!_ Twilight masked her slowly weakening agony as exasperation. With Velvet casting her daughter aside so definitively, Twilight's body started acclimating to her loathing. Bit by bit, the pain she suffered from the middle aged mare's disgust was beginning to lessen. "Mother, have I really changed that much? Yes, physically, but mentally? Why can't you see I just wanted us to be a family again?" Velvet said nothing, prompting Twilight to continue. "But that wasn't enough for you. You couldn't let me live my own life, could you?"

Velvet scoffed a short mirthless chuckle. "You call that a life? You can't even see how much of a slave you are to Cadista. You've spent almost five years spewing eggs and propagating Equestria's mortal enemy!"

Twilight was utterly dumbfounded and couldn't speak for several seconds with her mouth hanging open. Velvet only saw it as mockery. "Should I bother mentioning the warship hanging over our heads, or is that too obvious?"

Twilight's train of thought had a sluggish restart. "First off it's a colony ship outfitted to survive the jungles, not a warship. Secondly, how can you hate my kind so much without even knowing how we changelings work? I'm a _queen,_ I alone dictate the purpose of my hive, and I want to be allied with Equestria, my homeland! Haven't you even cared to notice how fundamentally different my drones are compared to Chrysalis' own?"

A niggling thought wormed its way into Velvet's mind. _Fancy Pants, and a few others were quite enamored by them before I left for the monastery._ She smashed the thought down hard. "You're arguing semantics, nothing more."

"Am I?" Twilight shot back. With her body growing increasingly numb to Velvet's hatred, Twilight was feeling energetic enough to put some fire in her speech. "Have I ever _once_ done anything to threaten or weaken Equestria since becoming a changeling?"

Velvet chewed on her lip and turned back towards the country she had risked everything for. "Plenty."

"How? I've increased trade between Equestria and Stripped Gear, and I personally oversaw the return of all love prisoners from the other queens. I risked my hive's future by pulling too many drones to help Ponyville against Discord's plunder vines while my friends and I stopped them at their source." _Celestia still wants to minimize public knowledge of the Tree of Harmony._ "Should I even bother mentioning the incident at the Equestrian Games? Or how about the ten other times my friends and **I** saved Equestria?!"

"It's all just one big ruse, Twilight. You changelings don't want Equestria's destruction, just our enslavement. What better way to do just that, than to earn our trust first?"

 _It's always the same excuses and self-deceptions with her._ She mentally asked Ratchet to fetch the warden. Velvet's presence still grated at her, but the most she felt now was phantom pain. "I think I know the real reason you can't accept me, mother."

Only stoic silence filled the room. Velvet tired of her presence. A thought came to Twilight, but she stopped as she noticed something. She could still sense Velvet's emotional poison washing over her, but she had gone completely numb to it, as if Velvet was just another stranger. The realization caused her ears to fall flat and her wings to droop. Twilight cast a quick spell to dry away a few resigned tears. _There's really no hope… is there?_

Velvet almost called for the warden to get the silent queen to leave that much quicker, but Twilight spoke out before she could act.

"It may just be a dying light in a sea of ink, mother, but I know you actually do recognize that I am still _your_ Twilight Sparkle. You've been fighting my desire to remain a changeling so long you're too frightened to admit it."

That niggling voice in the back of Velvet's mind gave unwanted weight to Twilight's observation.

"I may never see you again, but… I forgive you, mother. I am sorry we could never make it work between us." The cell door's lock clanked loudly, heralding the warden's return. "Good bye, mother."

Velvet's head ached at the nagging voice that casted doubt on the one thing of which she had been absolutely certain. Fear wormed its way in. Not for her own well-being, but there was actually the possibility she had been wrong all along, so utterly preposterous though it may be. _No, I must have been right,_ I must!

The only other alternative was too heart wrenching, too terrifying to even consider. Yet that small whisper that would not be silenced, kept speaking of that horrible possibility. By the time she glanced back, Twilight and the warden were already halfway down the hall.

* * *

Later that day, Rainbow Dash was headed towards Twilight's chambers aboard the _Ashes of the Phoenix_ with a plate of blue bacon balanced perfectly on her back with her wings spread out to give additional support. It was either that or the bacon was causing quite a stir with her. One of the god-sent strips of meat was currently being teased by her tongue as she savored every last bit of texture and flavor. "Oh Celestia, this bacon is **orgasmic.** I don't care what it takes, I have got to convince Twi to let me stay half 'Ling so I can keep eating this ambrosia."

Rainbow polished off the last of the bacon by the time she reached Twilight's door and found a few caretakers carting away twelve eggs resting in a padded trolley. The trio of drones snickered at overhearing Rainbow praise her meal. "So that's all it takes, Aunty? I guess we know what to tell the next colt that catches your eye, huh girls?"

Far from being embarrassed, Rainbow smirked at her adopted nieces. "Then be sure to tell him to get me a pack of country style. Salt plus bacon equals one happy mare," Rainbow ended with a wisecrack grin and causing the drones to burst out laughing. Rainbow eyed the egg trolley. "You gals busy running off with the daily dozen, or giving them a tour of the ship?"

The new chief caretaker, Gear Ratio, had originally been slated to join the engineering corps, but her preference and talent for nymph care superseded that and joined the caretakers instead. Gear smiled warmly at the hive's favorite person, outside of Twilight herself. "No tour today, I'm afraid. It's a shame this'll be the last clutch for a week or so until more slots in the incubators open up."

Feeling a little love hungry, Rainbow smoothly placed the now empty plate between the eggs and briefly nuzzled Gear. "How are you holding up in your new position?"

Even with Rainbow's extremely limited connection to the Link, sensing their aunt's desire was trivial, and the three caretakers were quick to wrap Rainbow Dash in a group hug. "It's tough work," Gear admitted with tired joy, "but highly rewarding."

It was weird at first, needing to feed on love. However, it was easy for the brash pegasus to let her guard down around her adopted nieces and nephews. _I guess that it's not so bad, as long as it's with these purple ponies,_ she thought while ruffling the youngest caretaker's mane, eliciting a lighthearted giggle out of her. The act signaled her desire to end the hug.

Rainbow gently rubbed one of the still glowing lavender eggs. "I better let you get your future sisters to the tube farm."

"Sure thing, Aunty," Gear replied with pride, sneaking a loving nuzzle on her aunt. "Say, are you still up for flying lessons tomorrow? The nymphs love it when you teach them."

"Sure thing," Rainbow replied with a huge grin. "Speaking of which, you still remember the lessons I gave you right?"

"Don't fight the thermals, let them take you to new heights" The trio of caretakers recited energetically from memory. The trio flapped their wings in a crisp salute.

"That's my Buzz Bug crew! I'll see you later, oh, and can you take care of my plate for me?"

"Absolutely, Aunty! Cya!" The caretakers waved their wings in farewell, prompting the half pegasus to reciprocate the adopted changeling gesture.

With the caretakers leaving, Rainbow was left to knock on Twilight's door. _Actually, if I'm going to keep this, I might as well give the brain web a try._ She pinged Twilight for entry and was promptly answered.

I just got out of the shower, so I'm free to see you, RD.

The pegasus in question poked her nose through the door to find Twilight stepping out of her bathroom with a towel wrapped around her mane and tail. Her large red wings were splayed out and flapping lightly to air dry. "Hey Twi, I needed to ask you about something."

Twilight sat down by a mirror to use a spell to dry the holes out of her legs. "If it's about progress on reversing your condition, I'm sorry I haven't made much progress as of late. All I know is that it was meant to work on people who have not been affected by alchemy, it's not intended to be reversible."

"Funny you should mention that," Rainbow replied as she flew into a low hover near Twilight. "I've been thinking of staying a half 'Ling, permanently."

Twilight's spell fizzled out and she turned to her multicolored friend in surprise. "Come again?"

"Well you know," she replied as if it was no big deal. "I really like the meat thing, I mean, damn. Also these fangs are really starting to grow on me, and this brain link's freakin' awesome! Soooo yeah, I want to stay like this."

Twilight's first response was to outright deny her, but Velvet's actions were still fresh on her mind. The chance of inadvertently repeating her mother's mistakes stayed her hoof. "This isn't exactly something to take lightly, Rainbow. Why do _you_ want this?"

Rainbow landed to use her feathers to count off. "Well the ability to eat meat regularly is off the awesome scale by like five factors because of bacon and steak, I mean **wow.** " Twilight restrained an eye roll as her friend continued. "I already mentioned the fangs, I mean for a soldier like me, you can't dismiss the intimidation factor. I mean, who's going to mess with a Wonderbolt with fangs eh?" Twilight couldn't discount that on an academic level, but still felt it was flimsy. "The brain hive thing I still have with Aegis and her crew is just crazy cool, but I guess I'd be preaching to the choir telling you why."

Twilight slapped herself. "Oh no, how could I completely forget about that? I should have throttled your connection days ago."

"Well _I'm_ glad you didn't," Rainbow replied a bit defensively. "Sure the brain hive's not for everypony, but it's crazy cool like I said. You saw me fight back at the monastery didn't you? It was like having eyes in the back of my head, I knew where to move and when!" She jumped back into the air and started play fighting an invisible foe.

Twilight took the opportunity to sigh at her rambunctious friend giving a devastating uppercut. "What about your career, Rainbow?"

The Wonderbolt's cheery demeanor dampened immensely. "Look Twi, it's like this. One of these days, you're going to be the first Equestrian 'Ling-Queen, that's a fact. And who knows, maybe one day some of the grubs will want to join the Bolts. Even if I never make captain, I want to be there, ready to welcome you guys in." She smirked at Twilight's warming mood. "Assuming of course, that I can whip some of your rugrats into Wonderbolt material."

"You've put a lot of thought into this, haven't you?"

Rainbow's face twisted in thought. "I've been doing a lot of that lately. Whether it's this whole political crap with my career or what this half lingification's done to me, is up in the air. But, yes, this is what I want, for real."

In that moment, Twilight had a strange sense of déjà vu. _This must have been how Celestia felt when I told her I was going to stay a changeling. If that's so, then who am I to stop you?_ "I guess we should be glad this happened to you, and not somepony who'd start a changeling plague craze or something."

"That'd be our luck wouldn't it? So umm…" She sheepishly rubbed the back of her neck while trying to word her request correctly, but the question was so loud in her mind that Twilight sniffed it out from the Link without even wanting to.

"You want full access to the hive mind."

Rainbow gave a wide grin coupled with a nervous giggle. "I gotta admit, Twilight, just the tiny bit I have with Aegis is freaking awesome to the max."

While Rainbow's massive pleading grin and clasped forelegs smacked of an impulsive decision, Twilight felt the pegasus' underlying determination and assuredness. _I can't keep prying like that, but if she truly wants this, who am I to stop her?_ "Alright Rainbow, I'll do it."

"YES!" Rainbow pumped an elbow. "Brain hive and Arcane Wing is going to be _awesome!_ "

Twilight brought all of her psychic control to bear and slowly pulled Rainbow's mind from its semi-quarantined state and gently pushed her into the heart of the sea of voices. A tidal wave of noise crashed into Rainbow Dash's mind. Every last one of them quickly realized who this unexpected addition was, and overwhelmed Rainbow with a dominating sense of heartfelt welcomeness so profound it made her fall to the ground with tears in her eyes.

A lopsided smile crossed Twilight's face. _I wonder how I would have reacted to being inducted if I had been conscious. Still…_

Rainbow couldn't help but to unconsciously hug herself as thousands of minds took her in as one of their own. A feat made easier with her long standing relationship with them. "It's… it's beautiful, Twilight. T-thank you."

 _And this is why I didn't want her even touching the hive mind in the first place. Once you're in, you never want to leave._ "I hope you never come to regret this, Rainbow Dash, but you're welcome."

It took Rainbow Dash half an hour to finally come down from the high her welcoming committee inflicted on her. By then, Twilight had finished preparing herself after the shower and had a pot of tea delivered. Rainbow's brow furrowed as she swam in the sea of the Link. "What gives? Why can't I actually understand anypony? It just sounds like background noise in a restaurant, but I can't make anything out."

"Give it time, Rainbow. Your brain has to learn how to deal with so many voices at once. Plus it doesn't help that you're only partially a changeling," Twilight explained matter-of-factly.

"I'm 'Ling enough to hear it, so why not understand it?"

"To put it simply, because you're picking up a weaker than normal signal. To help with long range hive communications for infiltrators and love collectors, my ancestors modified the changeling nervous system to have hundreds of small receptor nodes throughout our bodies. Given that you're only a changeling from the neck up, well… who knows how long it'll take. But I'm sure you'll be able to converse over it in due time."

Giving Rainbow Dash a chance to contemplate the information, Twilight slowly drained the last of her first cup of rich honey spice flavored tea, and offered a second cup Rainbow more out of courtesy than any expectation of it being taken.

Already being in an adventurous mood, Rainbow took the offered drink. "Thanks, I actually could go for a drink right now." _Too bad alcohol and tea don't mix. I need something stiff._

"Glad I could help. How is everything else going; you're getting a decent supply of love every day, right?"

Rainbow took a deep breath to feel out how energized her mind still felt from the caretakers' love. "Yeah, yeah, I got a ton from Gear and her crew on the way over. So I think I'm set for the day." Although she was not really expecting to like it, Rainbow took the whole cup in one gulp just get some water in her system. But that one fleeting taste of honey and spices wrapped her tongue in such an explosion of flavor that it left her groaning in a way she had thought impossible for frou-frou tea. _Da hell is with this day, first bacon, and now some bang'n tea!?_

The mostly cyan pegasus was licking the last drop at the bottom right as Twilight turned back around after filling her own cup. She couldn't help but tilt her head at her friend. "And here I thought you were just being polite. I didn't know you liked tea."

Rainbow forcibly put the cup down. "I don't usually. What's in this? It's like amazingly good stuff!"

That produced a curious eyebrow out of Twilight. "It's tea made from royal jelly. Normally, I'm the only one whoever eats it, or drinks in this case. But some drones have been known to use it as a spice of sorts."

Twilight watched in bemusement as Rainbow snatched the teapot, with a silent request first, but stopped short of pouring a third cup. "It's not rare is it?"

"No, it's just a nutrient rich jelly made from various ingredients and salve, along with some other little bits. It's perfectly safe for anypony to eat. The jelly allows me to keep from having to eat so much food during full egg production."

Sensing the silent permission, Rainbow started guzzling the tea straight from the pot's spigot. Twilight was about to say something, but Rainbow threw up a hoof asking to not be interrupted. Twilight gave up and waited for the pot to run dry. It was only then that she realized what her lavender friend was trying to say. "Wait, this isn't going to make me fat is it? I mean… twelve eggs a day can't be cheap."

 _I want to see if I can find a way to safely bump that up to fifteen a day._ She refocused on her friend. "Knowing _your_ workout regimen, I doubt it," she said with a casual shrug, "and I still eat the usual three meals. The rest of the supplements would only affect a royal like myself anyway. I can tell the kitchens to increase production for you."

"Sweet, thanks! I'm going to go find more of this stuff."

Right as Rainbow was about to take her leave, Ratchet entered the bedroom with a few newspapers on his back. The spring in his step lifted Twilight's spirits. "Hey Honey, RD, have you checked out the latest headlines? The press are at war with each other on whether or not the monastery incident was a sign of our willingness to be true allies with Equestria."

Confusion rocked through the mares as Ratchet took the top newspaper in his mouth and gave it to Twilight who took it in her magic.

Foalnapping of Changeling Queen Twilight Sparkle Prompts Military Response!

According to Princess Celestia's press conference yesterday, the changeling queen's hive ship _S.G.C.V. Ashes of the Phoenix_ bombarded the Celvard Monastery that had been occupied by an unsanctioned mercenary army. In a surprising turn of events, this army was funded and commanded by none other than Noblemare Twilight Velvet who has been revealed to be a chief member within the Ponies for the Conservation of Equestria. This group is known for openly defying the will of the crowns by conducting population screenings looking for changelings and torture of those they find.

The changeling use of "less than lethal" weapons that only did cosmetic damage to the historic monastery was intensely surprising, as one captured mercenary had to say. Was it an act by this Queen Twilight Sparkle to back her honeyed words with actions, or something more? Article continued on A6

Twilight was dumbstruck. "I don't believe it… This is from The Canterlot Chronicle! They _hate_ changelings!"

Rainbow Dash lifted an eyebrow at that. "It wasn't exactly glowing praise, but considering the source…"

Ratchet grabbed a second newspaper. "Here, I circled the good part."

Even under threat of her own life, Queen Twilight used nondestructive means to defeat the foul mercenaries. The historic monastery suffered more damage from the PCE than from the changeling technophiles' bombardment. It is this reporter's opinion that these changelings are putting on a show of good faith. Perhaps this reporter might have been wrong to blanket all changelings as enemies of Equestria. Those that hail from the _Ashes of the Phoenix_ at least, have proven their willingness to defend Equestria with their lives. Although, considering that their queen is a former Equestrian, hindsight should have made it more obvious.

Twilight fell on her rump at the implications. Rainbow Dash snickered at her hanging jaw until she waved a hoof in front of her eyes to snap Twilight out of it. "You're a popular mare, Twi."

The euphoria that Twilight had saved for this day was blunted harshly by what it had cost both her, and her pony family. _I wanted unity, but not like this._ She sighed and put the paper down on her bed. "I'm sure Pinkie will be adding that into the hive warming party. Thank you for bringing this to my attention, Ratchet. I really needed to see this."

He moved in close to nuzzle her affectionately. I thought it might be your silver lining.

Twilight's heart swelled at his thoughtfulness and a warm smile blessed her face. Twilight pulled him in close for a more passionate embrace. Rainbow arched a wolfish eyebrow. _I better skedaddle and let these lovebugs have some room._

* * *

"I'm torn, Aged Page," Celestia stated coolly from her perch on the throne. The cavernous chamber was vacant of all others save for Princess Luna standing at her sister's side. Where Celestia wore a dark but controlled expression, Luna was unreadable to the old stallion. "On one hoof, you were compliant in the foalnappings of Queen Twilight and Rainbow Dash."

"And on the other you assisted them in escaping and neutralizing the situation," Luna finished dryly. "What kind of game are you playing, Archmage?"

"I wanted to test my old student; to see if she truly still held Equestrian values in her heart, or if she had become a second Chrysalis. To be blunt, your highness, I felt you were too close to Twilight to gauge her properly."

Celestia weighed his words for a few seconds. "…We have had a long standing arrangement, Page," Celestia started slowly. "I turn a blind eye to much of your dealings, because you have proven time and again your unshakable loyalty. But this… this crosses the line."

"I knew that there were only two possible outcomes going into this, Princess. That I would have found Twilight wanting, or that she would prove herself. I am glad it was the latter. I was not expecting to walk away a free stallion in either event."

Celestia's brow twitched at his callousness and opened her mouth to speak, but stopped short when Luna resting a hoof on her foreleg. The siblings shared a tense moment before the elder sister conceded. Luna addressed the stallion who stood unrepentant, waiting to be exiled. "Would it surprise you, Aged Page, that Twilight requested you to be pardoned? As reparation for what her kind did to your son?"

A guilty look passed over Aged Page's face as Celestia went from confused to irate understanding. "Funny you should mention that, sister. My secretary recently mentioned that Inked Quill recently won his reelection campaign."

"I – I may have fabricated a sob story to convince her of my reasoning for joining the PCE. I simply haven't had the opportunity to inform her of the truth."

"Such is the harsh nature of prejudice," Luna rebuked coldly. "I remember having to make large concessions to the aristocracy to keep them from snubbing my Thestrals in their ridiculous little politicking games."

Celestia finished Luna's point without missing a beat. "Despite my best efforts, after my sister's banishment they were persecuted harshly, for so long that they become the recluses they are today."

Luna kept her profound irritation in check, but it was no small feat. "I have only just recently been able to restart introductions in court within the past month. Needless to say, my Thestrals have been unjustly subjected to persecution just as harsh, if not more so, than Twilight and her drones are now.

"However, it seems your actions have allowed public opinion to turn where we have failed. Whether that was your intent or not is irrelevant to me as you have ended up doing far more good than harm. Personally I feel we should leave your punishment up to Twilight Sparkle. She's the one whose trust you have betrayed most, and regardless of the outcome, you still put her in mortal danger."

Catching onto her sister's meaning Celestia nodded in agreement. "Due to the number of witnesses to your presence, it will be up to her to decide what your role in all of this will be to the public."

The archmage was quick to reign in his surprise. _Celly never liked going with traditional punishments._ He bowed deeply. "I will see her at once… and I will tell her the truth about my son."

"Be sure that you do, Page. I would hate to see you fall in disgrace. Dismiss—" Celestia paused abruptly and her face scrunched in thought.

Luna and Aged Page shared a glance. "Sister?"

Celestia studied the archmage. "You lied to Twilight about your son, but changelings are naturally empathic. How did she not pick up on that? You're a good liar, Page, but not _that_ good."

"The PCE discovered some interesting things during their… autopsies of captured drones." He adopted an academic, almost wistful tone, as if he was reliving his days as a lecturer all over again. "It appears that a changeling's horn is not just for wielding magic, but is actually a sort of hardened antenna to detect and feed on emotions. They _are_ insects after all. Oddly enough, it seems to require a changeling quite some time for their innate empathy to attune to an individual before they can detect anything besides love. But as an extra precaution, I wove a spell ahead of time to emulate old emotional pain, just to make sure I sold the lie."

Luna already knew much of this from her past dealings. "Clever. I don't know if I should be worried or congratulate you on a ruse well played."

"I'll hoof over all the findings the PCE granted me. I hope it can be put to better use. If that is all?"

Celestia mulled over the information for a bit. "No, that's everything. Speak with Twilight before the trial in the morning."

"As you command, Your Highness." He bowed before departing without further discourse.

As soon as he was out of earshot, Luna sighed forlornly. "And here I thought rule was much simpler than it was a thousand years ago." She turned to give her sister a bemused eye. "Since when did the position of archmage have such lack of oversight?"

"Well-earned trust, dear sister. I keep ponies like Page around me, to make sure I never become too distracted from threats here at home. He's caught quite a few in his day. Strange it backfired this time."

Luna turned to the door the archmage had just departed with a ghost of a smirk haunting her face. "Perhaps…"

* * *

If there was one thing an Equestrian never wanted to be, it was the defendant in the Court of the Sun and Moon. It was being held in the throne room of Canterlot Castle with ponies of all walks of life flanking the wide aisle where Velvet Sparkle was being escorted by two Royal Guards on one side and an equal number of Night Guards on the other.

Sitting upon their thrones were the royal sisters, both wearing carefully constructed expressions to conceal their thoughts. But everyone knew how this was going to turn out. _This_ court did not recognize due process, there would be no jury of her peers, no waiting for months for the trial to actually begin. Twilight Velvet was found guilty the moment she set hoof in the room, and she knew it.

Twilight sat in a raised balcony along with Shining Armor, Night Light, and Cadance. The princesses had informed them of the sentence ahead of time, but with emotions running high through the broken family (as well as the entire chamber), it gave them little time to prepare.

The ponies crowded to the sides insistently murmured to themselves, each wondering a hundred different things as the unrepentant Velvet marched her way to the thrones. She glanced at her one-time supporters, former acquaintances, secret allies, and enemies all.

 _I gambled everything and lost. Damn that archmage. Twilight would have been freed if not for him._ She tried to look for him, but the crowds were too thick, and she didn't want to appear frightened. By the time she was more than halfway to the thrones, she gave up trying to hunt for him and stared straight ahead.

The cold, lethal glares of the princesses finally sliced through her calm mask. _They wouldn't execute me would they? Discord did way more than I ever did, and they pardoned him for Pete's sake._

After reaching the end of the parted crowd, the guards backed off to let Velvet stand alone. The eyes of Equestria were upon her in the worst way possible. Celestia enhanced her voice to carry over the chamber. "Twilight Velvet of House Sparkle. You stand accused of high crimes against the crowns included but not limited to: foalnapping, conspiracy to incite social unrest, raising an unsanctioned mercenary army on Equestrian soil, attempted regicide, and instigating subversion within the guards of the twin crowns."

Twilight blinked at that. "When did that happen?" she muttered quietly, but her brother picked up on it.

Shining Armor leaned into his sister's ear. "Officially, I was called into Canterlot to witness this…" Even he had difficulty maintaining his composure, and couldn't find the right words. "…But Princess Celestia wants me to do a clean sweep of the Guards to wash out any PCE supporters."

Twilight's reply never came as Luna took center stage in grilling the still defiant unicorn. "All evidence against you, including the confessions of your fellow conspirators is now public record for all to see. Your guilt is a foregone conclusion. What say you in your defense?"

Velvet could just _hear_ all of the silent jeering from the crowd behind her. Barely two days ago, she had dined with many of them at a ball, now they judged her as harshly as the law did. Velvet squared her shoulders to address the diarchs. "I have tried to do what you failed to do: protect this great nation from those who would destroy it."

Celestia scowled at her to obscure the heartbreak Velvet's actions inflicted within her. "This group of yours, the Ponies for Equestrian Conservation, I believe. I find it difficult to believe that you could ever produce change for the betterment of ponykind by spreading fear and racism. Your group's propaganda officer was captured at the monastery as well. I'm sure the warden gave you a public copy of his confessions," Celestia ended with a hostile frown.

"Your Highnesses, we were trying to raise awareness of the changeling threat—"

"While we were trying to bridge peace with them!?" Luna retorted bitterly. Velvet flinched at the intensity of the outburst, with the crowd doing the same. The lunar diarch calmed just enough to keep her tone level. "While the law allows anypony to be open about their opinions, even those that in direct opposition with our own, that does not give you carte blanche to terrorize those sympathetic to peace with the queendoms!"

Velvet stood her ground. "B-but you opened the door for more of those _insects_ to steal children, husbands, and wives! You can't deny the fact that we had changeling infiltrators in all levels of government before the invasion."

A few murmurs of agreement filtered through the courtroom.

Luna cooled off at the sight of a cautionary glance from her sister. "Ponies like you, Velvet Sparkle, are the reason peace between our neighbors took centuries of warfare and misunderstanding to realize. History likes to forget that the zebra states tried to apologize after causing the Demanescus incident, and their king offered his life in recompense. So how did Equestria respond? By mutilating the king's body and sending the messenger back with an army on his tail."

A collective gasp and shudder of disbelief coursed throughout the court. A few ponies shared awkward glances at the small number of zebras in attendance. The scattered few foreign dignitaries, griffins, minotaurs, and Saddle Arabians were all reminded of the more hostile moments of Equestria's history.

 _Not exactly the phrasing I would have used,_ Celestia mused dryly.

Luna gave the crowd a few moments to let her words sink in. "So long as I draw breath, I will not let that cycle of xenophobia to continue. Even if every other changeling queen becomes hostile to Equestria, Queen Twilight Sparkle, _your own daughter,_ and Queen Cadista have done everything in their power to maintain the peace between us."

She gave the floor over to Celestia with a nod. "My sister and I are in complete agreement that Equestria will do the same. For each changeling queen who truly desires peace, we shall share it. Which leaves us with what to do with you."

"You're making a mistake," Velvet stated coldly, her voice echoing throughout the halls. "Don't you see what those insects are doing? My _daughter_ was our best hope in stopping the changeling takeover, and it is rather convenient that now she's spearheading 'peace' between us. Can't you all see those bugs are naught but corrupting demons that look upon us as nothing but food?!"

"Some might," Luna admitted. "Just as there are ponies like you, who hate changelings because you feel wronged, there will be queens who feel the same about us. But that is no excuse for warring against the queendoms as a whole."

Velvet ground her teeth at such nonsense. _When did the princesses become such hypocrites?_ "Would you have sat there and done _nothing_ if you had a daughter taken from you!? I did what had to be done, and you would have done the same!"

A flash of indignant fury sliced through Celestia's calm mask, but she recovered quickly. "This is no time for jests. Your daughter was injured, I grant you. The only way for her to survive was to become a changeling. And once she recovered from her brief amnesia, where did you think the first place she wanted to go was? Home. To her friends, family, and _you._ But ever since then I have heard nothing praiseworthy about your treatment of her." She pointed at Twilight sitting with her family. "There she is. She's been here for years, and you've treated her as less than dirt! Which is why I'm under the distinct impression that you are no longer fully in control of your faculties."

"That _thing_ is not my daughter anymore! She's been corr—"

"That. Is. _Enough!_ " Luna shot back while casting a spell to silence Velvet. The cold fire of her outburst would have silenced the now trembling noblemare anyway, but Luna would brook no further interruption. "I am in full agreement with my sister. Your actions thus far have convinced me that you are wholly unrepentant. You have also clearly demonstrated that you are mentally ill. I hereby remove you from House Sparkle along with your noble status. I will not have your actions stain that longstanding loyal and noble house."

Celestia leaned forward, her regal voice hiding the pain she felt from having to do this. "It is with a heavy but firm heart that we sentence you to Arcmane Asylum, Institute for the Criminally Insane."

Velvet took an involuntary step back. "I am not _insane!_ Why am I the only one who can see Twilight Sparkle is deceiving all you?! She _wants_ your trust so she can enslave us all!"

"Captain, escort the patient out of here," Luna commanded tersely. "I hope that you will live to see the day that you recover."

The lead thestral grabbed Velvet, only for her to struggle to free herself. "The changelings will ruin Equestria, mark my words!"

The quartet of guards manhandled her until she stopped resisting and was dragged out of the chamber, leaving the whole room in a buzz.

There were only a handful of things that taxed Celestia's composure. Sentencing Twilight's mother to an insane asylum ranked high on the list. "May she act as a warning to all about the twisting nature of fanaticism. I call this court to a close."

Applejack craned her neck to look over the crowd to see Twilight and the remains of her pony family silently depart. Even though she was half a room away, she could see all four of them were beyond depressed. "I hate thinking ill of somepony's kin, especially a good friend, but I thought she would have been executed or imprisoned in stone for sure."

Rainbow Dash's disguise as her normal self was starting to buckle under having to hold it for so long. The last thing she wanted was to go out in public as a hybrid and give Velvet a chance to use her as an example. _Just one more day, RD. Keep going._ Applejack's comment gave her a welcome distraction. She waited for the mass of ponies thin out as she and the rest of her friends exited the throne room.

She kept her voice low and pulled everyone close to hear. "Actually, AJ, Twilight asked for Velvet to get the insanity sentence instead of getting stoned."

Fluttershy wiped a tear of sympathy away. "Do you really think Twilight's mother will get better?"

"I doubt it," Rainbow huffed irritably as she led the group out of the castle. "That mare's gone completely nuts."

Applejack pulled Fluttershy into a sidelong hug, giving her friend a shoulder to cry on. "The whole thing just feels rotten. I just hope Pinkie Pie doesn't try throwing that party too soon. Everypony's mood would just kill it."

 _Perfect excuse to go back to the ship and let my disguise go,_ Rainbow Dash thought before trying her hardest to put out a single loud request over the hive mind for a shuttle. She was rewarded with an incoherent garble. _Oops, maybe I yelled too loud. Wait, I think somepony actually understood me… or is he saying something about pizza?_ "Guys, we should go check on Pinkie on the ship. Who knows what she'll do once that Pinkie Sense of hers detects the low pressure wave of funk headed towards her."

"I reckon yer right. We should give Twilight and the others plenty of time to come to terms before we throw any celebrations. Go fly on ahead and stop Pinkie. We'll hitch a ride on one of them steam carriages sittin' at the docks."

Rainbow gave the orchard farmer a crisp salute. "On it, AJ." With a prismatic blur trailing the speeding pegasus, Fluttershy regained some of her composure and started flying low to the ground.

"You girls are right, if anyone should be crying, it's poor Twilight. I'll find Rarity so we can think of a calmer way to cheer her and her family up, so that Pinkie can throw her party sooner."

"Sounds like a plan to me, Shy. Anyway I can help, you let me know."

* * *

To Brass Excursor, Stripped Gear was his home and the jungles were his playground. The fire pits, undead wyrms, acid viper nests, and the Vale of the Dead were among his favorite places. There were few other locations where his resolve to survive could be tested to his satisfaction. The place he was headed to now was one of them.

The great stretches of dense sunlit vegetation were bordered by a tall earthen wall that rose barely high enough to touch the low ends of the branches. A single changeling sentry watched from its perch on the wall. He settled into a nook in the trees to watch his mark.

 _If it's watching over the wall, then it must have a direct link to an overseer, and then to Chrysalis herself. I just gotta do this quick before they try to kill me._

Seeing no other changelings or jungle predators in the area, Brass waited for the unsuspecting drone to turn away from him before beginning a slow creep along the jungle floor. Even with a disguise hiding his form, he was not so arrogant as to believe the sentry wouldn't spot the shaking ferns or his buzzing wings if he flew.

Inch by agonizing inch he crept forward, eyes always glued to his target, and that, of the jungle immediately around him. More than once he missed a shadow scorpion along his path. In fact, one was currently sitting in front of his nose, invisible save for a slight shimmer when it moved. _To think I can thank this little guy for our ancestors learning how to give us all disguise magic._

It took him over an hour to crawl thirty meters undetected, and find a location at the base of the wall that wasn't coated in the most horrendous repellant so foul it burned his nose hairs. _Glad it rained last night, the dummies haven't had a chance to recoat the walls yet._

With the wall blocking the sentry's vision, he crouched low and jumped into the air, and leveraged his large wings to bolt up and over the wall, and tackled the sentry dead on. The black changeling cried out in surprise as the pair fell into an orchard tree.

Brass briefly scanned the fruit orchard to find several drones nearby. However, most were completely unfazed by the intrusion, but he could hear several soldiers on their way. The sentry pinned between his hooves and the swaying branches hissed at him only to receive a mostly harmless punch to the jaw.

"Listen up no-brain, our queens gotta have a little chat." He pulled a white runed stone emblazoned with a black carving of the Ebony Castle. The drone stopped hissing, and the encroaching soldiers backed off into a hover. Brass pocketed his rune stone. "Yeah, even you numbskulls recognize the Seal of Parley."

He let his chitin bound counterpart up at the same time its eyes lost their blue glow to reveal reptilian slits. A sneer crept over its face as savage intelligence replaced savage instinct. "My my, you're one of Cadista's brood. To what do I owe the pleasure of Parleying with my _favorite_ furry queen?"

As much as he would have loved nothing more than to kill the puppet, he _did_ have to act diplomatically. _Glad I don't have to talk long._ I have her, my queen.

Brass felt Cadista's presence upon the Link suddenly expand a thousand fold until it supplanted his mind entirely. As with the other changeling, his eyes were replaced by Cadista's own. Chrysalis purred with malevolent mirth. "Cadista, it's been far too long, how have you been?"

"I did not come here to gossip," she spat back harshly. "I want whatever you're doing to Twilight Velvet to stop, _now!_ "

Chrysalis' puppet made a show of deep thought while tapping its chin. "… I don't know what you're talking about."

"Do not insult my intelligence by playing dumb. That's beneath even you."

Chrysalis rolled her eyes. "And what makes you think I have anything to do with dear, poor old Velvet losing her mind?"

"Because it's exactly the sort of twisted game you would play." Cadista was holding back a tidal wave of hatred, held in check only by the fact that the drone was a mere puppet. "I swear by the First Mother's honor I will _not_ let you do to Twilight what you did to me!"

"Funny you should speak about honor." Chrysalis sighed with faux moroseness. "As much as I would like nothing more than to rip both of your furry hides from your bodies, I am honor bound not to interfere with Twilight… for the time being."

Honor among changelings was a strange thing. When it came to infiltration against other species, there were no laws, no codes of conduct, no rules of engagement, nothing but the objective mattered, whatever it may be. However, there _was_ honor among royals.

Cadista was caught flatfooted. "Y-you made an agreement with her?"

"Oh, didn't she tell you?" Chrysalis replied with a superior sneer. "I promised that I would not interfere with her during her little errand, provided of course that she finds the true homeland and returns with artifacts in hoof. A queen's word is her life, and I intend to keep it."

Cadista's first reaction was to immediately check with Twilight, but she checked herself in time. _Asking too quickly would reveal our unified hive mind._ "I will check with her, and if I find out you're lying—"

"You'll what?" Chrysalis interrupted with a coy flare. "You may have been powerful when Yumia was around, but now you barely have the strength to keep the other queens from annexing your lands."

Cadista's puppet sniffed indignantly. "That may have been true a few years ago, but now I have stronger allies than you. For all those centuries you've been feeding off ponies, you seriously don't know how Equestria works, do you?"

"I know that when the time comes to settle our account, Cadista, your allies won't save you." Chrysalis lost her false jovial tone for one of venom. "Yumia paid the price for trying to ponify herself by shedding her chitin, and both you and Twilight Sparkle will pay for that as well."

Cadista's puppet growled as it stepped forward and slapped Chrysalis' drone across the snout, splashing crimson blood across the tree's branches. "Don't you, _dare_ talk dogma to me! We are _changelings!_ It is our right to adapt and alter ourselves to survive and prosper. Yumia paved the way to our future!"

Chrysalis spat blood at Cadista's puppet, snarling all the while. "It's disgusting. Have you ignored the jungle's teachings? Prey masquerade as predators to hide from danger, not the other way around. It is one thing to disguise ourselves for infiltration, but to intentionally weaken yourself to be more like ponies, and then have the audacity to want to ally with them is _vile!_ " Chrysalis pulled the other puppet's face in close so Cadista could taste her rage and hatred. "I will have no part of _that_ future, and neither will you."

Before she could get a word in edgewise, Chrysalis shoved Cadista's puppet away from her. "Now get out."

Cadista saw the black drone's eyes return to normal, along with several others pressuring her to leave. _One of these days, that witch will be dead at my hooves._


	21. Chapter 21

Life Slices

An electric lamp cast a stark white light over Twilight's cluttered (in her mind) steel desk. Luna's moon waned in the window as the lavender queen chugged her tenth cup of cold coffee. The beverage went down hard, but Twilight ignored the distaste so she could refocus on the ancient chitin that mocked her with its secrets.

Twilight fought the bags weighing her eyes down as much as the indecipherable text before her. She squinted while levitated a quill to trace the text as she read.

Third Sabbath of Moon's Zenith: I know not what the High Deacon did to us to make us so alien, so monstrous, but last night was the most trying yet. I barely returned to my chambers after the evening meal when the pains that confounded me all day finally ended with two spherical objects being expelled from me.

Even for a prestigious scholar as Twilight, it took her a moment to compute what she saw through the late night fatigue. "I don't get it… why would she not know what egg laying is? At least that's what it sounds like…There has to be something I'm missing." _I'm beginning to wonder if this is even the right queen's journal._

As she started carefully sifting through the various slates of magically preserved chitin, a gentle knock on her chamber door along with a respectful ping over the Link pulled some of Twilight's focus away from her work. Good evening, Gentle Touch.

The former caretaker held a small tray with food aloft in her magic. She spied Ratchet was draped over a new combat Clockwerk. He was obviously snoring, but the air rippling around him betrayed the noise cancelling enchantment.

Actually it would be good morning, my queen. She danced the line between snarkiness and being polite. I brought you some warm honey and jelly cider to help you get some sleep.

A headache that had been slowly prowling Twilight all night chose that moment to strike. Twilight squinted in pain as she peered at the clock. "It's after five already?" she replied quietly.

Gentle set the tray down after Twilight cleared a spot for it. Aye, that it is. You've been at this for almost eight – make that nine days. _I had hoped the week she spent at her pony family's home would lift her spirits._

Twilight gave a long tired yawn before sipping from her cider. Thanks for looking out for me, Gentle.

The drone snickered as she nuzzled Twilight's foreleg. As if it wasn't my burden and joy to do so, mother.

Twilight pulled her personal assistant into a side hug, relishing both her presence and the love they shared. A blade of sadness hit her in the heart at the thought of it. _I'll never feel this kind of love with Velvet ever again…_ She pushed her depression away as quickly as it came. _It can wait for the next Day of Mourning. I have a hive to run and a homeland to discover._

She managed to hide her brief lapse of depression from Gentle. Twilight looked down at one of her very first drones, the tenth to hatch by her count. Gentle buried her muzzle into Twilight's fur. Her eyes were closed while a dreamy content smile danced over her lips. Twilight was moved every time her drones could sneak in a few brief moments of mother Twilight, rather than Queen Twilight. _After seeing Kreesus' and Pulpa's drones, I could never survive in a hive full of mindlessly obedient children._ She hugged Gentle a little tighter.

The moment could not last forever, and a second yawn from the exhausted queen heralded its end. "I should get to bed. Can you delegate the rest of these translations?" Twilight requested while pointing at her desk.

"Of course. The archaeological team from the Equestrian Reclamation Service came aboard today, so this should keep them busy."

Twilight downed the last of her cider. "Perfect. The more we intertwine our efforts with ponies, the easier integration will be later."

"That's the plan anyway," Gentle commented as Twilight carefully levitated Ratchet off the mechanical golem and placed him in bed. Fearing she might wake the prime consort, Gentle continued over the Link. Oh, by the way, Chief Caretaker Gear Ratio wanted me to remind you that the hatcheries are ready and the schedule will require only three weeks' worth of eggs this time around.

Very well. Twilight stood still for a moment and focused in on herself. A few nerve signals there, a muscle pull there, and she was rewarded with the all too familiar brief tightening of a few organs. There, tell her the next clutch will be ready in three days. For now, I'm getting some sleep.

Gentle Touch lingered as Twilight climbed into bed. It wasn't like her to hover like that. Is there something else, Gentle?

She nervously rubbed her foreleg. I think something's off about Aunty Dash lately.

It wasn't the first time Rainbow Dash spooked one of Twilight's drones, so she thought little of it. What's she done this time?

Nothing actually. At least to us, or anything. It's just that a few of my siblings have noticed she's a lot more… huggy than she used to be.

Her bed demanded satisfaction for making it wait so long, and Gentle was keeping her from it. She's probably still getting used to how much love she needs on a daily basis. It doesn't come to her instinctually since she didn't undergo rebirth. Besides, I thought you'd prefer a huggy RD, Twilight teased as she snuggled up to a sleeping Ratchet.

I hope that's all it is.

Twilight wanted nothing more than to cuddle with Ratchet, but Gentle's concerns wormed at her, even after the former caretaker departed. _RD's asleep right now, I'll have Resta take a look at her just in case. There might be some issue with her high hybridization ratio._

With the command sent to the medical drone acknowledged, Twilight happily buried her muzzle into Ratchet's mane and promptly fell asleep.

* * *

Princess Celestia walked through the royal garden with the lightest of springs in her step. The chirping summer birds and the scent of flowers filled the air as she allowed herself to be taken in by the abundant greenery. Alas, even on a beautiful day like today, the burden of rule was omnipresent.

The day court was only held every other day, but that was only half of ruling the nation. The other was done away from the public eye. Not so much for herself, but for the typically noble petitioners. Each proposal made to her was publicized before ever being decided upon, but the petitioner was kept anonymous.

Celestia made it a game of sorts. _I wonder who will approach me first. Kick Back with his green bean tariff reform, or will it be Count De Monte with some new tax he wants to impose?_

She rattled off a dozen other possibilities as she bent down to smell a tantalizing rose before biting the tasty treat off the bush. The lush petals reminded her of a bygone era that echoed through her memories. Memories of before crowns, politics, and the other less pleasant aspects of leadership.

"Princess Celestia," a lofty masculine voice called out from further inside the garden. "Could I have a moment of your time, if it pleases you?"

The diarch in question looked up to see Prince Blueblood of all ponies approaching her. _I thought he was on a business trip to Manehatten._ "I'm free for the moment, what can I do for you?"

It was only when he got closer that Celestia noticed little mechanical pony toy walking beside him. "Thank you for your consideration, your highness. It has come to my attention that Queen Twilight Sparkle has made – discrete – overtures in formally merging her hive with Equestria."

Celestia momentarily eyed the little robotic toy at his hooves. It was painfully obvious it was of changeling make. "If that was the case I would welcome it," she replied carefully.

"I suspected you might," he replied stoically, "as do many in court, given recent developments. I personally don't care much for political games, they're so boorish. No, I am far more interested in things like my little friend here." He levitated the robotic pony to be eye level. "Fascinating little toy isn't it? It only has a single crystal barely a fifth the size of my hoof providing it with rudimentary intelligence, but everything else runs on steam. I dare say these technophilic insects have created a form of magic all on their own."

"They do have a certain knack for that sort of thing. Although I don't believe you've come all this way to show me a new toy."

He gave an oily grin and lowered the toy back to the ground. "I'm a business pony first and foremost, your highness. You know that, I know that, and since we're in private I don't need to put on an act to shoo off any annoying suitors, I can finally talk business. To be frank, Your Highness, my motives are painfully obvious to you so I won't beat around the bush. These changelings are an economic powerhouse waiting to happen, and I would like to put forth my full endorsement that Queen Twilight be allowed to settle on Equestrian soil. Customs and tariffs are such a pain for everypony involved, and I see no reason that should get in the way like it has with the Crystal Empire."

"I'll put your proposition into consideration. I assume you have put many of the aristocracy's worries to rest before coming here."

"That is, unfortunately, not an entirely exorcised problem," he replied disheartedly. "Even after utilizing every single ounce of tact and guile at my disposal, quite a few houses are still vexed by the idea of giving over good homesteading land to Queen Twilight Sparkle. I will give them credit where it's due however. Given that the relationship between the two of you seems as strong as ever, it is practically a foregone conclusion that you would want her to settle in our fine nation. I tried to argue that better lands for them meant faster profits, but they simply wouldn't listen to reason."

"There seems to be a lot of that going around lately," Celestia remarked dryly in a rare lapse in tact around others.

Blueblood only nodded sympathetically. "I knew you would understand, Princess. So many short sighted ponies these days. So you can understand that I was equally vexed by the conundrum, but then I remembered these changelings originate from the Cresnox Jungle, in the deep south." Celestia nodded to hide her confusion. "Any and all tales I've heard about that place are completely dreadful, it makes one wonder how they survived down there, let alone build a civilization."

"I admire the queendoms' resiliency," Celesta agreed, "although it makes me wonder why they chose to settle there permanently."

"A riveting mystery I'm sure," Blueblood sniffed dismissively, "but it gave me an idea. These changelings are a hardy breed, and are already well adapted to hostile climes. I put forth the idea that we could hoof over territorial rights of the Everfree Forest to Queen Twilight. She gets to keep her sovereignty (if she so chooses), and in exchange Equestria would get in house trade agreements." Celestia cooed internally at the idea keeping Twilight close by, but betrayed nothing as Blueblood continued. "The forest is pretty from afar, sure, but it's a dangerous and inhospitable area. The insects should feel right at home there, and Queen Twilight gets her reunion with Equestria."

Once she took it all in, Celestia frowned inwardly. _Is it really too much to ask to give Twilight better land? We have plenty of wide open land that would suit her better… but I suppose that's the point._ "I will run the idea by the queen before making this proposal public."

"I knew you were a smart businesspony, your highness. I'd say you missed your calling, but you'd actually give me a run for my money," he tittered at his own joke.

"Heavens forbid you be freed from your wallet. If that is all?"

"Yes, quite right. I've taken far too much of your time. I have a ball to attend anyway, and it started…" He looked at his timepiece. "Two hours ago, perfect timing for me." He bowed deeply. "You're highness."

She gave a slight nod, cuing him to leave. _I'll have to inform Rolled Scroll of this. It might be the only option I have without causing political backlash._

* * *

A couple of days later, a knock on a door echoed through a darkened room. "Rainbow, are ya awake in there!" a feminine southern voice called out. "You promised Pinkie you'd help watch Slice while she sets her party up!"

"I told you, she's unresponsive over the hive mind, she's obviously asleep," another voice replied in a raspy tone.

"Well she's gotta get up or else she'll be late holding up her Pinkie Promise and I do not want that hurricane happening on this floating castle of yours."

A dull clunk resounded through the frame and the door slid open to the left with a small exhale of steam. The light from the hallway was cut in half by the Stetson hat perched on top of the first intruder. The first thing that hit them was an ear splitting snore.

The second prowler folded her ears back and quickly followed her in. "I'll get the lights."

With a temporary electric buzz the lights came on to reveal a messy room with various bits and pieces of junk strewn about haphazardly. The bedroom was quite large for an airship, but that still only made it as big as Applejack's bedroom back on the farm.

She spotted the snoring pegasus draped over her bed as if an interpretive dancer was in mid-step and just dropped on the bed.

"Consarnit, Rainbow, get up!" Applejack shook her friend until the pegasus jolted awake.

*Snzznt* "Huh?" She blearily blinked her eyes at the farmpony glowering at her. "Oh, heyya, AJ." She belted off a long sleepy yawn. "What's up?"

Resta, one of the hive's physicians, walked out from behind Applejack. "Aunty, you have to keep a promise to Pinkie Pie."

"What time is it?" Rainbow groaned as she flopped out of bed.

"Only _you_ could sleep twenty hours a day and still be tired. All you've been doing lately is sleep'n."

"Oh buzz off, I always take power naps," Rainbow tried to shush her with a feeble hoof wave.

Resta cleared her throat. "It's half past four, Aunty. I think Applejack is more accurate than she realizes. You don't normally sleep this much."

"I'm fine," Rainbow protested as jumped to her hooves and shook herself like a wet dog to get the blood flowing. It wasn't quite enough so she snatched a still mostly full tankard and chugged the whole thing in one go, much to Applejack's annoyance at the delay, and Resta's indifference. It was a bit stale, but it actually tasted better at room temperature. Rainbow gave a refreshed gasp while wiping her mouth with a fetlock. _Wish I still had a plate of bacon left._ "Too much royal jelly cider makes me crash after an hour that's all. But a little pick me up like this," Rainbow tapped the keg for a few more drops in her stein, "perks me right back up, in a big way."

Everyone looked at the now empty keg which was as big as a pony and distinct lack of any other steins meant she had drank it all herself. Rainbow picked up on Resta's chiding disbelief via the Link. "Okay, so maybe I drank more than a bit." She downed the last of the sweet nectar before dropping her stein.

"You're going to end up killing your liver if you keep that up," Applejack scolded.

Resta found the empty mug still had a drop left, and hummed at the taste, however it was the smell that was the most telling. "This is Pepper's Malt. Seventy five percent jelly, and only five percent proof. You'd have to drink…" She looked at the keg. "That whole thing to get a buzz."

"See? My liver's doing just fine." At the thought of her internal organs, one in particular chose that moment to pounce. Rainbow squeezed her hind legs shut and started dancing impatiently. "But my bladder's not! Thanks for waking me, and all, but I gotta go!"

"Hold on a moment, Aunty, mother wanted me to check up on your health. Just to make sure nothing's wrong with your stark level of hybridization."

Rainbow puffed her chest out and thumped it for good measure. "I'm fine, I'm healthy, but I _gotta go!_ Look if it'll make you drop it, I'll tell you how it is, the royal jelly just puts me to sleep if I eat too much. I'll lay off it a bit in the mornings, okay?"

Resta pointed at the adjacent restroom, one of the perks for being Twilight's close friend. "Go on, but I'm going to wait right here until you're done."

"Kay, thanks!" Rainbow shot inside and let off a sigh of relief so loud, Applejack blushed out of embarrassment.

Being the speedster she was, and running on the high her latest dose of cider had given her, the prismatic pegasus was out of there in less than a minute. "Okay, see ya later, girls!"

Resta ran over to block the exit. "Sorry, Aunty, but I insist! And seeing how you've avoided me for days about this, I'm pulling the 'doctor's orders' card. Besides, your reaction to the jelly is unusual to say the least. I just want to give you a brief examination, it shouldn't take too long."

"Gah!" Rainbow groaned as she rubbed her face out of mild exasperation. "Fine, whatever, just don't put me on bed rest for weeks on end." Applejack rolled her eyes at that one. "I'll be there soon, AJ."

"Ah wouldn't worry about 'er, Resta. The only thing wrong with her is lazyitis. Ah'll see you girls later, ah have to get back to the farm and teach the new farmhooves how to do things the Apple way."

"It was good seeing you again, AJ, try not to harass the drones too much." She wrapped Resta in a friendly hug while jabbing her in the chest. "You guys make great engineers to be sure, but farmers? I just don't see it."

"Heh, just wait til the new strains mature," Resta quipped with a hip bump. "But enough stalling. Sit down while I ready the probulator."

Applejack cringed as Resta withdrew an unpleasant looking instrument out of medical satchel. It had hooked scalpels, a extendable syringe, and automatic needier for stitching. The whole thing twisted and popped as it extended out to its full size of a pony's head.

The farmpony gave an impressed whistle. "Welp, you two have fun now, ya hear?"

"It was good meeting you, Applejack." Resta's murder toy started a whirring sound, reminding both ponies about the horrors of the dentist's office.

Rainbow shot a fearful glance at the probulator before giving Applejack a pleading one. "You wouldn't abandon a friend in need would you?"

"Now hold still," Resta warned flatly, "if I do this wrong it'll hurt a little, if I do it right, it'll hurt a lot."

Applejack nodded to her friend and rushed to lay a distracting hoof on Resta's withers. "Hold your horses, girl. What is that thing for anyway?"

Rainbow Dash waited just long enough for Resta to turn around before giving Applejack a thankful wave and bolting out of the door. Rainbow! I have to examine you!

Maybe next year, Resta, Rainbow shot back with a smug grin. Or without that torture device of yours.

She ignored any further protests from the fuming medic as she flew through the hallways. The past couple of weeks was all she needed to complete her integration into the hive mind. The first thing she used it for was the same thing she was now. That is to say, blitzing through the hallways at breakneck speed while using the Link to know which passageways were blocked and when to veer up to avoid ramming into anyone.

A rainbow contrail filled a fourth of the ship before she arrived at the main reception hangar where Pinkie Pie was banging away at a stage. Streamers and balloons decorated room. A handful of drones were arranging tables and chairs, and gave passing greetings to Rainbow.

Pie Slice was biting one end of a balloon while Gummy was gnawing on the other end. Rainbow rustled his mane as she passed by. "Hey Pinks!" _Whew, not late._

The party pony grinned massively and bounced over with a cardboard box on her back. "Thanks for coming over to help, Dashy. Slicy Wicy is such a sweet colt, but he accidently ripped up my last four banners. So I need somepony to keep a hoof on him while I set up the new one."

"How did he manage four... you know what, never mind that. What is this party for anyway?" She looked to the scattered drones in the area, only to receive confused head shakes or shrugs in response.

"Why for Twilight's hiveship's landfall of course, see?!" Pinkie set the box down and pulled the banner out to reveal the banner saying the same thing."

"Uhh, Pinkie – where did you get the idea that the ship was landing?"

"Well, my mane was itchy, my right back hoof was all floppy, and I thought it was going to rain bowling balls, and I was like, 'no way, I didn't get a eye flutter first, but then my tail went all wavy and then it all made sense! Twilight's getting some super exciting news, and it can _only_ be that she's founding her hive home in Equestria! And that means this big metal bird isn't going to be a bird anymore!"

In a flash of motion, Pinkie raised her banner overhead.

Happy Hive Landing Day!

Now that the purpose of their labor had been revealed, the drones cantered over to join the ponies. "I haven't heard anything about being granted a landing site," one commented.

"Mother says she hasn't heard anything about it either," a third added.

Rainbow Dash however, felt a massive grin cleave her muzzle. "Girls, if there is only one thing that you ever learn from me, it is that you should never doubt the Pink."

* * *

Celestia poured over her written proposal as she read, reread, and then reread it again to make sure it was perfect. Every loophole was filled, any nebulous phrasing was absent, and the legality was all there. _Twilight worked so hard to earn her title as queen, it would be unfair to ask her to surrender it. Not to mention the other queendoms might see it as a weakness. But this, this should satisfy everypony._

She looked up and away from the parchment to rub her sore eyes. Celestia's private study would be considered a museum by most, but to her, the tomes and artifacts were physical manifestations of her memories of an age most ponies glanced over in the history books. It was the only place in the entire palace that had authentic first generation Equestrian décor, with busts and furnishings heavily decorated with the symbol of Equestria.

Even an original oil lamp sat at her desk unlit only because of the midday sun casting the entire room in a brilliant light thanks to all of the strategically constructed windows and reflecting surfaces near the ceiling.

The ruffling of feathers on the wind caught her ear, and Celestia looked over to see her sister coming in for a graceful landing. "Lulu, I'm glad you're still awake. I wanted you to give this your eye to see if it meets with your approval."

 _Actually I was asleep,_ Luna grumbled inwardly, but the request had piqued her curiosity enough to crawl out of bed. "You usually don't ask for me to give a joint signature on new laws or whatnot. But this is reason enough to make an exception." She talked while walking towards her older sister who promptly levitated the document over, cutting her off. Luna arched an unamused eyebrow before giving in to the silent request. "I was wondering when you would finally finish drafting this."

Celestia remained silent as her sister read the document carefully. As keen as her eyes were, Celestia wanted to make sure she didn't miss anything. While she would never admit it openly, Luna had a better eye for the letter of the law than she did. When the proposal was returned unmarred by corrections, Celestia's magic wrapped around a large bell sitting on her desk and rung it near the door, prompting a guard to stick his head inside. "Would you please tell Rolled Scroll I will see him now?"

"At once, Princess."

Luna spied a half-eaten cake and snuck a bite before the lavender drone could enter. He bowed low, his falsetto tone carried the same reverent respect Twilight held the princesses, only to a higher degree. "I am at your disposal, Princesses. What do you require of me?"

"Please, come in." Celestia levitated a pair of cushions for her sister and guest. Scroll graciously accepted and took the offered document into his magic. "With the press finally working in our favor, and a few key noble ponies seeing the benefit of having your hive stay on a more permanent basis, we-" she said while glancing at her sister, "finally have an opening to grant your queen equestrian land."

"Truly?" Scroll's wings buzzed excitedly. "My queen had not expected this for another several months, and even then only at the cost of political strife."

"Well, therein lies part of the problem," Luna added dryly. "The land we can grant you is not exactly choice. I'd prefer if Queen Twilight could look this over to see if its agreeable before we go public."

"I see. One moment please." Scroll tilted his head and closed his eyes as he communed with his queen. A slight tug pulled the edges of his lips upwards. You honor me, my queen, I am ready to receive you. A few moments later, he opened them again, only with lavender slitted eyes taking their place.

Both alicorns were taken aback by the sudden change, and their confusion only mounted when Scroll spoke in Twilight's voice. "Hello, Princesses. I figured this would require my immediate attention."

Twilight missed the alicorns sharing a highly confused look as she started pouring over the document. Scroll's entire body language changed to perfectly mirror Twilight's own. Luna saw her sister was not exactly sure what to say, but found she was an equal loss for words. _Did – did Twilight just take over his body? The old queens never showed that ability, if it is indeed true._ "Twilight?" she asked carefully.

The puppet bent the paper away from its face. "Yes, Luna, is something wrong?" it asked with a slight tilt of its head.

"I do not believe I have ever seen you dominate another's will like this before. Is it over that hive mind of yours?"

Twilight let out a light 'eep' at the awkwardness. "Oh I'm so sorry, I thought you already knew about this." She waved her puppet's face. "From your past dealings with changelings."

"I'm afraid this is the first I've seen this. All of the queens of the past met with me in person. Even Cadista never appeared to me or-" she turned to Celestia who shook her head, "my sister in this manner before."

"Oh…" Twilight's puppet nervously clicked his hooves together a few times while giving stuttering giggle. "Well I know full well about Equestria's laws against mind magic, but it isn't like that at all. I'm going through the hive mind."

Celestia gave a sigh of relief while Luna was a bit more reserved. "So you can't do this to anypony outside of _your_ hive mind?"

"Correct, and only to drones," she nodded quickly. "The other queens do this all the time to speak to one another without risking themselves. There's no record as to how we queens evolved this ability, but given the... hostile nature of the jungle, it was a highly valuable development that has since propagated to become a core part of our being. Plus it never harms the drones because they've genetically designed to be suitable hosts since before Yumia was alive."

Luna leaned back to think about it. "Seeing how critically important each queen is to their hive, I have no real issue with this, if only because it's not actual mind influencing magic."

"As admittedly strange it is, I can see the value of such an ability. It would also be terribly unfair of me to condemn something that is a part of you." Celestia dismissed her concerns with an easy smile. "Since it doesn't harm your child, I see no reason it should be shunned."

Twilight's puppet relaxed by sinking into her cushion. "Thank you. It would have been difficult to stay in contact with the others if I couldn't use it. Now," She cleared the air and her throat at the same time. "back to the proposal. I'm a bit surprised you went with the Everfree Forest."

"Yes, I know its far from being prime real estate," Celestia replied with a modicum of her annoyance slipping through. "But its the best I can give you at this time without the press thinking I'm giving you better land as reparations for… Velvet's actions. The only other option would be to continue to let things cool down."

"…I see. Well - don't worry about the location, Princess." Twilight pushed the wave of guilt aside to take solace in the moment. "To be honest, I was planning on settling outside of Equestria and remaining closely allied with you. But if the public doesn't mind letting me have the forest, I'm not going to complain. You have to remember, I re-grew up in the jungles, the Everfree would be easy to settle by comparison."

Celestia smiled at that. _I suspected she would find it agreeable._ "We can work out the proper treaties and trade agreements today if you have time."

"I would love nothing better," Twilight replied excitedly. "The sooner I can found a permanent settlement, the sooner I can start contributing back to both Equestria and Stripped Gear."

Luna let a long and loud yawn slip by. "Well _I_ would love nothing better than to return to bed. I trust you two to hammer out a mutually beneficial arrangement." She stood up, but kept her eyes fixed on Twilight. "But before I go, I would like to say I'm greatly pleased we found a way to let your hive settle here without costing you your title as queen. I always greatly valued my friendships with the old changeling royalty, and it is good to see that will continue with you, Queen Twilight Sparkle."

Twilight's puppet stood up and nodded respectfully. "I may only be able to speak on my behalf, but _this_ queen is more than happy to resume friendly relations with ponykind, and you personally, Princess Luna. Would you be free later to go flying? I must admit ever since I grew wings, I finally realized why Rainbow Dash loves the skies so much."

"Sounds like a wonderful idea," Luna replied with a small grin. Her heart soared at the idea of her savior from the Nightmare was now giving her a chance to restore friendships with the elusive changelings. "How about tomorrow night?"

"Perfect," Twilight's puppet happily clapped its hooves while its wings buzzed noisily. "I look forward to it!"

"Until then, Twilight." Luna dipped her head. "Good day, sister."

"Sleep well, Lulu."

Once Luna departed, Celestia faced the puppet. "Now, I believe we have a treaty to fine tune before the announcement."

"I can be here all day if need be."

Twilight's puppet levitated its cushion over to sit beside Celestia so they could look over the document together. A tidal wave of nostalgia crashed into both of them once Twilight settled into her new seat. With Celestia being the tall motherly figure, and Twilight's puppet being the size of a normal pony, it felt like old times again.

Celestia wanted so desperately to drape a motherly wing across the puppet's back, but she checked herself. _No. She's her own mare now, and a ruler in her own right. There will never be another pony quite like you, Twilight Sparkle,_ she lamented bittersweetly. _At least I know you will live a long life, and can be reborn when time takes its toll on you._

A warm motherly smile graced her features as Twilight's puppet lightly leaned against her, just as she had done as a filly. It was that gentle touch she had always craved, but never dared to presume to do more without consent. _Welcome home, Twilight._

* * *

Meanwhile in the bowels of the hive ship, Aegis scratched her noggin as she translated several old text from the chitin scattered around her room. Riposte was at her side, going over the same scraps of chitin, but with far less enthusiasm. His skysteel blade hovered on the far side of the room, still wrapped in his lavender-orange magic. It sliced the air with deft arcs and swings, making the air whistle with its passage.

Aegis scowled at the constant noise. "Would you stop that? We're supposed to be trying to find our homeland here."

"No. Because this isn't our job." He brought the blade over and embedded it into the wooden table with a loud thunk. She rolled his eyes impassively at him. "We're supposed to be honing our combat skills, not 'digging in the dirt'."

She harrumphed at her brother, and continued working. "Working on translations helps improve mental fortitude, and that's far more important than working on one's swordplay." She jabbed the sword's hilt with a hoof, and withdrew her pistol. "Especially when we have firearms."

"Then we should be at the shooting range, whatever." He tugged on his blade to dislodge it before finding its scabbard while Aegis holstered her pistol. "The point is, leave this to the archeological teams. We're the Jevruun Vrunningee, the elite, the cream of the crop, etcetera, etcetera. What we are _not,_ are dirt diggers."

"But we're so _good_ at it," she teased while flicking his nose with a wing. "Besides, if you've got such a hard one for maximizing your combat potential, then I don't see why you decided to go with the male form. Mares are naturally more lithe and we consume less rations on average."

"Maybe, but I can take a hit easier and keep fighting," he countered. "The added muscle mass and hormonal difference also gives me better stamina. Why do you think almost everypony in the Jevruun Vrunningee switched over in the first place?"

"'Cause you guys are overthinking it again," she reported playfully. "A female body is a smaller target, royals notwithstanding, and I'm able to play my feminine wiles if the opportunity ever comes up." She kissed him on the muzzle while teasing his wings with her own, but he was having none of her games and grunted at her sultry foreplay. She sat back and blew a raspberry. "Not to mention those hormones you're sooo _proud_ of make you more susceptible to a rival queen's pheromones by thirty percent."

"As if a royal would ever take to the field of battle," Riposte countered passively as he begrudgingly took one of the pieces of chitin and a notepad.

Silence reigned for a few seconds as Aegis gave him a condescending eye. "Mother's been in two fights in the past month."

"Our queen can hardly be compared to any of the others," he dismissed, "she's entirely unique."

Aegis scribbled more translations onto her tablet. With so much attention on her brother, she was only translating one word at a time, and not truly reading it. "Are you trying to say none of the other queens are unique? I think Fluffy would disagree."

"Assuming it had the capacity to do so," he shot back with a smug grin. "But come on. I don't presume to tell mother what to do, but at least the other queens know they're too important to risk the dangers of the battlefield. What do you think we're here for? _And_ they command via just the hive mind or through puppets."

Aegis tsked at him, but said nothing as she worked for a few minutes. "I still think we drones are better off with female forms if we're going to be soldiers."

"Combat doctrine dictates mixed forces often achieve better results than homogeneous armies. It's a scientific fact. Just look at the win-loss ratio of wars against Stripped Gear." His tone was as dry as college instructor. "Both genders have advantages in combat which is why soldiers are prioritized if we wish to exchange a sausage for a taco, and vice versa." He sighed heavily. "But I know for a fact you stayed the same because you're more interested in sex than anything else. You sleep with at least three to four siblings a week, and should I even bother mentioning the five ponies you've bedded with since we arrived at Canterlot, or does that go without saying?"

"You're just mad because you miss the female side of sex," He scoffed at her, but Aegis knew it wasn't a denial. Even so, she decided to have mercy on him. "I still don't know why so many of them only want hetero, what's up with that?"

Riposte looked at her as if she was wearing a dunce cap. "You can't possibly be that dense. Could it be, oh I don't know, because their society is structured around unchangeable genders maybe?"

"Sucks to be them then. If it wasn't for the one month waiting period I'd try a sausage out just see how it is." Any further banter caught in her throat as she actually read what she had just translated. "Quit your nagging and take a look at this."

I cannot carry on anymore. The scale of what we've done. The lives we ruined and destroyed both deliberate and accidental haunts me to this day. The others just want to forget, to live on guilt-free. I tried to tell them that we must carry this pain, so that we never repeat the mistake, but I am ignored. They choose to embrace the change where my brother and I wallow in misery about it. I miss having fur, to feel the soft touch of a lover's warmth, to enjoy the grass beneath the moonlight.

All we are left with is this hard soulless shell. When Fer'dath, Night Mother bless his soul, tried to comfort me last eve, all I could feel was his hard unyielding shell against mine. There was no room for tenderness, because of these cursed forms. The others are leaving. The sun worshippers' mining encroaches and we will not reveal ourselves. Me because of my shame, them because they do not want to risk discovery to our food source.

Food.

Is that what the sun worshippers are to us now?

Sure my body requires bread and water, but the addiction we tried so hard to free ourselves from was replaced by the life energy of these equids. If that was not damning enough, those things my body kept producing are eggs. I kept the first few out of morbid curiosity before disposing of the others, as did the rest of us.

They… hatched. What I saw was a collection of insects in a mockery of my already horrid form. That was when I finally knew what must be done. Our hubris has damned us, and now we wear our sins. I must kill the others. To keep them from spreading this evil we have become into the world.

The others destroy everything of our past so they can forget the horrors we unleashed on that ill fated day. But I will never forget that my heart, soul, and sanity were left behind in Rookhaven. Since my kin are so keen on forgetting their crimes, then I will slay them all, so that they will never have a chance to repeat them.

May my atonement see my soul to the Silver City.

Riposte furrowed his brow. "Well that was dark. But at least we finally have a place's name."

"Sure, do." Aegis pumped a hoof in celebration. Hey Intel, you still at the Canterlot Royal Library?

I was just about to leave for Pinkie's party, why?

Sorry to hold you up, but could you ask around if anypony's ever heard of… she ran a hoof along her notes to find the name again. Rookhaven.

Riposte grumbled to himself. _Am I the only one who actually_ wants _to improve his martial skills?_

Intel was greatly intrigued. Sounds like ancient Thessian, the dead language of the Thestrals.

And how do _you_ know that? Riposte demanded.

The librarian in the Star Swirl wing is a Thestral, and she showed me some fascinating stuff about her tribe's ancient history. You wouldn't know it by their reputation, but Thestrals are actually very friendly ponies. I even invited her to Pinkie's party. He turned to face his new friend who was begging one of the guards to cover for her.

Riposte threw his forelegs in the air. That's it, I give up. I'm going to go spar.

Riposte! Don't you know what this means? Aegis asked incredulously. He shrugged uncaringly as he levitated his sheathed sword over. Having been thoroughly dismissed, Aegis groaned before refocusing on Intel. If I did the translations correctly, and I always do, she added with shameless pride, then this means our original ancestors were Thestrals!

Intel waved at his new friend as she finally convinced the guard to lock up the wing for the day. He kept a friendly face despite being disheartened by the discovery. I hope you're wrong about that, Aegis.

 _Momma's going to mark me for future rebirth for sure! Maybe I'll even get to be reborn as a princess when we're ready to have one!_ Aegis was hardly perturbed by his dour tone and started dancing and singing around the room. Why? This is exactly what we've been looking for! We just need to ask Luna to let mother go grab some artifacts from the homeland, and _boom_ she secures the all rights to her crown, it's a win-win!

Sure, if it weren't for the fact that the Thestrals' original homelands are overrun by the chaos spawn.

Aegis's Buzzing Victory Dance of Historic Discovery was cut painfully short. Wait, what? You're kidding me right?

Intel waited patiently for his thestral friend to grab her bags. She gave him an apologetic lopsided grin as she tried to hurry. Afraid not. Unless Luna's willing to give up a whole shuttle bay's worth of artifacts to satisfy the queens, assuming she has any, we're down a boiler without a wrench.

Aegis' dream of future queenhood went crashing into the ground. Oh boy… Momma is not going to like this.


	22. Chapter 22

Phoenix's Roost part 1

Eight days after Aegis' discovery, Twilight sent out a complete record of her findings to the Home Guard, who then copied it and sent one out to each queen. Chrysalis sat upon an ebony throne, deep within her hive. It was an exactly replica of the one in the Summit chamber; a constant reminder of her goals. A dozen scrolls bearing the broken seal of Twilight Sparkle sat off to the side with one of their number wrapped in the dark queen's magic as she read it.

Her middle sister, Jstrul paced slowly to the left side as she read her own copy of Twilight's letters. A dangerous smile smeared her lips. "This is almost too perfect. Our real homeland is far to the north right in the heart of the chaos lands? May she die in this venture and rid us of a future obstacle."

Chrysalis remained more or less neutral. "I suppose. It will delay the acquisition of authentic artifacts, but that can wait until Equestria is under heel. After that, we'll have all the time in the world to claim what is ours. If Twilight somehow succeeds, then she'll have gotten the hard part done for us."

"Either way, we win in the end."

"Of course we will." Chrysalis discarded the scroll while communing with her hive mind. She kept enough focus here to continue speaking. "How has your alchemical research been progressing?"

Jstrul balled up her scroll in a brief flash of anger. "Entirely scrapped. After my spies witnessed the _Phoenix_ using its smallest weapons to disable a semi-fortified position, everything I've been working on is garbage. I need time to restart from scratch."

Chrysalis hummed in contemplation. The loss of thousands of drones meant nothing to her, but victory still mattered. "Don't worry yourself about it too much, dear sister, but don't rely purely on research. The jungle teaches much, and may have an answer to Twilight's firesticks."

"I have actually seen a few creatures out there that could prove useful, but I did not think I had the time to use them."

"Originally, no." Chrysalis replied coyly as she left her throne to walk towards her sister. "But my spies report Queen Twilight's hiveship just left Canterlot airspace, interestingly she's not heading north, but south towards the Everfree Forest. A treaty was annouced barely three hours ago that ultimately amounts to Celestia giving all land rights of the Everfree to Twilight Sparkle."

"The forest?" She grunted approvingly. "If there is anywhere on Equis that can come close to the inhospitality of the jungle, it is that forest. Perhaps Twilight Sparkle truly has the heart of a queen after all. The soft lands of the rest of the country are unworthy of a hive."

"My thoughts exactly, sister." Chrysalis nodded warmly at Jstrul. "Plus her integration with Equestria is to be expected, really. While I believe her efforts to pacify the ponies' fear of changelings will eventually work to our advantage, we can't afford to underestimate Twilight. She's not going to the Chaos Lands unprepared, and that means she's going to spend the next year or so consolodating her strength."

"A pity no one thought to include a time limit in her little quest. If the ponies have one thing over us, it's the wisdom to possess a sense of urgency." Jstrul tapped her scroll. "Thestrals though? I knew our similarities to ponies were a little odd, but I never expected this of all things."

"It _is_ quite interesting," Chrysalis agreed with a rare warm if toothy grin. "Polybia will probably be squirming in her nest, but I for one find this a fascinating discovery."

"That we originated from the same beings we feed upon as food? Frankly it leaves a sour taste in my mouth."

Chrysalis chortled while wrapping a loving foreleg around her sister. "You're not looking at the whole picture, Jstrul. Twilight's findings are not an insult, but grand flattery!"

Jstrul arched an eyebrow at her elder sister. "You almost sound like you actually _approve_ of Twilight now."

"It's a step in the right direction, at least. That furry royal just proved once and for all that our foremothers were a bunch of ponies who got the right idea to improve themselves. You and I, sweet sister, are the culmination of all their efforts. Along with every other royal alive today."

Jstrul arched a sardonic eyebrow at her sister's theatrics. "Even Yumia's bloodline?"

"She forgot what true power is," Chrysalis lamented as she separated from her kin. "It's a pity really. Had she known of this fact beforehoof, I would have avoided being so… overzealous with Yumia's assassination. Changing yourself to be closer to the first mother in body is a noble goal, don't you agree?"

"Perhaps." Jstrul cantered over to a bowl of fruit that a drone had brought in. She picked up a bundle of flare cherries, Chrysalis' favorite, and levitated it over to her sister. "Perhaps Yumia was indeed on the correct path for our evolution, but her reasons were wrong." Chrysalis hummed inquisitively between bites of her food. "By accepting a weaker evolutionary line along their physical power, it forced them to find power in another form."

"You're referring to their lifeless technology of metal and steam," Chrysalis ate the last of her cherries. "When you put it that way, I can see the merit. If that had been Yumia's intentions all along, I would seriously reconsider my stance on her. Yet Yumia wanted fur to better publically integrate with our food, and that sort of mentality needs to be stamped out before another royal of her bloodline can hatch."

"So what do we do about Cadista and Twilight Sparkle?"

A second drone wordlessly flew over with cloth and wax. Chrysalis sat back down on her throne while the drone went to work cleaning and buffing its queen's shell. "We have to kill Cadista, she still holds fast to her mother's ideals, and wants me dead because of it. Twilight however… could be turned to see the true path of our collective future. She is still a young queen, and with the right persuasion, it should prove possible to have her see things our way."

Chrysalis summoned another drone to groom her sister. "You're wings are looking a bit brittle, allow me."

"Thank you, sister. It's all that time I've spent in the laboratory, I haven't had any real opportunity to go flying lately. At any rate, I highly doubt Twilight will ever see us as anything other than enemies. Why waste time on her?"

"Because, sweet sister, it is our duty as queens to ensure our race's continued survival and rise to power. If Yumia's methods ever end up succeeding over us, it will be through Twilight Sparkle. All that's necessary is to make sure she conducts herself as a queen should, not the coddling ways of Yumia and Cadista."

Jstrul sighed in contentment as her wings were massaged and meticulously tended to. "It will be impossible to influence Twilight ourselves, or so long as Cadista draws breath."

A conniving sneer split Chrysalis' muzzle. "We can handle Cadista, but I'm thinking a certain red queen could enlighten dear Twilight of the true changeling path. Only then will our race's future be assured."

* * *

Rainbow Dash was not a happy camper. Her joints ached, her wings itched horribly, and she had a stabbing headache. The _Phoenix_ had few sickbays, and unfortunately Resta's was the closest one.

Aegis hefted the ailing pegasus on her back as she brought her into the medlab. "Aegy, I told you, I'm just a little ill. Nothing a little cider and bed rest can't fix."

"Aunty, you've got a lump on your head and open sores on your front fetlocks, and you have no idea how they got there."

"I just fell down some stairs." Rainbow grunted in an attempt to get off Aegis' back, but the drone kept her in place with her wings. "I don't want to see Resta. She'll stick me in bed for months and I'll die of boredom."

Aegis could see Resta's door, and picked up the pace. "You're going to end up dying anyway if you let those sores get infected, and I am _not_ going to let that happen."

"Just don't tell Twilight, okay? She's got enough going on with the princesses onboard."

"If this is as serious as I think it is, momma's going to want to know." Aegis busted through the door to find Resta washing the salve off a recently injured drone and applying gauze. "Resta, you gotta take a look at Aunty. She's in bad shape."

The medic took one look at Rainbow groggy face and rolled her eyes. "I told you to let me examine you, but did you listen to me? Noooo." She faced her current patient. "Stay off that leg for a day or two or I'll have to put it in a cast."

The young drone was barely out of the chrysalis and looked at Rainbow's weakened form. "Yeah, sure, is Aunty Dash going to be okay?"

"Don't worry, she's probably just overdosed on cider." _Normally not possible, but with her…_ However, any and all smugness evaporated after taking her first good look at Rainbow. Purple salve coated the mare's front fetlocks, she was breathing a little heavily, a couple sky blue feathers had fallen to the floor, and a quick inspection revealed a prominent bump on her forehead.

"What in the world happened?" Resta asked Aegis as she telekinetically lifted Rainbow up to set her properly on the examination table.

"I don't know," Aegis replied worriedly. "I hadn't heard a peep from her since yesterday morning. I go to her room, and she's sleeping in her bed with blood oozing out of her sores and at least a dozen loose feathers on her bed."

Resta saw one of the nurses walking by and pinged her over the Link. Bandaid, I need equipment for a manascope and to take a blood sample. "Hold on, Aunty, you're in good hooves."

"I'm just molting okay? It happens to all pegasi."

"But molting can also be a sign of serious infection. Aegis, tell mother what's going on, she's going to want to see this."

* * *

The Royal Sisters, and Queen Twilight Sparkle were standing in one of the underbelly observation blisters as the _Phoenix_ slowed to a halt near the ruins of Castle Everfree. Twilight was casting a spell to give an overlay of the surrounding landscape. "I'm thinking of restoring the castle to be a historic landmark, or possibly a library."

"You might find restoring it as a library to be a worthwhile task," Luna commented. "As you may remember, there are several enchanted bookshelves that keep any tome resting upon them safe from the ravages of time."

"The forest has always had a constant stream of free-flowing mana, so the enchantments have never faded," Celestia added. "Blueblood's actions have also proven to be a boon in another way." All eyes turned towards her and then to her hoof as she pointed to a familiar cave not too far to the east of the castle. "Ever since Discord's plunder vines nearly killed the Tree of Harmony, I have been concerned that something else might bring harm to it. As such, I was hoping I could entrust its protection to you, Twilight."

"I would be honored, Celestia." She rubbed her chin with a wing for a few minutes as she consulted with her urban planners. "If it's okay with you, I would like to expand the cavern to become my new hatchery. It's already a facility that would need very high security."

"I see no problem with it," Luna nodded, "that would insure the tree's wellbeing is always being looked after. But what about food? It might take a while to clear enough forest for agriculture, or an industrial base to trade for it."

"You remember that other ship I requested passage for?"

Celestia looked up to think. "The… _Golden Harvest_ if I'm not mistaken. By its name, I'm assuming its to assist in farming."

"It's actually a giant floating greenhouse that is able to produce enough food for five hundred changelings a year. Granted that's hardly enough, but it can ease our food imports a little."

"Well don't forget Twilight, our treaty allows both of us to freely aid the other." Celestia was especially proud of winning the public over for that addition. "Equestria will be more than happy to send whatever aid you need to get started."

"Thank you, Celestia. I must admit, I'm glad I was able to avoid having to surrender my title. It would feel rather silly to be a queen, but not hold the title."

"You've more than earned it already, Twilight Sparkle," Luna declared firmly. "You've discovered your tribe's origins. To think your kind used to be my Thestrals. Strange how time muddles things."

"If you don't mind, princesses, I'd like to get started building right away."

"You don't need to ask us for permission, Twilight." Celestia smiled graciously at Twilight's humility. "This is your queendom now, after all."

Twilight tittered at herself. "Sorry, old habits die hard."

With a single command, twenty shuttles and a cloud of drones descended upon the forest below to begin clearing space for the hiveship to land.

The crews barely reached the ground when Aegis hit Twilight with a high priority ping. Aegis? What's wrong?

Something's happening to Aunty Rainbow. She's sick or something and it's an illness Resta's never even heard of.

Aegis wasn't one to panic, hence her position as Captain of the Guard, but the terror in her tone gave Twilight a cold sweat and a sense of dread to match. Stay with her, I'm on my way.

Luna caught on to Twilight's plummeting mood while her sister was distracted by the dense activity below. "Twilight, is something wrong?"

"Rainbow's sick, and it sounds serious. I have to see if she'll be okay."

Celestia pulled herself away from the window and shared a knowing look with her sister. "We'll come too. Dame Rainbow Dash has done much for everypony."

"And we would like to lend what support we can," Luna finished for her elder sister.

"Thank you, I just hope its not as serious as Aegis is making it out to be."

* * *

With all of the activity with the deployment of the hive, the three royal mares couldn't safely teleport to the medlab, so they ran as fast their legs could carry them. The Link was abuzz with news about Rainbow Dash, but ultimately, they had to get back to work.

Twilight made it to the sickbay in less than ten minutes with the alicorns right behind her. Aegis was holding one of Rainbow's fore hooves while a heart monitor beeped rhythmically as the sleeping pegasus rested thanks to a sleep spell. Twilight's irises shrank to pinpricks at the sight of Rainbow Dash being on a respirator. Resta was using her probulator to isolate the problem, and writing down the results on a clipboard. The troubled look on her face cast the whole room into a somber tone.

Standing orders of Twilight's medical staff was that if they were with a patient, they did not need to stand or acknowledge her so they could be free to tend to the patient. Even so, Resta gave a resigned sigh and bowed her head to the approaching royalty, with Aegis doing the same.

Twilight bit her lower lip and went over to gently rub her friend's mane. "Resta, what's wrong with her?"

The medic scanned the results of her instruments. "The patient's nervous system is showing signs of stage two love withdrawal, so I've kept Captain Aegis nearby to stabilize her. There's no infection, viruses, physical parasites, or diseases (pony or otherwise) that I can see. If I'm reading this right, I think she contracted a curse somehow." She gave the chart over to her queen. "The patient's mana is being syphoned off at an alarming rate. From what I can tell, it's being used by some kind of enchantment that has encompassed her entire body, and it's changing her biochemistry to the point where she's having difficulty metabolizing oxygen. The weirdest thing is, this curse, at least I think it's a curse, almost has the same signature as your magic."

The alicorns gave Twilight a confused look, with Twilight giving a stronger one as she stood up. "W-what? What do you mean _my_ signature?"

"It's what the manascope tells me. My field is in medicine, not magic. Outside of easing her pain and putting her on life support, this is out of my element. But whatever you do, I suggest doing it quickly. I put her to sleep to ward off the pain, but the magic seems to become more and more active the longer she sleeps."

"Then let me take a look at you manascope readings," Twilight all but demanded.

"Of course," Resta took the clipboard off the foot of the bed and flipped to the right page before handing it over. "As I said, it almost matches your signature, but there are key differences that make me think someone was trying to emulate you."

Luna and Celestia crowded behind Twilight to investigate the data. Celestia's brow furrowed in concentration. "I remember seeing something like this when I came to visit you when you were still undergoing rebirth, Twilight."

"You're right…" Twilight gasped at a realization. "This isn't a curse. She's alchemically active!"

"How is that possible?" Luna inquired worriedly.

"I –I don't know." Twilight sat on her rump as she tried to make sense of it all. "I only ever use alchemy on eggs or a rebirthing drone. As soon as I stop casting, the alchemy is set in stone, and only rebirth can break that. Plus, I gave you the circlet weeks ago so it could be kept in the castle vaults."

Aegis tried to comfort her aunt with a hoof. "The data says the signature's different than normal. Could it be something left behind by the circlet, maybe?"

"I don't see how. Rainbow was alchemically inert when I took the circlet off." That eased some of Aegis' worries, but that didn't solve Rainbow's problem.

Luna stepped back to pace around an empty patient bed to ponder the issue. She stopped when an idea hit her. "Wait, I remember since coming onboard that Miss Rainbow Dash has a fondness for royal jelly food items. Could that be tied to this?"

Twilight shook her head after a moment. "No. The only thing close would be one of RJ's key ingredients: glucono delta-lactone . It's used in a number of different foods, but it acts like an enzyme during alchemy to help accelerate the process. By itself, it shouldn't be doing anything to Rainbow because whatever alchemy was done to her by the circlet locked in place the moment I took it off her."

Celestia tried to think of anything that could reveal the answer. _I've seen plenty of manascopes in my day, and I'm familiar enough with Twilight to know this isn't her doing. Even if it was in her character to do this, the signature is off._

The manascope's data was depicted in a line graph, with spikes of high and low points, detailing both the signature and the type of magic at work. Much of it was alien to Celestia due to her inexperience with alchemy, but the more she looked at it, the more something didn't add up. As to what it _was_ supposed to mean, Celestia could not fathom.

Resta spied bruising around the center of the bulge on rainbow's forehead and gathered a sponge right as the skin split open to make room for the growing horn. "Aegis, use this to keep the blood from getting everywhere, but only use very light pressure. I have to see what my other test results came up with."

"Sure thing, doc." Aegis couldn't contain her guilt trip as she worked. _Oh, Aunty. I'm so so sorry. Why did I have to pick up that_ stupid _circlet! WHY! What was I thinking!?_ Her self-deprecation came to a screeching halt when she noticed something weird about the tip of the horn poking through. "No wa – huh? It… It's blue. Why is it blue?" She dabbed a little more of the blood away before facing the royal trio. "My queen, something weird's going on. Shouldn't Auntie's horn be purple like ours?"

 _She's not supposed to have a horn at all,_ Twilight fumed. The meaning of Aegis' query clicked a split second late. "Wait, what?" She rushed over to inspect the tiny piece of ivory poking out as the fur and skin started to sink back to the skull, revealing more of the small horn. As Aegis said, the horn was sky blue, just like the rest of Rainbow's fur below the neck. Twilight looked down to the base of Rainbow's neck to find the lavender fur was retreating up towards her head.

Celestia saw it too, and that's when the final piece fell into place. "The monastery!" Everyone looked at her, forcing Celestia to compose herself after the outburst. "Rainbow Dash said the PCE tried to cure her by using a machine, but it ultimately did nothing, correct?"

Twilight caught her old mentor's meaning. "Those weird spikes in the manascope! Those are only created by crystal arrays. That machine must have warped the alchemy the circlet inflicted, and it has been active ever since!"

"Then that would mean Dame Rainbow Dash's recent love of that new cider has been accelerating it," Luna concluded.

 _Well isn't that ironic,_ Aegis grumbled, those bigots try to cure her, and end up making her **more** changeling. "Is there any way you can stop it, my queen?"

"I wouldn't dare try," Twilight balked before explaining herself. "The thing is, alchemy is a _strictly_ controlled process. I would have to map out every last fragment of what's being done to her first and then try to find a way to preserve what pony there is left in her. If I tried to stop it, it could leave her heart half reformed or cause other defects to pop up."

Celestia sighed and squeezed her muzzle. _This is the last thing we need after making so much headway._ "How long would you need?"

"A century or seven," Twilight barely restrained herself from kicking the bed. "Assuming it could be done in the first place."

"Is there truly nothing that can be done?" Luna asked, grasping at straws.

Twilight had to leverage all of her royal training to stay focused on the problem instead of worrying about her friend. "Since that machine in the monastery was destroyed I have no way of knowing _how_ it reactivated the alchemy, let alone what it changed. What about the doctor and nurse who worked on that cure ray of theirs?"

Luna's mood soured intensely, only barely noticing Resta's silent return. The medic's expression had not improved. "One of my Night Guards slipped by Shining Armor's investigations and assassinated those two before being arrested. Apparently he was acting alone so their research couldn't be used to create a counter agent. Insanity knows no bounds it seems."

The conversation sputtered out after Luna's dismal observation. Ideas raced through Twilight's mind, but she shot down every one of them as unfeasible. It was mirrored by the alicorns, but ultimately the tricky nature of alchemy refused to be denied. With that realization, Celestia pushed past her fellow royals to gaze morosely at Rainbow Dash, and a guilt riddled Aegis at her side.

"I think…" Celestia began, drawing attention on herself. "That this is Rainbow Dash's decision." She turned around to face her sister and former student. "Ultimately this is her life, and I will not allow politics to dictate that."

Luna and Twilight slowly nodded in silent agreement. "Very well. Resta, remove the sleep spell while I shunt whatever pain she feels over the hive mind," Twilight said.

A few moments later, Rainbow Dash's eye cracked open to find her princesses and two changelings standing over her. It didn't take long to notice the monitors, oxygen mask, four very concerned faces, and the neutral one of her doctor. "Give it to me straight doc, how long do I have?" she chuckled in a dry wheeze, failing in her attempt to inject some humor.

Resta glanced over her readings to be sure. "I give you forty eight hours." Her dry medical tone brooked no argument. "Her body's entering a stage where key metabolic processes are being shut down to make the conversation from pony to changeling. The only way to save her life is to put her into a chrysalis and let the incubator take over full life support. I'd rather not go into what will happen if we don't in present company."

"That's what I always liked about you Resta, your bedside manner is totally spot on." After Rainbow's instinctive sarcasm failed to hit the mark, Resta's statement finally broke through. "What do you mean from pony to Ling?"

Celestia walked over to Rainbow's side and laid a comforting hoof on her chest. "We have a few things to explain."

* * *

"And that's when we woke you up," Celestia ended quietly.

Rainbow was sitting up in bed, and staring absently at the blue primary feather in her hooves. The oxygen mask bothered her insistently, but Aegis kept batting any hooves that tried to remove it. The ailing pony toyed with her lost feather; admiring its strength, resiliently, and color. The room was silent around her save for the rhythmic beeping of the monitors. Fear gripped her heart as steadfast as the alchemy coursing through her veins. Even her mind had gone blank of everything except for that long blue feather.

Twilight was doing an admirable job holding back tears, but Aegis was far less successful. "I'm sorry, Aunty. If we had caught this a few days ago, there might have been some of your untouched pony genetics to work with to stop or at least reverse this someday."

"So… this was my fault." Rainbow stated flatly as she remember the past couple of weeks. She closed her eyes as hot tears escaped her. "I'm going to lose my wings, the Wonderbolts, and any chance to have a foal, **ALL BECAUSE I WAS TOO DAMN STUBBORN!** "

She refused to weep. Not her. Not the Lieutenant of the Wonderbolts. And yet, her body betrayed her; and every time another feather fell away was an additional knife in her heart.

Aegis was afraid to touch her, for fear of causing further pain or embarrassment. Luna however, had the courage to do so. "Lieutenant Rainbow Dash. I may not have the power to do more, but I can assure you, your place within the Wonderbolt will remain your own. Changeling or not, you _earned_ your uniform and every bar of that rank. I will not let that be taken away from you."

"B-but how is that f-fair to everypony else if I get special treatment from you, P-princess?" Rainbow hated herself for her emotional stammering, but fought through it.

"Is it?" Luna challenged, "Or am I simply leveling the playing field? I have always wanted to curb the influence the aristocracy has over the military, and now is the perfect time to start. I will still require you to be able to fly like a Wonderbolt however," she remarked, playing at Rainbow's pride. "I've heard you created your own version of the Bolts right here on this ship with Twilight's drones. I also heard you planned to have some of them compete in Equestrian flying competitions."

Luna let the sentence hang, giving Rainbow time to think, time to pull herself out of the depression she was mired in before she had a chance to sink too far. Of everyone there, Luna knew first hand on what sort of darkness that kind of depression could bring out of a pony.

Rainbow looked over to Aegis' wings. _None of them fly as good as the Bolts, but none of them are even five years old yet. Maybe if I had to have wings like that…_ She looked up to Aegis' face to find she was an emotional train wreck. Her tail was wrapped around her waist, her eyes were puffy, dark lines of wet fur ran down her cheeks, her ears were folded back, but she didn't whimper, physically.

It was something Rainbow hated to see, and something just clicked into place that made her open her forelegs for a hug. Aegis hesitated just long enough for the gesture to register to everyone in the room before she threw herself into Rainbow's forelegs. She couldn't hold the tears back anymore and sobbed into Rainbow's fur. "I'm so sorry, A-a-aunty. I should never have gotten you that stupid circlet! None of this would have happened if I just left it alone. I'm sorry, I'm sorry." She couldn't think of anything else to say but to apologize over and over.

"Hey, hey, hey, it's not like I'm dying, right?" Rainbow asked as she stroked Aegis's mane.

"So long as you don't take too long jumping a pod you won't," Resta quipped dryly. "Or are you going to ignore that until the last minute too?"

Twilight scowled at the shameless drone. "Resta, do I have to order you to retake bedside manner courses?"

She shrank back a bit, finally realizing her normal mannerisms would get her in serious trouble. "I'm not lying. Her health will fail if she doesn't enter a pod."

Rainbow ultimately ignored the medic when Aegis got ahold of herself. The Guard Captain pulled out of the hug to wipe her tears away. "Why am I crying? I should be the one comforting you."

"Because I've long since forgiven you, Aegis. It was an accident. A really bad one, yeah, but your heart was in the right place." _Maybe… maybe I don't need my own foal. Why bother when I have all these awesome drones that look up to me. I mean, its to be expected really, but they all look up to me like a second-_ Her tears fell away to give rise to determination. "Princess Luna, I can't accept your offer, but thanks anyway."

"Your service to Equestria has been exemplary, Rainbow Dash. It would be criminal to let them expel you."

Celestia stood by her sister's side. "I agree wholeheartedly, but…" Experience told Celestia that she was wasting her breath. "I feel you still won't let us."

Rainbow tried not to think about her wings and all the lost feathers on the bed. "Since I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't, I have to go full Ling. I'll go up to Spitfire personally and ask to stay. If she says no, then…" Rainbow tried with every ounce of stubborn pride she had to keep her voice level. "I admit, I have always hated all the ones who got in just because of their bloodlines. I couldn't stand wearing the uniform if somepony else simply gave it to me... I want to have earned it, with all of my worth."

"Even if it's being unjustly taken from you?" Twilight managed to finally say. "You're giving up your dream."

"Am I?" Rainbow tried to stand, but her muscles refused to obey properly and the oxygen mask pulled her back down. "How can I say I'm living the dream when I can't fly like I used to because I have to adjust to new wings? The Bolts are the masters of the sky, and I won't drag them down just because I've got friends in high places. Just give me a few years. By then, the hive will have earned public trust, and I'll be the best bug in the sky, and then I'll get to be the first changeling Wonderbolt!"

"I guess that would make you a historic figure," Aegis commented, trying to keep Rainbow's spirits up.

"Hey that's right," Twilight replied, catching onto her daughter's strategy. "That means you'd be a question on the Wonderbolts' test someday!"

"Huzzah," Rainbow deadpanned with a sharp wince of pain before it was bled into the hive mind. "It's getting a little hard to breathe."

"Then we mustn't tarry," Luna stated curtly. "The longer we wait, the closer to death's door you become."

"Right. Resta, prep Rainbow to be moved to the nursery. I've already given the order to prepare a chrysalis."

With Aegis and Resta hefting Rainbow Dash on a stretcher, Twilight led them all to the nursery. Numerous drones along the hallways watched the group pass by with worried looks, but the mobilization of the engineering corps demanded everyone's attention, and they could not linger for long.

By the time they reached the nursery, Rainbow's pod was ready to receive her. Celestia and Luna had never been to the nursery before. In a way, it was simply a much larger version of the hatchery with lavender chrysalises covering the entire room with racks of them filling every millimeter of space with feed lines snaking between each one. Each rack had a walkway large enough for the chrysalis to be removed and placed in a clear area so the emerging mature drone had space to hatch.

The chrysalis that awaited Rainbow was just like all the others, purple wax with three caretakers putting the finishing touches on the lower half. A thick rubber tube snaked from the wall and into the bottom of the chrysalis. A line of twelve nymphs were standing by the showers as the caretakers cleaned them before being put in chrysalises of their own.

Leaving one caretakers to watch over the nymphs, they wordlessly took Rainbow off her stretcher and bathed her, much to the pegasus' annoyance. However Rainbow was familiar enough with the process after having watched hundreds of nymphs being prepared.

Even so, she was still greatly apprehensive when she was placed within the empty chrysalis roughly four times bigger than she was. The apprehension only heightened when purple liquid started flowing through the hose and began rising up. Um, Twi, are you sure this stuff is safe to breath? I have a sudden fear of drowning.

You'll be fine Rainbow, it's oxygenated and thin enough and to be usable with lungs. Trust me, I breathed the same thing when I was reborn, only it was orange back then.

Rainbow could feel the fluid worm its way into her fur and what remained of her feathers. When it was up to her neck Twilight levitated the oxygen mask off her friend. Terror started setting in when the liquid reached her mouth, but Twilight sent calming thoughts to her, cutting off the anxiety before it became a panic attack. Rainbow let herself sink to the bottom and let go of her last breath before her lungs were filled with the purple fluid. She passed out within moments. Soon afterwards, the caretakers sealed the chrysalis at the top so that there was no air in it and moved the pod into the racks with a specially modified crane.

Aegis and the Royal Sisters watched on in silence while Twilight stood on the catwalk as she placed a hoof on Rainbow's pod. "Come sister, we should return to Canterlot. Dame Rainbow Dash is in good hooves."

Celestia nodded. "I don't know what will come of this, but I hope it will not further tarnish public opinion."

"We have time to prepare for the fallout this time around at least," Luna commented. She faced Aegis who had recomposed herself. "Captain Aegis, it is my understanding that Twilight needed a close guide when she was reborn. While I expect Twilight to do what she can, she _does_ have a hive to build and rule. Can I entrust Rainbow Dash's acclimation to you?"

"As if you even need to ask, your highness." while her words were sarcastic, her tone was forceful and respectful all at once.

"Good. Tell your queen we will be departing soon, when she's ready." Celestia sighed inwardly as she guided her sister to the hangar where the royal chariot awaited. _May Rainbow Dash find the same joy in her new form that Twilight has._


	23. Chapter 23

Phoenix's Roost part 2

Five weeks blasted by in a whirlwind of activity, with Twilight right in the center of it. The Everfree Forest now sported a large swath of semi cleared land. Now, buildings rose in-between a number of trees that had been allowed to remain to give the growing hive some greenery.

Twilight hovered high above the forest as she studied the massive scaffolding that was being built around the _Phoenix_ as it hovered inside the ravine near Everfree Castle. Her drones swarmed around the structure making sure everything was in order. Engineer group Alpha reporting the support beams along the Cliffside are holding.

Bravo reporting weight equalization achieved, we're ready for engine shutdown.

Twilight received a dozen other reports from all over the ship. Ratchet, you may proceed.

Aye, my queen. One by one, Ratchet shut down the main boilers. The great propellers along the hiveship's underbelly gradually lost their lavender aura and continued to slow with each successive shut down. The scaffolding began to groan under the weight as support of the Phoenix's mass was transferred from the engines to the great skeletal framework, but held strong. The process continued until all power had been cut from the engines. The lavender aura was gone and the propellers rested silent and unmoving. Looks like a complete success, my queen. We'll start bringing power lines out.

Good. Alright everyone, stage two is officially complete. Let's make sure everything is running off ship's power before throwing an all-day celebration.

Cheers and songs of joy resounded through the hive mind, but a ping upon Twilight's mind brought her attention to it in an instant. It was Gear Ratio. My queen, Rainbow's voice grows restless; she should be waking any moment now.

Understood. Gentle Touch, I want you to manage things while I'm busy.

As you wish, my queen.

Twilight teleported down to the cave where the Tree of Harmony resided without a moment's hesitation. The cave walls had a crystal shell that was reinforced by the tree's magic, making it an impenetrable barrier to anyone except for members of Twilight's hive and the princesses. No spells could penetrate the wall, but Twilight was able to pass through as if it were air.

The sound of buzzing wings behind her heralded Aegis' arrival. "I thought you were on patrol across Froggy Bottom Bog?"

"Riposte can handle it. After the last hydra we took down, it's quiet out there. Not even the timber wolves will try anything when the Clockwerks are with us."

 _Of all of my children, she is the one closest to RD._ "Alright, she'll probably want to see you anyway."

"Thank you, my queen."

Both changelings hurried down the long ramp that led them deep into the earth. The tunnel was based out of an old diamond dog tunnel system, but Aegis had long since driven them off and sealed the countless tunnels and warded them to secure the hatchery complex within the space of three weeks. Thus far, only the ground had been flattened and paved while work on reinforcing the rest of the tunnel was still underway.

A fork in the tunnel split the facility between the primary hatchery and the nursery, with the pair going on the right to the nursery. Pipes cannibalized from the _Phoenix_ snaked along the ceiling of the tunnel until they reached the vast chamber of the nursery which held every single chrysalis for the past year. While the nursery was capable of housing five thousand chrysalises, there were barely over a thousand of them clinging to the walls and drab brown stone pillars.

One in particular was being lowered by crane to the hatching area. Twilight could hear Rainbow's hibernating mind stirring, but it was still lethargic. A few other caretakers were helping several other drones hatch, but Twilight wanted to handle Rainbow's personally.

She gently pinged Rainbow's mind to break some of the drowsiness. The former pegasus fidgeted in her chrysalis. Twilight repeated this process until she felt Rainbow was conscious enough to understand her. Wake up. She sensed confusion emanating from the chrysalis. Wake up.

The figure in the lavender pod moved. Wake up, Rainbow Dash.

Aegis stood close by and watched with intense fascination. She had never seen the waking process from the outside before. It was not every day that their queen came down to nursery, so the hatchlings watched on in silence with the caretakers doing the same, only they knew this was far more than an unusual occurrence.

Twilight felt Rainbow awaken fully. She quickly sent calming thoughts to keep a sudden case of claustrophobia at bay. Alright, RD. Break free.

Being naturally more inclined to act first and think later, Rainbow complied and slammed her hoof against the hard wax, but to no avail. Twilight planted her hoof on her face. Try using your horn, Rainbow Dash, you have one now.

Rainbow was too groggy to reply verbally, so she obeyed without question. Her first horn stab cracked the wax along the top of the chrysalis, with the second having her horn break through. A third finally saw Rainbow's head smash completely through into the open air.

Just as every changeling before her had done, she retched the lavender liquid out of her lungs until she coughed them clear for air. Without needing to be prompted, Rainbow broke down the length of her chrysalis until the rush of liquid pushed her out of the egg and right in front of Twilight Sparkle who was staring at her wide eyed. "I honestly *cough* thought trying to *hack* use the horn would hurt."

Rainbow's half sarcastic tone made Aegis hover above her queen out of pure joy. "Yes! Aunty's okay!" She couldn't help but to orbit her queen a few times singing the praises of science and the First Mother before noticing Twilight was far more stunned than exuberant.

Rainbow Dash was easily too tall to be a drone, and the moment she finally cracked open her reptilian slit eyes to look up at Twilight confirmed it. Aegis was just as slack jawed at the sight of Rainbow's eyes as everyone else in the chamber. _Aunty's a princess!? But - what - how?!_ She dropped to the ground and kicked a random rock. _Now I'll never make queen._

The little filly version of Twilight was running around in circles screaming at the top of her lungs. _No No No No No No No! She's can't be, there's no freaking way!_ She closed her eyes, counted to three, and then opened them again. _Nope still has royal eyes. Oh jeez, oh gosh, oh no no no no! RD's going to kill me!_

Rainbow's vision swam for a minute or so before she could focus on Twilight. The lavender queen was still having an internal conniption when the new princess spoke. Twilight had gotten very good at hiding those in a little personal space on the Link. "Hey-" she coughed again from trying to speak. That snapped Twilight out of her stupor.

"Here let me help you up." She wrapped the sky blue changeling in her telekinesis and lifted Rainbow to her hole-riddled hooves. "How are you feeling?"

She found herself a little shaky on her own legs, and rocked a bit before stabilizing. "Sticky and all kinds of 'bleh'."

"You remember who you are right?" Twilight asked, fearful that Rainbow might have suffered the same amnesia that had stricken her. The thought of it caused the screaming filly to pause as well, both Twilights were hanging on Rainbow Dash's answer.

"As if I could forget being the best pony… er, well, changeling now." Rainbow turned her head back to look at herself. "Sky blue fur, check, ballin cutie mark," She shook her flank for good measure. "Check, umm, bug wings."

She looked back at them, only to have her jaw drop. Instead of the red wings of Twilight's brood, their gossamer surface had a prisming effect on the white light above. Her wings took on the faint colors of the rainbow, making the newest changeling smirk in approval. "Okay, _these_ wings are forty percent cooler than your guys'. I can live with these."

She primped with them for a few seconds before moving on. "Holes, well I expected that," she said while lifting a hoof to her face. She started licking her fangs. "These feel longer." She finally registered the weight on her forehead and tapped the prominent horn attached to her. "Aaand there's the head spike, _wonderful,_ but I guess I can do magic now, so that's a plus."

"I'd be more than happy to teach you all about magic, if you want!" Twilight's inner scholar started singing the praises of learning at the slightest hint of interest. All the while the filly tried to scream at the scholar that everyone was doomed. _The other queens are going to flip, Celestia's going to freak, Luna'll probably just sigh, Mother will flip a table,_ I'm _going to flip a table! A big metal one with dinner and plates and everything imaginable!_

Rainbow was wholly ignorant of her friend's internal panic attack, even with several hairs poking out of Twilight's tail and mane. She tried to wipe the sticky purple fluid off her left cutie mark. "Great, yeah, so any chance I can wash up to get this gunk off me?"

"Oh, right, of course, showers are right this way." Twilight waved Rainbow forward, but stayed close to make sure she wouldn't fall over. The rest of the drones and caretakers split off and went about their business.

Now that Twilight was moving, Rainbow finally caught sight of Aegis. "Hey kiddo, how're you holding up?"

 _Don't mention the eyes, don't mention the eyes, oh First Mother, why?!_ "Um, n-not too bad. The hive's construction is well underway, although we've hit some serious problems with the forest's inhabitants. You can see we're not in the ship anymore."

"Oh yeah, weird." She sniffed the damp air which had the smell of egg fluid hanging heavily over her. "How long was I in that pod thing?"

"Thirty eight days, seven hours, and fifty one minutes," Twilight rattled off. "You were in there a little longer than I expected."

 _Geez, did you have a timer set while I was in there?_ Rainbow would have quipped at her friend's preciseness, but something about Aegis felt off. _There's something different about her._ She looked to Twilight. _Wait, wasn't she a lot taller than that? And… Aegis and I used to be eye level with each other._ "So did all of you shrink while I was gone, or did I grow?"

Twilight swallowed a lump in her throat. "You grew."

"But I thought all drones were roughly the same height, except for consorts. Wait, you didn't?!" she lifted a hind leg to look at her nethers, and was glad to see everything was in order. "Whew."

Then her mind registered something _was_ off and she checked again and noticed her teats were missing. "Oh, right. Insect."

"Rainbow…" Twilight found a hand mirror in the shower area and brought it over to her friend's face. "You're changeling, but you're not a drone."

The former pegasus was very happy at her reflection and took the mirror with a hoof after rocking on three legs for a second. "Oh yeah! I'm all blue again! No offense, Twi, but even _I_ couldn't rock the two color coat. What are you two so worried about? You had me thinking I came out all hideous or something." She flipped her bangs up to look at the roots. "Look's like my mane is back to normal too. All in all, I'd say I actually might have come out on top of it all."

The lavender changelings shared an incredulous look. Has she really not noticed her eyes?

Neither purple changeling knew how to put it bluntly enough, but Aegis tried her best to remain tactful. "Aunty. You have the eyes of a royal changeling."

"Huh?" Rainbow put the mirror down to look at Twilight's slitted eyes, and then to Aegis' gently glowing blue eyes. She looked back that mirror to finally realize that she didn't have normal round eyes, but the eyes of a royal. The mirror fell out of her hoof, barely being caught by Aegis, as she absently looked behind her to see the hundreds and hundreds of chrysalises. In that moment, a vision flashed in her mind where all of those lavender chrysalises were sky blue instead.

Realization hit her so hard her train of thought derailed so catastrophically that the engine went flying into the next county. "W-whyyyyy?"

Twilight nervously dragged her hoof in a circle. "If I had to guess, RD, all that jelly you were eating may or may not have reacted to the alchemy. I need to ask mother to be sure."

She knew Rainbow was not known for her patience, and Twilight was running short on supply herself, so she opened the conversation to all four of them. Mother, we have a really _really_ big problem!

I can imagine, Cadista chided. Every time you go autistic mode on me you think you've doomed the world. _She's gotten better, but it's painfully obvious that it's something serious this time._

Rainbow Dash scowled at Twilight trying to form a proper response, so she jumped in to do it for her. Yeah, so. Apparently I hatched as a princess. Any idea—"

 **You what?!** The force of Cadista's outburst gave everyone a headache, while Aegis was temporarily dazed. Please tell me this is one of your pranks, Rainbow Dash, because it is in very poor taste.

She hefted the mirror back up to her face. Nope, still royal eyes.

Everyone could just hear Cadista slump against the wall out of supreme exasperation. I remember you telling me about the nature of the alchemy affecting her, but that by itself should have turned Rainbow into a drone. You didn't happen to try and put any royal jelly into her chrysalis by chance did you?

All eyes turned to Twilight who waved her hooves defensively. "What? No. But even if I had, royal jelly alone doesn't change a drone into a royal." _Actually, mother never did tell me what_ does _convert a drone into a royal._

Cadista temporarily borrowed Aegis' eyes to survey the new princess changeling. Her control over Aegis was greatly limited due to having Twilight as a proxy, but vision was enough for her investigation. What about alcohol?

That drew almost as much of a surprise from the rest of them as Rainbow's royal status did. Wha-? No, _never!_ Why on Equis would I ever put alcohol in a chrysalis!?

Cadista sighed more to her own caution than anything else. Because a small amount of alcohol mixed into royal jelly during the alchemical process _is_ the method of elevating an egg or rebirthing drone into a royal. I have never told you that because you have concerned me greatly about your apparent lack of control over your instinct to expand the size of your hive.

"The cider!" Rainbow's eyes misted over at the profound betrayal of her favorite drink. I was drinking all that semi-hard jelly cider for weeks! She flopped onto her side and folded into a fetal position while rubbing her tail. I can't believe it's all because of the cider! Betrayed by my one true love! Whhhhyyyy?

Aegis was quick to offer moral support while Cadista glowered over her daughter; which was quite impressive for not physically being in the room. Royal jelly cider? In every other circumstance, alcohol and reproduction _don't_ mix. So what in blazes made you think fermenting jelly was a good idea?

Hey, _I_ didn't think it up, nor do I drink it while ovipariting! A few of the kids thought they could make something with the supply I kept around and I said, _'sure, why not'_.

As Cadista and Twilight bickered with each other, Aegis tried to lift Rainbow's spirits and her head at the same time. "Aunty, come on, it can't be that bad. Right? Momma loves being a queen, I'm sure you could too if you gave it a chance."

"Thanks, Aegy, but let's not jump the gun here." She stood up and dusted herself off. "Alright, so this happened." She pressed a hoof to her temple to try and ignore the oncoming migraine. "Maybe this isn't all bad. Can you sterilize me? Or at least stop me from becoming at queen?"

Twilight shook her head while the stunned alarm coming from Cadista put everyone on edge. Okay, I can't talk like this right now. I'm weaving a Linkscape, I want to talk to you face to face.

Can I shower first at least?

Yes, of course, just please hurry before you get anymore foolish ideas, Cadista replied with forced politeness.

Fearing what her mother might say, Twilight and Aegis quickly helped Rainbow Dash clean and dry off before showing her how to enter the Linkscape Cadista was preparing.

The two lavender and one sky blue changelings found themselves on top of a recreation of Stripped Gear's central shield tower. Cadista was standing near the churning machinery with the massive orange crystal gently rotating above it.

Twilight Sparkle couldn't help but to bound over and embrace Cadista. The grey queen let the issue of the hour go to hug her daughter. The two shared a long, heartfelt moment as Twilight relished her mother's love. She may not have been able to feed on that love, but it was more important to her than anything else in that moment. _As long as I have Cadista, I'll never be without a mother's love._

 _Huh, well now I know where we get it from,_ Aegis mused with a snicker.

As with all things, the moment ended far too quickly, and Twilight separated from Cadista so she could talk with the latest princess. The grey queen gestured with a wing and Rainbow was flung forward at incredible speed, only to stop right in front of the elder queen. _Whoa, trippy mind world._

Cadista lorded over her with a dour frown that could make paint peel. "Rainbow Dash. As much as I would like nothing more than to change you back into a pegasus, sterilize you, or at least convert you into a drone, I'm afraid none of those options exist or would come at too high a cost. All of the fundamental principles of Alchemy revolve completely around the core attributes of changeling physiology. After hearing about the circlet that started this whole mess, I've been spending what time I can spare into finding a reversal, but it simply isn't possible. Once you're a changeling, you are one for _life._ Arcane based transformation spells are temporary, a day or so at best. But I'm sure my daughter would know that all too well," she looked to Twilight, prompting her to speak.

"Sterilization wouldn't be possible either," Twilight had difficulty looking her friend in the eyes. "A royal's reproductive system is intricately tied to our nervous system, and regenerates itself. To do enough damage to sterilize you would end up slowly killing you as well."

Rainbow's heart started to sink, but there was still some hope left, until Cadista shot it down. "A few centuries ago, a queen by the name of Valinaceria developed a plague that would leave a queen sterile and alive; however, as you can imagine she was quickly declared rogue after using it and was promptly executed and all of her research destroyed along with her."

"As for rebirthing you as a drone. While it is possible," Twilight explained flatly, "the process would erase all of your memories. With the loss of your self-identity, you would become exactly like one of my children, with only your basic personality constructs intact."

"But you store the memories of the dead on the hive mind, sometimes at least. Couldn't you do that for me too?"

"It's just data, RD," Twilight shook her head sadly, "what they see and what they hear. It doesn't capture the emotion of the viewer. If you underwent rebirth, you would become an entirely new Rainbow Dash."

"So I'm stuck…" _Damn the PCE to Tartarus!_ Her first instinct was to run. Somewhere, anywhere, but where could she go? There was no escape from her own body. "How long do I have before I start laying eggs?"

Twilight crunched the numbers, and frowned at the results. "Based on how quickly I became a proto-queen, and the amount of love my children give you… less than a month. Just like how I was, you're already an adult, Rainbow, the only thing that's left is waiting for your nervous system to mature to the point where you can support the weight of a hive mind."

Both lavender changelings hugged their emotionally unstable friend. Squeezing her hard enough to be impossible to ignore. "Whatever happens, RD, I'll help you through this, no matter what."

"Me too Aunty." Aegis' wings buzzed nervously at the prospect, but if Rainbow had instilled anything into her favorite niece, it was loyalty.

Fighting back tears, Rainbow wrapped her forelegs around them and pulled them into a tight hug, letting her fear of the future and of the present bleed away. "Thanks girls."

Cadista was more than willing to let the group cool off over a few minutes. When she felt the time was right, she cleared her throat. "We all need to keep a level head about this, if we're going to survive the next year." Cadista stepped up to place an awkward yet comforting hoof on Rainbow. "The other queens will not sit still for this, once they find out about your true nature. But for the moment, I would like to welcome you into the royal sisterhood. May the two of you lead our race into a better future together for as long as you both shall live."

"Uh, did we just get married or something?" Rainbow deadpanned as she tilted her head.

Everyone except Rainbow laughed uproariously, leaving her more than a little confused. A few seconds later she shrugged and joined in the good humor. Eventually, Twilight laughter petered out and spoke while wiping a tear away. "No, no. It's just a little tradition mother and Yumia started a long time ago. Since they always ruled a single hive together, they vowed to make it the best hive in the jungle, and to always look out for one another."

"Oh, you mean like how Celestia and Luna run Equestria?"

"Exactly! Say," Twilight clapped her hooves together as a brilliant idea struck home. "Why don't we be sisters instead?! We could be the changeling version of Equestria! Ohhhh, this is going to be _perfect!_ "

Rainbow blanched at Twilight's stupidly massive grin. "Huh… I don't know." She turned to Aegis with a neutral expression. "What do you think, Aegy? You want me as a sister or stay your aunt?"

The lone drone wilted under the scrutiny of three royals. "Well, everypony's used to thinking of you as our aunt, and now that I think about it, I really like calling you Aunty better, and we might as well make it official, right?"

"Yeah, yeah, alright, Squirt." Rainbow locked Aegis in a neck hold and tousled her mane, eliciting squeals of laughter out of her.

 _These Equestrians make very unusual changelings._ "Then I declare you both, the Royal Sisters of Phoenix's Roost."

Twilight would have been squashing the air out of Rainbow's lungs had they still been in the real world. Rainbow on the other hand was unable to fully enjoy the moment due to what she'd be producing in the not too distant future. _Ya know, when I said I'd never get a foal of my own, Marephy's law just had to really screwed me over on that one._

Once Twilight got ahold of herself, to a minute degree, she separated from her cyan sister to hover in the air. "Trust me, RD, it's scary right now, I fully understand that, but once you see your first egg hatch, you'll be a changed mare!"

"Changed huh?" She looked at herself. "Pretty sure I've done enough of that already." _Dad always said the same thing when he told me about having my first foal. So it's not_ that _weird._

"Twilight, dear, you can celebrate your new sister later. Right now I need you both to listen." Twilight remained hovering above Rainbow, while all three changelings listened to their elder. "The only way we're going to be able to survive long enough to make this work is if you hide what you are to the world outside of Phoenix's Roost," she directed herself at Rainbow. "Disguise yourself as a drone, have your drones master long term disguise magic, anything you can do to hide the fact you are a royal for as long as equinly possible, do it."

"Won't that be impossible once the Summit is called when I can finally deliver the artifacts, or if somepony else calls one earlier than that?" Twilight gave Rainbow a sympathetic look. "For all intents and purposes, the other queens would see you as my heir, and it's far too early for me to be able to have one if it wasn't for the fact my brood produces love."

"I don't mind hiding what I am and all, but I thought it was a big no-no to lie about that sort of thing in the Summit."

Cadista suppressed a scowl. "We can not hide you from the Summit, Rainbow Dash. I'm sorry about the new world of politics this has thrust you into, but it would be far better to gain the ire of the other queens, rather than be declared rogue by hiding what you are from the Summit. So for the time being, you two just need to focus on building your hive and finding those artifacts, and hiding your true nature. Hopefully by then you be able to hold your own."

"We will, mother." Twilight looked to her new sister. "Right, RD?"

"Yeah, sure. Ain't no other bug queen going to find out what this mare's packing!" _Wow that came out wrong._

Cadista witnessed a genuine smile finally start to crawl its way upon Rainbow's muzzle. _I won't let anything or anyone bring harm upon them. No matter the cost._ "I trust you will handle it from here."

"We can," Twilight replied firmly. "Hopefully our next meeting will be under better circumstances."

"Until then, my daughters, Rainbow Dash." With Cadista's departure, everyone was dropped back into the real world.

Rainbow shook her head to clear the last vestiges of the Linkscape out of her thoughts. "Twi… do you really think I can make a good bug queen? I can command a platoon in battle easily enough, but a whole hive? What if you get seriously hurt or something and can't take the lead?"

Twilight pulled Rainbow into a hug and nuzzled her affectionately. "Don't worry, sis. I'll do everything I can to make sure you'll be a great queen one day."

Rainbow didn't react to Twilight's affections, but she didn't pull away either. Terror stayed her hooves once she was within sight of the nursery again. "I really hope you're right, Twi."

The warm blanket of love from Twilight and Aegis did much to sooth her worries, and Rainbow was content to feed on the freely given love. She gazed upon the rows of pods covering the nursery. _If Twilight was able to make a good queen, then so can I! Hey, I bet five bits I'll be flying queen circles around her in a year._


	24. Chapter 24

Eggs Over Easy Part 1

Twilight Sparkle stood atop the _Phoenix_ looking down at the burgeoning hive below. At present, the hive only consisted of several prefabricated structures and a wooden wall at the first perimeter surrounding an area of roughly three and a half square kilometers with the Phoenix at the center. Supplies from the colony ship's hold were being stockpiled outside as the drones laid the foundations for more permanent structures. A sawmill near the walls, a foundry near the _Phoenix's_ bow, and a tailor towards amidship were just a few of the businesses already in high production. Bit by bit, the colony ship was being broken down at the edges to fuel the hive's growth, yet only a few meters on each side had been repurposed thus far.

There was an electric excitement in the air as the drones worked night and day to build their new home. Those of the more militant variety barely had a day's rest between the constant pressure put on by the Everfree Forest itself. The untamed woods did not give up land easily, and fought the technophilic invaders for every scrap of land they claimed. Disruptions to construction efforts ranged from Poison Joke rendering drones and machines ineffective to the mighty hydras and manicores breaching the walls on multiple occasions with the latter being driven back by the lethal turrets on the _Phoenix._ At the very least those breaches provided a new source of steak for the week.

At present, Twilight had a wide grin fixed on her muzzle as she was riding high on what she felt was the most revered queenly activity: deep communion with the hive mind. A few soldiers remained by their queen's side to make sure none of the aerial threats of the Everfree Forest could threaten her as she completely immersed herself in her work. With their queen concentrating so much on the Link, construction crews found themselves more efficient, complementing each other's movements and seeing greatly improved construction speed. The sentries manning the walls more vigilant and reacting to any threats one of their comrades spotted instantly. Each drone felt their queen's influence bolstering their morale and drive.

Even the nymphs playing in the schools and dormitories felt the stronger presence of their mother. Many were urged on to study harder, and others were more rambunctious in play time. Some simply sat there, basking in Twilight's palpable presence. While the young changelings could have whatever information they needed to learn simply handed to them via the hive mind, Twilight limited it so that her children would develop a love for scholastic endeavors. It didn't always stick.

While the majority of Twilight's concentration was directed at the hive mind, she spared enough to seek out her newest sister. It was not hard to find her. Aegis and several of her fellow Jevruun Vrunningee were panting heavily as they recovered from the grueling training session Rainbow Dash had just put them through.

The former Wonderbolts officer wasn't content with just physical training however and had the ailing changelings follow her to the top of one the _Phoenix's_ main deck guns. Twilight decided to borrow one of the soldiers' ears and eyes rather than interrupt her briefing.

Rainbow Dash was flying near a chalkboard and paced back and forth in front of it. Her flying under the new wings was rocky, but hovering and slow flight was simplistic enough. "I know most of you are used to me giving you guys flight lessons, but things have changed. Previously, my oath to the Wonderbolts forbid me from instructing you in ways of combat, but (rather obvious) recent events have seen me discharged from the Bolts, and both Princesses have given me permission to share sensitive information. As such, I can teach all of you how to handle the chaos spawn we will be facing down in roughly six months' time. Seeing as my sister..." Rainbow paused briefly as a small smile flit across her face. There was something about referring to Twilight as a sister that felt… right. "My sister has put me in charge of the hive's military training, and we're not going to waste any time!"

She landed to try and wrap the piece of chalk in her magenta magic, but Rainbow was barely a week out of the shell and her magical command still left much to be desired. _Bah, I don't have time for this._ Rainbow snatched the chalk in her hoof before her weak telekinesis attempt could become awkward and started drawing.

Rainbow talked as she drew a ten centimeter high changeling on the far left side of the chalkboard with a twelve centimeter version of herself standing next to it. She made sure mini-RD struck a radical pose, although her tone was all business. "I'm going to say it here and now. The Chaos Lands are a complete disaster area. The first area my platoon patrolled during my tour was right on the south western edge of an active volcano. The land around it is little more than a lava blasted ash wasteland. There's three pegasi weather teams stationed there at all times to clear the ash after eruptions."

She finished drawing a crude recreation of what the gathered soldiers could only surmise to be a rocky bulldog with no eyes and an oversized mouth. It stood twice as tall as the drone figure. "This beastie's called a Lava Hound. Not very imaginative, but you try making up a better name when he's boiling your hide off just by being next to you. They're dormant except during eruptions and that's when they rampage the surrounding area until the volcano chills out. They don't really seek anypony out as they don't care about eating ponies, but they're still deadly and cause forest fires if allowed to go far enough south."

The gathered soldiers tried to ignore the mild twinge of apprehension, with most taking solace in their ability to fly.

Rainbow Dash revealed three other creatures that called the outskirts of the Chaos Lands home, not all of them were as disturbing as the last, but they were all equally deadly. She was about to go over a fourth when Twilight signaled a hive wide lunch break.

 _Finally some grub,_ Rainbow mused happily before addressing her audience. "I want all of you to disseminate this information to the rest of the military arm. I want everypony coming back from the expedition when it finally starts."

Scattered acknowledgements answered back. Rainbow found one of the plazas below was being furnished to an outdoor dining area, much like Stripped Gear's own. _I think Rarity and the others will be down there._

* * *

A spoon wrapped in lavender-orange aura gently mixed Twilight's tea while a second spoon swirled Rarity's own beverage. They were sitting with Fluttershy on one of the first tables placed on the South Central plaza as they waited for their order to be delivered from the ship's kitchens.

"I must say Twilight, your progeny are quite industrious," Rarity complimented as she let her eyes examine the hive growing around the colony ship. "The Everfree Forest might be a decent place once you're done with it."

Twilight giggled before taking a sip. "I hope so. I'll be living here for a _long_ time." She looked over to Fluttershy who was poking the small toy Clockwerk with curiosity. "I'm glad you came by to visit today, Fluttershy. The nymphs have missed you since we left Canterlot."

The bashful pegasus blushed. "They're such sweet little angels, even if some can get a bit rowdy. You'll be pleased to know that Canterlot Medical was rather surprised by my report on nymph development cycles. They were half expecting the eggs to hatch into a caterpillar-like larva."

Rarity scoffed at such ignorance. "Well I for one am glad you set them straight, Fluttershy. The more the public knows about changelings, the less they'll fear."

"Which will also help strengthen ties with Equestria," Twilight added. "It won't happen overnight, but I'm sure one day my hive will be as welcome as griffins and minotaurs are."

"Speaking of the hive," Fluttershy prodded meekly, "how's Rainbow Dash handling things? It must have shocked her to death to wake up a princess."

Twilight glanced up at the blue changeling flying towards them. "Why don't you ask her yourself?"

Everyone looked up to see Rainbow Dash come in for a mostly smooth landing. "Hey girls, sorry I couldn't say hi earlier, Flutters, the kids are seriously lacking real combat experience."

A drone flew over to drop off some cider for her aunt before buzzing off to tend to her siblings. Twilight repeated Fluttershy's concerns via the Link. A slight frown crossed the blue changeling. "The whole egg thing's got me kinda freaking, to be honest. But I guess… I guess I've always been a part of Twily's hive." She shot her sister a weak lopsided grin. "The kids sure think so, and they're real class acts."

Both ponies were a little distracted by how Rainbow heard Fluttershy's earlier statement, but passed it off as a non-issue. Rarity cooed as the waitress finally arrived with their food, Rainbow's included. "I must say, Dash, you surprise me with how much dedication you're putting into your new role in things."

Rainbow sighed with pent up sadness as she munched on a salad. "It's not like I got much else to hope for. I'm a royal bug, and at some point I'm going to end up looking like Twilight. And not for nothing, sis, but your body shape and size may be great for laying a dozen eggs every day, but it just wouldn't cut it in the Bolts."

It didn't take much for Twilight to sniff out the other side of the problem. "You're more worried about laying eggs than flying fast, aren't you."

Rainbow tried to ignore her sister's statement of fact with more food and said nothing. Yet the silence itself was answer enough. Twilight knew better than to try and lift Rainbow's spirit via the hive mind. _She needs to work this out for herself._

Fluttershy nibbled on her food for a minute or so, battling with herself on how to phrase her next comment. "You seem to like Twilight's drones a lot."

A slight upward tug on Rainbow's muzzle lasted only for an instant. "Yeah, they're a good bunch of kids. A lot of them are just as dorky as their mother, but it's the good kind of dork that makes them alright in my book."

"I don't know if I've just been insulted or complimented," Twilight fumed mildly.

"Just take the compliment, Dear," Rarity encouraged while trying to avoid giving Rainbow an admonishing glance. "As you for you, Dash, I thought you'd see this whole egg thing as a blessing more than anything else."

Twilight and Fluttershy's ears perked up at that, but said nothing as they ate. Rainbow Dash leaned back on her chair to give the fashionista a disbelieving scowl. "Look Rares, the whole princess thing isn't all bad. I get it. Hell, I've practically been an honorary princess to the kids for years. Now that I've become Twilight's biological sister, it just means I'm officially their aunt. But even if I could get my old wing power back, I'm going to end up growing into a queen long before that happens, and I just can't see myself ever being Wonderbolt material after that."

Rarity tried to make a reply, but Rainbow grit her teeth as she kept going. "So I'm stuck okay? I really like it here with Twilight. I don't mind taking up this whole princess role, because for all intents and purposes I've been one for years now." Rainbow suppressed a depreciating sigh. "I really thought that at least as a drone I'd get a chance to enter the Bolts again one day. But now…" She looked at Twilight and saw her future in her. "Now it's just not going to happen. So the hive's all I got anymore."

 _Oh, Dash, I wish I knew what to say,_ Twilight lamented. Rarity busied herself with her meal while Fluttershy was struck with an idea.

"You know Rainbow, this could be far better than you being a drone instead. Not, that I have anything against drones I mean," Fluttershy quickly added, but Twilight was far from being insulted.

 _Maybe I should have just eaten lunch by myself. I'm just dragging everypony else down._ Rainbow tried to lift a fork with her magic, but only managed to rattle her silverware and sighed in resignation. "How?"

"Well, umm, you're going to have lots of drones one day, right?"

"As if I could forget." Rainbow guzzled her cider to get the sour taste of the conversation out of her mouth.

Fluttershy nervously rubbed her forelegs together as she tried to word everything correctly. "And they'll all be like you, right?"

"I guess so," Rainbow muttered as she gave up on the magic and just leaned forward to eat.

"While Twilight's children are wonderful fliers, I know without a doubt that yours would be the best possible right?" Fluttershy gave Rainbow her best encouraging smile. Twilight was more than willing to concede the best flier title to her new sister, and leaned back without saying anything while giving a nod of agreement. When no one objected, Fluttershy pressed her point. "So maybe you can't be a part of the Wonderbolts anymore. That doesn't mean you and your children can't make something ten times better, right?"

Twilight hummed in curiosity. "If you do it right, you _might_ be able to outdo the work you've put into the Jevruun Vrunningee."

Rarity gasped as a she bounced in her seat with a lady like shriek of cheer. "And I could design a whole uniform line that would fit your stunning mane colors to a tee!"

Rainbow Dash stopped chewing the instant her friends' suggestions finally registered. She looked up at Fluttershy with a lackluster smile. "Yeah, the princesses mentioned something like that. The idea's cool and all, but what it'll take to get there…" The thought of laying hundreds of thousands of eggs, having thousands of drones calling her momma, and the prospect of one day managing a hive, sent a cold shudder down her spine so frigid that it made her wings buzz in fear.

Fluttershy wrapped a lock of her mane around a hoof and kept twirling it as she spoke. "I know its not what you expected to have to deal with, Rainbow. But you're the bravest pony - er - changeling I know. You wouldn't let something like this drag you down, now _would_ you?"

Rainbow Dash blinked slowly as she processed Fluttershy's encouragement. It helped a little, but it wasn't enough to pull Rainbow out of her funk. "I guess not."

The timekeeper drone sounded the changing of the hour across the hive mind, causing both royals to look to the _Phoenix._ Rainbow snarfed the last of her food before standing. "I better get back to it, or the kids won't last five minutes in the chaos lands. Cya!"

Twilight watched her go before giving her pony friends a quick hug. "I better get going too. I need to oversee a new logging machine before it's implemented."

"Just as well, Darling," Rarity fussed while collecting the dirty dishes in her magic. "The life of a seamstress is never dull around here." She saw Fluttershy trying to give her a nod towards Rainbow Dash who was already nearing the awaiting soldiers. "But RD has me worried. You wouldn't mind giving her a sister-to-sister talk would you? I'm sure it would do wonders for her."

Twilight followed Rarity's gaze to her sister. A frown sullied her features. "I gave her an open invitation to talk about it, but I felt giving her time and space was what she needed most. Still, maybe actually talking to her about it would be for the best." She worked up a smile and shared it with her friends. "I'll do it as soon as I can. Bye, girls."

* * *

The sun had long since slipped below the horizon when Rainbow Dash sat alone on the edge of a main deck gun. Her forelegs dangled over the lip of the gun barrel as she watched the night shift work under lamp light. Day or night the hive was under constant construction.

Fear simmered at the edge of her mind as she watched Twilight's brood toil away to build their new home. The cold night sky felt nice upon her withers as the breeze tousled her mane. Yet even after eight days since hatching, the image of the nursery's hundreds of chrysalises haunted her. All of her bluster and posturing from before melted away the more she thought about it. Rainbow Dash couldn't help but to squeeze her back legs together as if hoping that would be enough to delay the inevitable.

 _What am I going to do?_ she thought worriedly as she gripped her head. _I'll never make a good queen! I'm nothing like Twilight and her stupid crazy organization or Cadista and her perfect leadership._

Rainbow let her head go and vacantly stared down at the hive. _I'm supposed to be a Wonderbolt. Top ace flier and daredevil, not some egg laying bug queen._

The hive mind sensed her deepening anxiety and several drones tried to talk to her, but Rainbow blocked it all out, leaving only the background din audible. As much as she hated it, a tear dampened her fur. _Twilight doesn't need a military dog for a sister. If anypony it should have been Rarity or Fluttershy. They'd love being a royal, I'll just fail miserably at it. The hive'll crumble, and the worst part is Twilight won't do the right thing and kick me out. Maybe I should—_

"Hey, sis." Twilight's voice snapped Rainbow out of her musings. She had been so deep in thought she hadn't even noticed the queen's buzzing wings until now. "You're feeling kind of down."

Rainbow's first reaction was to puff up her chest and give her trademark superior grin, but then she realized there was no point to it. She deflated almost immediately and slumped on the turret barrel. "What's the point in trying to hide it from you…? Or anypony on the Link for that matter."

Twilight fluttered over to the turret's second gun barrel to land. "I can teach you how to shield your emotions, Rainbow."

"Maybe later." Rainbow tried to stretch her face with her hooves, but they bumped into her horn. _Stupid useless thing. Why does pegasi magic have to be so different from using a horn?_

Twilight wasn't sure what to say, so she settled for nestling down on the other turret barrel. _It's not like her to think this hard. She's trying to forget about oviposition, but what can I say to make her feel better?_

Coming up with nothing, Twilight settled for just keeping her new sister company. _Wish she had picked a place where I could hug her without falling off._

Ideas about what her future drones would be like, and what she'd end up doing with them slid in and out of Rainbow's mind, but she mostly just tried to keep her brain vacant. Unfortunately it was a lot harder than it used to be, and eggs kept bouncing back into her mind's eye. _Gah! If there's anything else I can't stand about all this is that Twilight's blood is making me think too much. I can't_ not _think about it._

Rainbow casually glanced around to see if there was anyone else within earshot before turning to her sister. Twilight was stargazing. A slight furrow in her brow betrayed her inner concerns, but overall she was a paragon of content. "Twi, can I ask you something?"

"Of course you can, RD." Twilight turned away from the stars to face the blue changeling.

"How do you handle the whole… egg thing?"

Twilight wanted to laugh, but kept it down to keep from insulting her morose sister. "I'll be the first to admit it was terrifying in the beginning."

A snicker escaped Rainbow Dash, injecting some much needed humor. "That's for sure. The look on your face in the library's bathroom was priceless. You're lucky I didn't have a camera."

Twilight shared in the laughter and covered her mouth as she did. "What can I say? It was life changing."

"Yeah… I guess it was." Rainbow's cheer threatened to fall back into depression. "What about now though?" She waved at the hundreds of drones toiling below. "You just get used to it?"

"Well…" Twilight looked up as she tapped her chin. Memories of her proto-queen days bubbled up, bringing an odd sense of nostalgia back with them. "It sort of became routine by the end of the first week, and after that it was just a fact of life for me that I would always lay eggs for the rest of my now _very_ long life." Rainbow's ears drooped and she laid her head back down on the cold steel turret. "But it all changed once my first eggs hatched and the nymphs entered my life."

Rainbow leaned her head towards Twilight, but didn't face her. "I hear a lot of mothers feel that way about their first foal."

"Yeah, so do I," Twilight said with a smirking shrug. "While I don't want to belittle what a mammalian mother experiences upon seeing their first foal, for us queens its far more potent."

"Ya sure?" Rainbow's curiosity was starting to override her reluctance. "Cause I would think it would get diluted over having so many kids."

"Maybe," Twilight admitted evenly. "But I like to think that I treasure each and every one of my children as much as any mammal."

Rainbow's ears flicked in agitation. "Are you really trying to hammer home we're not mammals anymore?"

"It just came up." Twilight shrugged before flashing a comforting grin. "No point in deluding ourselves."

"I guess." The conversation petered out as both mares enjoyed the wind in their manes and the sounds of construction below. Rainbow could feel the overwhelming serenity washing over her from Twilight. She followed her bigger sister's gaze to a boarding house that was being raised as the first domicile outside of the _Phoenix._ Some part of Rainbow resonated at the sight, as if she felt inspired by the drones' work.

"You seem really happy at least." Rainbow Dash tried to sound like more pleasant company.

"What's not to be happy about? I've finally gotten a place to build our new home and construction is going swimmingly. The forest isn't giving up land easily, but we're still progressing." Her tone was wistful and full of love. "I know it's a big shock to you, RD, and I want to help you in every way I can, but I couldn't ask for a better sister to help me lead the hive into a bright future."

"Bah, anypony would be better than me. I'm a soldier. I can lead an army, but I'm no good at this civilian leadership stuff."

"I'm not asking you to be, sis," Twilight stated firmly, pulled Rainbow's gaze away from the drones. "We all have to start somewhere, RD. I wasn't born to rule, I was trained to. First by Princess Celestia, and then by Cadista. I'm sure you weren't the best flier in all of Equestria on day one either, right?"

"Well, no… I trained myself every day since that race to save Fluttershy's honor." Rainbow realized Twilight's point the moment she finished speaking. "Y-you really think we can make this work?"

A large friendly grin came over Twilight as she flew over to pull her sister into a strong hug. "Rainbow, you can do anything you set your heart on." She back up to look at the blue changeling in the eye. "You'll make a wonderful queen one day, sis. And I'll be here every step of the way. Together, _our_ hive cannot fail."

"I think you put too much faith in me," Rainbow replied somberly. She both hated and loved that Twilight's affection wrapped her in a warm blanket that was prying away at the insecurities that she was clinging to so tightly.

"Nonsense," Twilight chided before nuzzling her sister. "You have the makings of a great queen, Rainbow. Knowing you, you'd only have to give fifty percent effort to make an awesome possum queen." Rainbow's depression cracked a little. "One of these days you're going to look in the mirror and be proud to call yourself: Queen Rainbow Dash." Twilight leaned back to reinforce her warm but strongly serious tone. "I know I will be."

Rainbow stared into the loving eyes of her friend-become-sister. Twilight's love was like a sun against the snow of her terror. In her mind, Rainbow knew that heat would fade once they departed each other's company. However for that moment at least, her worries felt less imposing than they once did. "I promise Twi, I'll be the best sister I can be."

She hovered above the turret and wrapped her sister into another bear hug, and held on for dear life if only to keep close Twilight's love to stay warm from the blizzard of doubt that threatened to return. "I know you will, RD. Just remember that anypony in the hive will be more than happy to help you in any way possible. After all, a happy queen is a happy hive."

*Snrrt* "Sure is."

"Come on. We should get some sleep, and then-" Twilight separated so she could giggle and clap her hooves. "-tomorrow will be a perfect day to strengthen the bonds of sisterhood!"

"Doing what?"

"Learning all about changeling magic of course! You've got a horn, and I'm going to show you how to use it for more than a built in shish kabob skewer."

"That was _one_ time!" Rainbow attested as she playfully swatted at her sister. Twilight laughed cheerfully as she took the hit on her foreleg. Rainbow tried to look up at the spike jutting out of her forehead and tapped it with a hoof. "Fine by me though. If this thing's going to camp itself on my head it better start paying rent." She breathed easier listening to her sister laugh. The blizzard of fear was smaller now, and even as Twilight waved goodbye for the night, the snow failed to return in full. _Maybe this'll work out after all._


	25. Chapter 25

Eggs Over Easy Part 2

Twilight Sparkle stood behind a large pane of reinforced glass with Ratchet at her side. Since much of the _Phoenix_ was being cannibalized for construction, that left large areas entirely cut out and empty. It was perfect for some of the more dangerous experiments Twilight's engineering corps was known for.

The room beyond the glass used to be a mess hall on the starboard side of the forward hull with the three decks above it completely gutted for parts. Standing on the now unfurnished floor was a Clockwerk hitched up to a six pounder cannon that was mounted in a cart being held aloft by a glowing lavender propeller engine. The Clockwerk itself was a little larger than normal, roughly the size of a changeling princess, which were already a full head higher than most drones.

A whole team of engineers was being represented by two of their number; one was rechecking the artillery's hovercart, while the second had just finished going over the Clockwerk itself. The engineer swatted at her partner before addressing Twilight. Thank you for coming, my queen. I wanted to present you with my- her partner lightly jabbed her in the leg. _Our_ contribution to your expeditionary force to the chaos lands. While airships provide excellent fire support to our infantry, they simply can't be everywhere at once. Our forces in the chaos lands may very well find themselves in danger without the ability to call in for heavy support. Both engineers swept a foreleg at their contraption. To fix that, we give you the Hovarty! Field artillery worthy of the hive's finest.

Twilight looked to her prime consort, her spoken words were lost to the engineers. "Sounds useful. What do you think?"

"A hovercart for _artillery?_ This should be good," he replied sarcastically.

"You never know," Twilight teased. Go ahead, Second Engineer Gadget.

With a nod, Gadget addressed the robot. "Clockwerk unit Theta, instructions, deploy weapon facing the exterior."

 **"Affirmative."** The Clockwerk faced the bare-bones outer wall and spread its legs apart with spikes within its hooves anchoring it to the ground. The hovercart flew up to the machine's back where the Clockwerk opened a large section of its armor to allow the cart to dock with it.

Ratchet whistled in approval while leaning over towards Twilight. "It won't have any close quarters capability, but I think this is a worthy tradeoff."

Gadget couldn't help but hover in excitement while beaming a huge smile as her partner stood proud. Due to the weight of the artillery piece, it is impossible to have one permanently attached to a Clockwerk without making them the size of small shuttles if we want them to remain flightworthy.

The second changeling picked up a large mallet and took a few good swings at each of the Clockwerk's legs. None of them even budged. As you can see, my queen, when anchored, the Clockwerk is practically immoveable, a perfect firing platform.

This apparatus can be applied for logistics as well to keep a ready supply of shot and powder on hoof for the gun crews, her companion added with a hint of amusement from an inside joke.

Very impressive, Twilight beamed with pride. Not only will this be useful for the expedition, but I can see several civil applications for this as well. Excellent work, all of you. You've no doubt saved the lives of many of your brothers and sisters with this.

Thank you, my queen, the changelings replied with glee.

A few minutes later, Twilight was cantering through the hallways of the _Phoenix_ to grab something from her quarters when Rainbow Dash contacted her with a worried tone. Hey, Twi, you remember when you said I should be laying sometime soon?

Twilight stopped in her tracks. Yes.

Rainbow couldn't keep the strain out of her psychic voice. And that I should watch out for abdominal cramps that last all day?

Hold on, sis, where are you? Twilight pinged multiple drones to try and locate her sister, only to have Rainbow do it for her.

I'm in my quarters trying to draw up a training schedule for the Queen's Guard.

 _I think it's about to be Queens' Guard soon._ I'm on my way.

Twilight summoned the caretakers and bolted through the hallways until she felt she was close enough to her sister's quarters to teleport straight there.

She found Rainbow Dash near her desk and arching her back with one sky blue egg already laying on the carpet. Twilight barely had time to react before a second egg joined the first. She rushed over to lay a supporting hoof on her sister. "You're doing fine, Rainbow, just let it happen and keep pushing."

"Like," *grunt* I got much choice." A few more seconds saw the third and finally the fourth egg enter the world.

Rainbow Dash didn't feel as physically drained as she expected and stepped back from the clutch of blue eggs laying next to each other. Scattered papers from when it all started were lying around them, but nothing else mattered to either royal.

Twilight's breast swelled with pride and joy at the quartet of future changelings, but Rainbow was paralyzed by them. The former pegasus tried to shore up her courage by feebly tapping her sister in the sides. "This is payback for the library all those years ago isn't it?"

A great sense of calm washed over Rainbow Dash who instinctively looked to her sister as the source. "Technically you did this to yourself. Besides, egg laying isn't nearly as bad as you thought it'd be, now was it?"

Rainbow couldn't stop squirming on her hooves, and the messy damp fur of her backside was _not_ helping. "Okay Twi, I get that this is kinda normal for you, but those things just _slid_ out of me! I knew I was an insect now, but I didn't _feel_ like one until… Gahhh." She couldn't stop fidgeting at the whole experience. "Oh frek, oh crap, I'm a mom! I'm a _bug mom!_ " She messed up her mane by running her hooves back and forth over it. "What am I going to do Twilight!?"

The calming effect from Twilight wasn't enough and Rainbow's train of thoughts was going a million miles a second as she started to shaking uncontrollably. To anyone else, Twilight might just let them sort it out on their own, but due to Rainbow's royal blood, she was starting to cause a buildup of psionic panic on the hive mind. Twilight bent down to eye level with Rainbow and shook her hard enough to get her attention. "Hey, hey! Snap out of it!"

Rainbow was starting to hyperventilate as the image of hundreds of thousands of sky blue eggs crowded her mind's eye. "But- ah- Twilight! I'm not ready for this!"

"I know you're not, Rainbow, I know." The cyan changeling eyed her sister with a mixture of terror and confusion. Twilight adopted a soothing tone as she gently stroked her sister's mane. "We used to be ponies, and we didn't get the luxury of being a purebred royal changeling. Instead of decades, we both got less than a month before we became proto-queens." Rainbow started to calm down a little, giving Twilight a chance to shift to compassionate understanding. "My first month as a proto-queen was terrifying, Rainbow, it really was. It gets better, a lot better, I promise it does. You just need to give yourself time to get used to what and who you are now."

 _I'd rather face down a few hydras right about now._ Rainbow gulped loudly and nodded slowly. "R-right." She slowly turned to the four sky blue orbs. Just as Twilight before her, Rainbow saw them as a point of no return. Her imagination saw them hatch and four miniature Rainbow Dashes jumped out and ran over to her crying for her to love them.

She physically shook her head to scare the mental image away. "So I – ah – guess I have to be the one to feed them love, right?"

"You remember how I showed you?"

"…I do." With Twilight giving morale support, Rainbow Dash slowly approached eggs. For every step she took forward she had to fight herself from taking two steps back. _Get it together, RD! Twi said she's going to help me through it, and she did all this stuff with Cadista all the way back in Stripped Gear. If she can do it, then so can you!_ Gritting her teeth and muscling past her fear, Rainbow stepped up to her eggs and bent her head down to point her horn at them.

Pulling upon her overflowing love reserves as if it was a ball of taffy, love wrapped in magenta mana poured from her horn towards the eggs.

Twilight watched on with an odd sense of fascination. _It's strange seeing somepony else feeding eggs. Mother showed me a few times in memory recordings, but we never got around to a live demonstration._

A few moments later, a grin spread across Twilight's muzzle at the sight of the four glowing eggs as Rainbow severed the flow of love. She let her sister stare at them, no doubt burning the event into her memory. It did not take long before the rest of the world intruded on the moment, and Rainbow Dash was still messy after laying.

To that end, Twilight laid a hoof on her sister's withers, snapping her attention away from the eggs. "Why don't you get yourself cleaned up, RD. You don't want that stuff staining your fur."

"I don't mind being dirty, but this isn't what I usually have in mind..." The mention of it caused the new proto-queen to start squirming again, before nodding and running to the bathroom. Thanks for helping, sis.

Twilight glanced at the door and summoned the waiting caretakers. That's what family does. Oh, and take the rest of the week off. You'll need some time to adjust to daily laying.

Twilight received a shaky affirmative as she watched Gear Ratio and one other caretaker enter. "I bet you never expected to tend to a proto-queen's first clutch, did you?"

"No I didn't." Gear was slow to take the eggs, and savored every second of it. _To think, I get to be the one to care for a proto-queen's first clutch, and with them belonging to Aunty as well. By the First Mother, I am not worthy of such an honor._

As her partner rolled in the egg cart, Gear Ratio took a soft wet cloth and cleaned the fluids off the shining blue orbs with a reverence that surpassed her usual methods. Every little spec of dirt, awry bit of thread from the carpet, and drop of fluid was meticulously cleaned with a special oiled fabric. While she did this with every clutch she processed for the incubators, _this_ clutch was beyond special. Gear Ratio felt so honored that she wept tears of joy as each blue glowing orb was placed to engineered perfection on the cart and secured for transport.

 _Who can blame her,_ Twilight mused with a motherly grin. _There's something almost holy about the first clutch to a caretaker._ She dipped her head towards Gear Ratio with the pair bowing in return before departing with a piece of changeling history that would not be repeated in her lifetime, or several should she be rebirthed.

Twilight found a clean cushion and sat down to wait for her sister to emerge. The air stank from the freshly laid eggs and the soiled carpet, but the changeling queen was used to it. As such she bore it without complaint.

She did not get much time for reflection before Gear Ratio pinged her mind. Yes, Gear? Everything going well?

Yes, my queen. The eggs will be sequestered away shortly. But I wanted to beg for a favor.

Twilight's brow rose out of curiosity. What do you want?

Gear stuttered, trying to phrase her request perfectly. W-well, I was hoping against hope that, _if_ I'm ever marked for rebirth one day, that maybe today's memories could be preserved for my future incarnation?

Hmm. We'll see when the time comes. For now, you can transcribe your memory to a mana crystal for the archives. _It might be amusing to show it to Rainbow one day._ Gear sent her thanks as Twilight nestled back down on her cushion to wait for her sister's return.

* * *

A month later, Twilight Sparkle was lounging on a blanket atop the _Phoenix._ The hot summer day had just been preceded by a torrential downpour for the last three days, so the sweltering humidity reminded her of her jungle home. Aegis and Ferrum stood guard nearby more out of formality than any real threat this close to the heart of the hive. As a result, both drones were reading books procured from Everfree Castle.

Aegis glanced at her mother and tilted her head in amusement at the sight of her queen curled up around a large tome while resting on a blanket so she could bask in the sun's warmth more than anything else. In the skies above, Rainbow Dash was Twilight's polar opposite and was racing in between the clouds with wild abandon.

 _Aunty always was one for crazy stunts. I hope she doesn't end up damaging her eggs by doing –_ The cyan proto-queen preformed hair raising acrobatics unbefitting a queen. Not that Aegis could ever talk her out of it, and Twilight was more than happy to let her sister have her fun.

Despite all outward appearances, Twilight was far busier than simply reading a book. To Aegis, she was only aware of her mother's patented 'Motivation Meditation' pushing her to want to do something constructive, but within the safe inner confines of the hive, there was little for the Captain of the Queens' Guard to do except study old magic tomes and watch Rainbow Dash try to kill herself with manic stunts.

Aegis started sweating out of fear the longer Rainbow Dash continued, with each stunt more dangerous than the last.

"Um, momma, shouldn't we stop Aunty before she hurts herself, or the eggs she's producing?"

Twilight looked up to see her sister was actually struggling to do stunts she used to do with ease. "You know she won't listen," Twilight frowned at her sister coming to a halt to stabilize so she could zip off again.

"I ahh," Aegis shifted on her hooves and looked to her brother, but all he contributed was a 'you brought it up, you stop her' look. "I – I don't presume to tell you what to do, my queen, or Aunty for that matter. But I don't think she's had enough time on those wings to be doing that sort of activity."

"I know," Twilight sighed with mild irritation at her sister. "Believe me, I tried. But RD isn't going to give up being a stunt flier."

Aegis ducked as the proto-queen flew overhead so close to the deck that the tips of Rainbow's hooves brushed Aegis' horn. Even Ferrum couldn't ignore it any longer and walked over to Aegis' side. "Permission to follow Proto-Queen Rainbow so we can at least save her from a crash?"

Twilight tried to track her sister through the cloud layer, but it was too dense to keep sight of her for long. "Go," she commanded curtly, worry threading in-between her voice of command. "Don't try to stop her, but grab her if she's about to crash, if and only if it happens."

"Aye, my queen" Ferrum replied with a crisp bow. Both drones took to the air as Twilight summoned two more of the Queen's Guard to stay by her side.

As it turned out, Aegis and Ferrum didn't have to go far as Rainbow gripped a cargo shuttle's cockpit to do a quick turnaround. Unfortunately the pilot freaked at the sudden appearance of a prismatic blur across his windshield and pulled the nose up just enough to throw off Rainbow's aim.

Instead of flying a meter off the _Phoenix's_ deck, she spun out and careened towards the bulkhead. "Whhaaaa!" The steel plate, the sky, and the ground kept spinning in circles as Rainbow tried to correct herself, but the ship was too close. She tried covering her face in a vain hope to protect herself.

An overbearing force gripped her, and Rainbow came to a sudden stop in midair. She cracked an eye open to find the bulkhead was scant inches from her face and the whole of her vision had a lavender-orange filter superimposed over it.

Now that the danger had passed, Rainbow discovered her sister and both guards had caught her in their magic. Ferrum and Aegis let their magic fade, allowing Twilight to deposit Rainbow in front of her blanket. Rainbow Dash shot her sister a smug grin and lightly kicked a loose screw off the deck. "Thanks for the save Twi, that was a bit too close."

The lavender changeling tapped her left front hoof in agitation and her scowl only mirrored her mood. Her gut reaction was to nag her sister about her duties as queen, but she checked herself. _RD won't listen to that sort of thing. Maybe I need a different approach._ Her expression softened with a sigh. "I'm just glad you're not hurt, Rainbow."

 _Whew, that's a lecture dodged,_ Rainbow cantered over and wrapped a leg around her sister. "As long as I have Lings like you watching my back, what's to worry?"

"Perhaps." Twilight gently separated from the hug and nestled back down on her blanket. On the way down, she saw Rainbow's wings quiver from overexertion. _She's really pushing herself, and I don't want to sour that drive._ "But I'm beginning to think you need to reevaluate your priorities."

 _So much for missing the lecture._ Rainbow rolled her eyes in preparation. "I crashed all the time as a pegasus. I can't improve if I don't push these wings to their limit."

Twilight made a show of humming in contemplation. "Maybe they _are_ at their limit. Those wings simply aren't built for the kind of acrobatics you're used to."

"Shows what you know," Rainbow replied tersely. "I fly ten times, no twenty times better than any other changeling to date. And it's not like I have much choice with these things. I've tried disguising myself with pegasus wings, but it's just a stupid illusion!"

"You misunderstand me, sister. What I mean is; why don't you improve your wings through alchemy?"

That cut Rainbow's rising vexation to a dead stop. "I can do that?"

Twilight shot her sister a smug grin of her own while flipping her purple bangs still bearing the orange and bright vanilla stripes. She flicked her tail forward to show that the vanilla stripe was present there as well. "It was a minor alteration, but this is my hair's permanent color now. Haven't you noticed my youngest nymphs share the new hair colors as well?"

"I thought you just kept dyeing it." Rainbow thought about it for a moment before her eyes dilated. "Are you saying I can alter my wings without having to be reborn?!"

"You're a queen, Rainbow, well proto-queen. It's one of the perks of our royal blood."

"That…" Rainbow sat on her rump, her mind going in a million different directions. "I could really design my own wings?"

"Think about the possibilities, sister." Twilight pointed at the hundreds of drones going to and fro. If you design wings superior to what we already have, which I have every confidence that you can," she added with a warm smile. "Every one of our children, would proudly wear your new superior wings, myself included."

A toothy grin crossed Rainbow's features as the idea resonated with her queenly instincts that were taking firm root in her mind. The prospect of improved wings was impossible to resist, and served to cement those instincts into Rainbow's psyche. "That would be a huge improvement to the hive."

"And we queens…" Twilight trailed off with a knowing smile.

"Live to improve our race in any way possible," Rainbow finished automatically, as if it were common knowledge. A troubled thought halted her bubbling excitement. _Damn queen bug hormones!_ Her grin vanished. _Just how much of it is me wanting to help the hive, and this stupid body of mine_ changing _what I want?_

Rainbow Dash debated with herself for a few minutes. The others around her passed it off as brainstorming and let her be; simply glad she wasn't risking her life for the moment. _Queen brain juice or not, better wings make better fliers, and I'm not settling for mediocre,_ she grumbled as she turned to inspect her featherless wings. _I'll have to figure out how to keep the prism effect though. If I have to rock bug wings for the rest of my life, they'd better be radical enough to be worthy of growing out of my back._

Twilight had been reluctant to push any alchemy instruction on Rainbow Dash for fear she would get bored and neglect it. The sour frown that was slowly shifting into a manic grin on her sister's face alleviated her concerns. _All she needed is the right incentive._

Rainbow ignored her burning wing muscles and started hovering in circles around Twilight. "How soon can we get started!? It's gotta be right now, I _need_ better wings!"

"This sort of things takes time, Rainbow," Twilight warned. "Have you laid today's clutch yet?"

"No, but." Being the athlete she was, Rainbow was very good at understanding the nebulous signals her body told her, and having to lay eggs every day for the past month had given her plenty of practice. "It should be coming any minute now. I'll head down to the hatchery and come back."

Twilight squealed with bookish delight. "Sounds great, we'll make a day of it!"

"Alright, see ya soon!" _At least the prize is worth suffering another one of her boring lectures._ With that, Rainbow darted off with a spring in her wings.

Ferrum walked over with a dumbfounded expression written all over him. "Did you just get Aunty to study magic with you willingly?"

"It's all about finding the right angle, my son," Twilight answered with an amused smile. "Everypony works differently. Now, could you please fetch my alchemical notes in drawers A and F?"

"I'll do it," Aegis volunteered before finding a hatch and diving into the ship.

Twilight nodded to Ferrum for him to resume sentry duty as she started creating a mental teaching plan that would work for her sister. _Mother may have had her doubts about Rainbow, but I think sis will make a fine queen one day._

* * *

Twilight Sparkle laid on her back on a sun baked grassy hill. Although the cloudless sky above was perfect for flying, there was little point in the Linkscape. Her mother, Cadista was at her side, giving Twilight someone to nuzzle. Even if it wasn't real, Twilight could feel her mother's warm fur across her cheek, and the pride that emanated from her.

"I must say, my daughter, your hive's steady growth is most impressive. Thanks to having no worries about hostility from Equestria and the sheer size of the forest, you'll outpace Stripped Gear in a decade or so."

Twilight hummed in thought. "I doubt it would be that quick. We still have a long way to go before that happens."

"True. How fares your sister? She should be a full queen by now, correct?"

"Physically, anyway. She laid her last clutch as a proto-queen few days ago as a matter of fact. Although, RD seems… reluctant to lay willingly."

Cadista shifted in place so Twilight could lean against her a little easier. She paused for a minute to enjoy her daughter's presence. Although love could not be given over the hive mind, Cadista was more than happy to just be there for her. "Do you know why?"

"I think she's terrified." Twilight's tone was more out of resignation than anything else. "Rainbow was always a free spirit. Sure she was willing to put a lot of it aside for the Wonderbolts, but a queen is wholly dedicated to the welfare of the hive."

"She sees that dedication in you, and fears becoming it?" Cadista let off a sad sigh as her daughter gave a confused shrug. "It is as I feared. With her memories and personality still intact from being a pony, it might take a long time for her to come to terms, if she ever does."

"Rainbow will cheer up eventually," Twilight attested definitively. She stood up to stretch, momentarily forgetting she was not physically there. "She's like a puzzlebox that way. I just need to find out the right things to say and at the right times to help her along."

Cadista hummed approvingly, and summoned several orchard trees to sample some fictitious fruit from them. "Perhaps you're right. I get the feeling you've been trying to hammer in the duties that come with queenhood, tactfully I'm sure," Cadista added with a smirk at Twilight's inward frown. "I think it's high time Rainbow Dash gets to enjoy some of the the greater perks of queenhood. And I can think of no better perk, that isn't directly tied to our biology, than an airship to call her own."

"That sounds like a wonderful idea! RD _loves_ airships… Wait." Twilight's smile vanished and she pulled back to look at her mother. She made several quick inquires with her brothers and sisters back in Stripped Gear. "You haven't built any more ships since the _Phoenix._ You're not taking a ship off your defensive line are you?"

"I have a vessel in the design stages," Cadista retorted evenly. "But some of the queens are getting impatient with you. They have begun scrutinizing you more closely now that your hive is taking root."

"I'll double the sentries then, but what about you? You need every warship you have to keep the other queens from invading."

"And _you_ need a ship to survive the Chaos Lands, with the _Phoenix_ grounded and the _Golden Harvest_ is by no means capable of the task at hoof."

Twilight scowled at the elder queen. "And what of the other hives? You think they won't pounce on you the moment they see an opening? I – I already lost one mother, I couldn't stand to lose you too." Cadista's reply was cut short by Twilight hugging her tightly. "Especially to some opportunistic queens."

"I could say the same thing about losing you to some random chaos spawn, Twilight." She pulled head daughter in close for a long embrace. Twilight held on tight as if her life depended on it. "Both you and you sister mean more to me than life itself and I will not let anything jeopardize either of you."

She stroked her daughter's mane with a gentle loving touch. "If it'll make you feel better, I'll have the Hive Guard tripled. With the overwhelming number of love crystals you're sending me, I can afford to nearly double my population."

A ghost of a smile traced Twilight's lips as the weight on her heart lifted. "I'm glad I'm finally able to give you something back in return for all you've given me. A new life, guidance, three ships, and a chance to experience the utter bliss of queenhood."

Cadista let off a warmhearted chuckle. "I feared that as a former Equestrian, you might end up hating what you've become."

"The amnesia helped," Twilight replied wistfully as she rolled back over onto the grass. She altered the Linkscape to mimic the heat and humidity of the jungle. The change in climate was just right for her changeling physiology to feel relaxed in. "I rebuilt myself as a changeling from the ground up. Looking back on it, even as I reclaimed my memories and identity as an Equestrian…" She turned to face her supportive mother. "I never stopped thinking of myself as changeling where it mattered," Twilight said while patting her heart. "I guess what you told RD is true. Once you're a changeling, you are one for life."

"Has your sister come to terms with that? She did not get the same rebuilt foundation that you had." Concern more than curiosity colored Cadista's tone.

"…in a manner of speaking," Twilight said at length. "Once RD saw her first eggs hatch and heard their voices on the hive mind—" She paused at the memory. The profound wonder and joy that Rainbow Dash experienced from that moment touched Twilight deeply. She couldn't help but to smile at how it echoed her own memory when Aegis hatched in front of her. "But I think it also scared her though."

Cadista furrowed her brow and hummed curiously. "In what way?"

"She's scared of becoming like me," Twilight replied sourly. "I like laying eggs. Bah, who am I kidding, I _love_ laying eggs. Each one is a future child, and each egg that hatches is one more drone that adds their voice to the hive mind." Twilight sighed contently as she immersed herself in the Link. The din of the hive mind was like a song to her. Each drone added to the choir that brought blissful joy to her heart. As she laid there, three eggs hatched, and the additional voices on the Link only added to the sonnet tugging at Twilight's heart.

To Cadista, Twilight's form was starting to fade away as she lost herself in the hive mind. She scoffed before prodding her daughter, snapping her back to the present. "Am I to assume your sister doesn't want to lay eggs?"

Twilight blushed sheepishly as she sat up straight, and rubbed the back of her neck out of embarrassment. "That's just it. She _does_ want to lay eggs, but she's terrified that her body is reshaping her mind into someone other than Rainbow Dash."

"Change is inevitable for all things, and for us it is a part of our very nature," Cadista preached, not that it was necessary to her solitary audience. "You might do well to remind her that ponies change quite frequently as well, even if they never notice it." Cadista allowed a weak smile to shine through. "I wouldn't worry about it too much though. Your sister is a very strong individual, but does not have the benefit of a true rebirth to allow her mind to have a changeling foundation. It may take months or even decades, but I have full confidence that you can help her acclimate to her new place in life. She might even surprise us and find her center much earlier. For now though, I must bid you farewell. The _Deception_ should be entering Everfree's airspace any minute now."

Twilight's worries over her sister came to a screeching halt and she jumped to her hooves. "Y-you sent your flagship?! I can't accept that!"

"Too bad it's not your gift to deny," Cadista replied with a superior smirk. "It's your sister's ship now, and if I'm reading her correctly…" An amused smile crossed her features. "She's practically drooling over it right now… No, she's _actually_ drooling on it." She physically shook her head to clear the mental image out of her brain. "I even had it renovated slightly to have twin queen quarters."

Twilight's copyrighted Fanged Pout of Seething Irritation had no effect on the elder queen. "Does she know what giving this ship to us means for your hive's defense?"

"You worry too much, my daughter," Cadista chided lightly. "Stripped Gear does not stand alone, nor is the _Deception_ my only warship. I have several allies and agreements with other queens, and strong ties with Equestria as well. Not to mention I have spies everywhere. You should be more concerned with your own defense. Nearly all royals end up dead before their hundredth year." Twilight's pout slipped as her mother continued unabated. "Furthermore, you're going into a region that hasn't been charted in recorded history. I won't have you going there on hoof."

"Just promise me you'll be careful." Twilight nuzzled her mother's neck, and relished in her touch. She didn't care if it was only in the Linkscape, it was real enough for her.

"Anything for you, my majestic daughter." The pair remained with each other in silent reverie. Twilight couldn't remember the last time she had physically been in Cadista's presence, let alone her embrace. Thankfully, the Linkscape allowed them a few precious moments to bond.

Alas, the duties of a queen were never at an end, and the two eventually separated with the serene Linkscape collapsing behind them.

* * *

The _Deception_ was a small vessel compared to the _Phoenix,_ barely reaching a third of the colony ship's length. Yet that was perfectly fine for Rainbow Dash as it had more than enough firepower for its size. It's sleek dagger shaped design only added to its appeal, while the aura of technological prowess it exuded sang to the technophile within her. Of all the mental changes her royal changeling blood had inflicted upon her, Rainbow's adoration of machines was the one she embraced wholeheartedly.

Rainbow Dash's training regiment for Twilight's drones lasted for several weeks before she felt they were ready to fully replace Cadista's crew who were sent home with fond farewells.

Loud thumping music played over the loudspeakers as Rainbow Dash personally drilled the gun crews in firing at distant targets: both balloons in the sky, and drawn targets on the ground. Come on mares! You think a swarm of Frothing Bats is going to retreat from a near miss?! Next salvo, on the double!

The warship fired a deafening broadside that rocked the vessel on its side before its engines could compensate. Well over half of the ten remaining balloons were hit and all but one of the nine ground targets were struck by harmless smoke canisters.

Now that's improvement I want to see. Rainbow announced as she scanned the fields with her binoculars on the bridge. Several cheers rain out from the gunners who hit the mark. But it's not good enough! Rainbow quickly shouted with steel. I want two more volleys before we hit the mess hall.

Yes, Our Queen! the drones called back before going to work reloading the cannons.

Rainbow Dash watched the clock hanging above the wheelhouse and waited for each crew to signal their readiness to fire.

Captain Veselov's ears were pinned back at the gut pounding music that grated his nerves. My Queen, is it really necessary to play this Canterlot… 'music' on my - your ship? It must be hampering crew response and accuracy.

Some of the crews were starting to report in, and Rainbow used her burgeoning ability for high level multitasking to speak to him. That's the point, Captain. If these guys can't handle a little bass drop or two during drills, how are they going to function when Eagle Ants are swarming the ship and trying to bite their way through the hull? This is foal's play.

Even with the training and knowledge granted to him by Cadista's naval drones, Veselov was hardly experienced compared to Rainbow Dash. Some of your Wonderbolt training methods, I presume?

She shot him a smug grin and nodded before refocusing on the gun crews. Alright, secondary teams, pony those guns! Those who score highest will get to crew the main cannons on day shift. She faced the gramophone and switched it off with a burst of magenta magic before addressing expectant captain. "I guess letting the music play all the time would negate its effect after a while. At any rate, we're about as ready as we're going to be. If my sister's done with the logistics then we're good to go."

"Speaking of which…" Veselov looked towards the stern to find Twilight Sparkle hovering above the warship's surface deck as the last shuttle degorged its cargo. The drones around their queen rushed about to lower the supplies into the cargo hold via elevator.

Twilight held a series of scrolls and clipboards in her magic as she checked, double checked, and checked again, the supplies she had available. Steel Crate, what's our status?

The drone in question tapped his hoof on the perfectly stowed away cargo as more came in. This should be the last shipment we need to get underway, assuming Aunty doesn't burn our ammunition all day.

Twilight ignored the comment to look towards the bridge. RD, are we on track?

The more militant queen pinged her various crews before smirking in satisfaction. So long as the secondary gun crews test well enough, we can leave by day's end.

Perfect! Twilight buzzed in the air cheerfully. I know we're going into a dangerous place, but I'm really looking forward to seeing our ancestral homeland.

Rainbow flopped into one of the two queen's chairs on the bridge, which were larger and sat behind Veselov's captain's chair. I guess. Makes me wonder how long dead Theserials built a kingdom smack in the middle of Discord Central.

We just might find out when we get there. As for Discord, Fluttershy says he didn't do it. Twilight left the work crews do their jobs and flew off to join her sister on the bridge.

Suuuure he didn't. Rainbow found three pale green tennis balls nearby and wrapped them in her magic. She started her personal training by orbiting them around her head. Can't Celestia just tell him to fix the damage he did so we can just mosey on over and grab the old junk we need?

A sudden spike in outside noise heralded Twilight's arrival through an opened window. "Discord claims he's innocent, and the princesses are loath to force the issue, lest he revert to his old ways."

Rainbow's reply was interrupted by Twilight nuzzling her sister. Rainbow rolled her eyes, but didn't pull away from her sister's affections. Desiring to return the gift of love to her sister, she gave Twilight a quick but heartfelt hug. "Just as well," she said as Twilight moved to her chair. "Discord'd probably just make things worse for us if he bothered lifting a claw."

Twilight nodded her agreement right as Ratchet pinged her mind from the engine room. All boilers are burning hot and the engines are purring like kittens. We're ready to go on your order, Twily.

Twilight relayed the message to her sister. Rainbow shrugged before pinging her gun crews. The final drill is canceled. We shove off for Fort Saddlebelt within the hour. And from there, She adopted and overly dramatic tone that would make Rarity proud, the Chaos Lands.


	26. Chapter 26

Tip of the Iceberg

The active volcano loomed over the landscape as the royal changeling sisters studied it from a safe distance on the bridge of the _Deception._ A thin but steady column of steam and ash billowed from its craggy peak. Far below, the last of the lava dogs stirred by the recent eruption were burrowing down into the cooling lava tunnels and the forest fires around Fort Saddlebelt were settling down as the ponies reclaimed control.

Rainbow lowered her telekinetically held spyglass and looked to her sister. "We're in luck. Mount Boom already blew its top recently, so we can glide right over without worrying about another eruption for at least a month."

Twilight hummed nervously at the dense layer of ash hanging high above the lonely volcano, but that took a backseat to a more pressing issue as she shot Rainbow a scathing glare. "Mount Boom? Really?"

"What? That's its name." Rainbow arched an eyebrow at her fluming sister.

"It's named The Throat of Chaos," Twilight stated matter-of-factly.

"Yyyeah, the only ponies you'll find out here are military. Good luck changing their minds on that." Rainbow laid it on so thick that a wave front of sarcasm rippled through the hive mind.

 _Mount Boom,_ honestly. _I can worry about that later._ Shaking off a groan before it could escalate, Twilight refocused on the landscape. "Any chance we can use an alternate route? I'd rather not have ash clog everything."

"That depends on what you want to risk most." Rainbow rubbed the back of her head to think of all the different outer regions and the chaos spawn that called it home. "As far as I know, nothing flies over Mount Boom, so the volcano'd be our only concern. There's a mountain range to the east that has gale force winds at all times of the year except spring, but we're too late in the year for that. We could swing around to the northwest, but that's Eagle Ant territory. Even with the cloak I'd rather avoid that area if at all possible."

"Crud." Ratchet, can the engines survive going through all of that ash?

The chief engineer stopped inspecting a troublesome boiler to peer out of a porthole. We might be able to after the preparations RD ordered, but we'd still have to clean the air intakes afterwards. Some of these older boilers are shaky enough as it is, it would behoove us to take a few hours to clean the ship after we get through.

Twilight scanned the landscape before her. Somewhere off the distance was the capital of the old Thestarian empire, abandoned long ago due to some great catastrophe. _Discord can say he's innocent all he wants, but it's not called the_ Chaos Lands _for nothing._ "Captain Veselov, take us above the ash layer."

Veselov's gaze had never left the far reaching black clouds that ascended too high for him to even see their ceiling amidst the ashfall. "I'm afraid that would be impossible, my queen. The venerable bird may be good in a fight, but she's not designed to go that high. We'd never get above the ash."

Rainbow tsked in expected exasperation. "Typical. We can forget waiting it out, by the time the skies are clear, Boom will blow its top again."

"Then we have no choice," Twilight replied definatively to her sister and captain alike. "Take us in at best possible speed."

"Aye, my queen."

Both royals cantered back to their seats as the drone captain casually walked over to stand behind the wheelhouse. "Helm, come about and put us at fifteen knots. Take the path with the thinnest ash." Confirmation led him to address the defense station. "Ensign, deploy the cloak, I don't want any spawn down there thinking we're a snack."

All hooves, this is the captain. We are now at general quarters. I want all eyes on the ground and the sky. Just because the ship's invisible doesn't mean we're out of danger.

With a mighty lurch, the _Deception_ steamed forward into the dark, ash smothered sky with only a wrinkle in the light to mark its passing.

The dead and burning landscape stretched for several kilometers in all directions of Mount Boom. Small wind storms created miniature ash tornados that blew across the hilly terrain. Ashfall from the black clouds above rained down, covering the airship in soot, along with the crystals projecting the cloaking bubble. The ship was barely halfway past the blasted land when the drone crewing the cloaking terminal looked towards Veselov with a worried expression on her face.

"Captain, the ash is starting to destabilize the crystals. We're going to lose the cloak in a matter of minutes."

Veselov looked out across the skies as the ash blizzard slowly trickled down. _Glad the air intakes are beneath us._ "We have to keep going. The wind should take care of the ash soon enough." He turned to Twilight with a question on his lips.

It was easy enough for her to sniff it out and she flew over to join him at the soot covered windshield. "Keep the current heading. Luna said this was the general direction of the old Thestral capital." Twilight used her magic to wipe enough of the window clean so she could peer at the landscape. "There," she announced after pointing a hoof downward. "That canyon seems to mark where the ash cloud layer is being diverted further north. The wind's strong enough that you can see it. We need only go that far before we can stop to clean the ash off of us."

Rainbow Dash cantered over while addressing the cloak technician. "Retract the crystal booms. I don't want them sheared off by some bad weather."

The helmsling didn't need to be prompted and started a slow descent to give the vessel better speed towards the canyon.

Along the way, the engines started coughing and sputtering, but Ratchet and his team of engineers kept the _Deception_ in one piece long enough for the vessel to pass through the ash blizzard and into the tight winds blasting through the canyon below. The sudden gust of violent wind rocked the ship so harshly it was pushed up several meters. The helmsling fought with all of her physical and magical strength to keep the _Deception_ level. "Hang on to your flanks, this is going to be rough!"

Everyone in the room latched onto their chairs as the airship groaned loudly with creaking steel as it struggled to keep itself in one piece. The turbulence threatened to throw everyone to the deck as the shaking vessel tossed drones against walls, along with bursting dozens of pipes, spewing steam and oil in all directions.

After what seemed like an hour, the _Deception_ passed through into the airspace over the dense green/purple forest that miraculously still grew intact on the far side of the canyon. It took the pilot a few moments to level the ship off before she received a nonverbal command from Twilight to cut the forward thrust.

Rainbow Dash was nursing her horn after smacking it into her chair. I need a damage report pronto!

Twilight placed a hoof on her chest to calm down. Everypony okay?

A round of affirmatives resounded throughout the ship as the helmsling checked her instruments. "Engines one, three, and four are idling, two's gone dead."

"Alerting damage control teams," announced another bridge officer.

The pilot only nodded in acknowledgement. "Altitude controls are responding, and only one of our lift engines appears to have suffered critical damage. As long as nothing else happens, we'll be fine."

Rainbow Dash borrowed some of the lower observation drones' eyes. "Don't count on that while we're in the CL." Drive Belt, I want those cloak crystals cleaned and online ASAP. _That wind would have torn a lesser ship apart, or grounded it at least._

With the whole ship on high alert, every gun crew scanned the skies and ground for threats. Even if the forest below appeared tame at the moment there was no telling what dangers lurked below the dense canopy.

The overall damage was minor and took less than half an hour to fixed everything, save for getting every last scrap of ash off the cloak crystals. During that time, Twilight couldn't take her eyes off the scattered purple trees below. It was enough that Rainbow's curiosity dragged her away from Veselov's conversation. She cantered over to try and guess what Twilight was looking at. "I don't think you're going to find a hay fry joint down there, sis."

"I could actually go for some right now, but I'm more interested in those Jiyya trees. Celestia told me some time ago that they only grow naturally in the Thestral homeland."

Rainbow rolled her eyes. _Only she could be fascinated by a tree when we're in the middle of a war zone._ "I _guess_ purple trees are interesting," she got an idea that caused a snarky grin to dance over her muzzle. "Maybe if we took some seeds home you could trim them into mini Twilights."

Twilight guffawed. "I'm more interested in their fruit. Jiyya fruit is a critical part of the Thestrian diet during foalhood and adolescence. So much so that the scant few trees they've been able to cultivate has limited Thestal births to less than ten per year. If we could learn how to grow some in the _Golden Harvest_ we could gift it to Luna and the Thestrals to further cement peaceful public relations."

Rainbow fired a sardonic scowl at her sister. "That's nice and all, Twi, but what's stopping you from asking the batwings for some seeds? There's no need to go down there where who knows what could be lurking about."

"Because the seeds are exorbitantly expensive, and most of them are used in magical rituals to keep what trees they currently have alive and healthy. We're currently parked above a figurative gold mine for strengthening relations with Equestria, and it's too good to pass up."

"Hmm…" Rainbow's wings fluttered in contemplation. "Since you put it that way, it might be worth the risk. Even with the horror stories, I find it hard to believe every scrap of land out here is a deathtrap."

"I hope you're right," Twilight commented before addressing Aegis, who was watching the lower decks for boarding attempts. Captain, we're sending an away team to gather samples of the Jiyya trees. I want you to go with them.

Yes, my queen. Although she was able to hide it, Aegis grumbled to herself. _Why on Equis do we need to go grab fruit in this nightmare land?_

* * *

A group of eight Clockwerks descended from the _Deception_ towards the largest nearby patch of Jiyya trees as the warship moved in to hover above it. The artificial changelings crashed through the canopy with ease, creating holes for the drones following them to enter.

Aegis and her squad of soldiers swarmed the ground around a pine tree and scoured the area for threats. The only things she found at the business end of her weapon were fleeing birds and rodents, the latter being unusually large. The hole one of the Clockwerks created happened to be where a large nest of hoof sized wasps was located. Ferrum was unlucky enough to be flying in right after the robot only to find himself surrounded by the enraged insects.

Aegis brought her weapon on the swarm. Ferrum, get clear!

He barely had time to sprint away before Aegis unleashed a stream of ignited oil that tore straight through the center of the swarm. The flames burned or disoriented the wasps, scattering them to the four winds, but not before stinging Ferrum a half dozen times. With the threat neutralized, Intel and one other soldier flew over to spray foam over the burning oil to dowse it before it could grow out of control.

Intel gave quick orders for everyone to spread out before addressing his commander. "Even with the fire extinguishers, bringing a flamethrower is hardly the best weapon in the middle of the woods, captain. The last thing we need is to broadcast our location with a forest fire."

"Or damage the trees we came here to harvest," Riposte added as he swept the landscape for more targets.

"If you have time to complain, you have time to form a perimeter," Aegis rebuked as she eyed the swaying branches with suspicion. Spread out into fire teams so we can give the scientists enough room to work. The sooner we get what mother wants out of here, the sooner we go home.

As everyone spread out to obey, Aegis flew over to find Ferrum hissing in pain on a tree branch. "How you are holding up, guardsling?"

"I've had worse," he rasped at the lumps forming on his flank and legs. "The flame ants back home have a worse bite than this."

Aegis shook her head and pointed up. "Go back to the ship and get yourself checked out anyway. I'm not risking you over some unknown venom when there are fifty others who can take your place."

The noise of whooshing flames and cries on the local hive mind cut any retort Ferrum had, so he opted for a quick salute before shakily flying back up to the ship. Aegis turned away after making sure he would make it back, then sped off to find the worst of the action.

* * *

It did not take long for the forest denizens to flee in the face of the fire wielding invaders from the sky. The outer ring the changelings had cordoned off for the scientists was more or less safe for the time being. Riposte and a junior soldier prowled the far north eastern edge. His jungle training kept him more or less out of sight; while his companion stayed close to learn from him.

The thing you have to remember, Flechette, is that anything and everything can be a threat. A small rock could be an ambush spider, a brush could be hiding a cockatrice. Never let your guard down.

Flechette nodded curtly before she spied a rather oddly shaped plant and pointed at it. Is it me, or does that small tree look like it's growing out of a pony?

"What?" He followed her hoof, and sure enough there was a small tree seemingly growing out of the back of a wooden earth pony as if it was laying down on its belly.

Now, any sane person in the middle of a hostile forest would let sleeping dogs lie, but if there was one weakness that plagued Twilight's brood the most, it was their insatiable curiosity. So it was, that Riposte felt compelled to walk over to investigate, but not before double checking his surroundings first.

When nothing dangerous seemed to be lurking about, he stepped over as quietly as possible with his tagalong close behind. Keep an eye out. It might be a lure for something more dangerous.

Flechette had to fight to keep her ears from falling flat so she could keep them alert for threats You don't think a pony was actually taken and… woodified do you?

The thought made Riposte pause between a pair of dense ferns. A bright orange centipede tried to take a bite out of him, but Flechette was quick to smack it away with a hoof. Riposte nodded appreciatively as the bug scuttled away. Thanks, kid. As for the pony, I have no idea. I'm not dismissing anything this place might have in store for us.

The pair was much closer now, barely seven meters with only a few fallen twigs and leaves between them and the wooden pony. Flechette swelled with pride at her brother's praise, but it didn't last long as she inspected the object of their attention. Her bile rose at what she saw. I – I really think it was a pegasus mare. It looks like those tree branches used to be her wings!

Sure enough, the branches growing out of the wooden pony's back were akin to flared wings where instead of feathers, short thin green leaves grew in all directions, giving it a very dense canopy. A trio of bright red and purple flowers bloomed along the base of the tree-like wings. The air drifting across both changelings' noses was cloyingly sweet.

Riposte was more focused on the head, which wore an almost serene expression. His vision began to swim and he shook it to try and clear his thoughts. Maybe she was a tree remolded to look like a pony, or she could have been willing, Mother knows why.

He was about to pull back when Flechette slumped to her side and fell out of the fern. _No… the - pollen…_ He fell to his knees, but not before mustering out a pitiful cry for help before darkness claimed his vision. Ae-gis, plant thi-ng.

Within moments, he was as still as the forest around him. However, it did not remain so for long. The bark covering the tree-like pony started to chip and crack under its own accord. The leaves started to fold in on themselves and retreat into the now skeletal looking wings. The branches cracked and popped before coming to life and folding neatly at the pony's barrel as its bark finished transforming into brown fur. Her mane and tail were a tangle of green vines that shook as the mare climbed to its hooves upon stiff legs.

Slitted eyes the color of roses blinked the last vestiges of stiffness away before she sniffed the air. Amid the usual myriad of forest smells, several new ones attacked her nose. _Ack-chi-wa! What is that horrendous odor!_ Her nose directed her to the two comatose changelings several meters away. _What manner of animal befouls the air in such a manner?_

The plant-like pony sniffed the air to make sure no threats lingered in the area before moving in to investigate the two purple intruders. _What a miserable catch. If they reek as foul as the silverback's backside, they will make a poor meal indeed._

Her nose burned more the closer she approached to the two sleeping creatures, but what she saw, fueled her curiosity. The purple beings were wearing items of metal and most peculiar of all, clothing. The pony eyed the pair with curiosity and trepidation in equal measure.

 _These beings are beyond mere strange, nor are they food._ She sniffed the nozzle of Riposte's flamethrower, only to fall back on her haunches as her nose suffered chemical burns down to her throat. *cough hack* "What manner of creature shapes metal and smells of fire?" She snorted her nose several times to try and clear it.

The sound of buzzing wings, far heavier than any she had heard before caught her attention. Aegis and two other changelings suddenly broke through the canopy above, and quickly encircled the plant pony. Aegis took one look at her two fallen siblings, the row of carnivorous teeth in the strange green and brown pony, and pointed her flamethrower at the creature. Only Riposte's proximity to the creature stayed her wrath. "Get away from them!"

The creature cowered at the warning burst from the flamethrower of one of Aegis' wingmates, and tripped on her own hooves in primal fear of fire. "De'la tu'luna be'resa!" She cried out in abject terror in a language no changeling understood. "Ma ya'delra! Ma ya'delra!"

One of Aegis' wingmates gasped. Looks like we found a native, Captain!

A crazy thought crossed Aegis' mind and she holstered her flamethrower. A native, what are the odds of that? I'm taking her – him – or whatever back to the ship. You two, grab Riposte and Flechette. We're leaving before anything else goes wrong.

The plant pony saw the strange purple beings were slightly distracted and tried to make a break for it, but barely got three steps before a lavender-orange aura enveloped her. She cried out as she was hefted off the ground. "Da'hua! Dutel'veta calner' vetiata!?"

Aegis grunted as she had to keep the struggling creature stable in her magic. Bravo squad, report to my position, we have another catch for the scientists to cream themselves over, and I need some help reeling it in.

* * *

Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash stood in a hallway in front of a door where a frantic plant thing was banging on the walls yelling out in a frantic tone. Aegis stood before her queens, now free of her flamethrower.

"So let me get this straight, Aegis. You found an apparently sentient being and instead of trying to do things diplomatically, you foalnap her?" Twilight inquired with more surprise than ire. Rainbow kept peeking through the small window in the door, but remained silent.

"That thing didn't come across as willing to talk. I thought that you could learn how to communicate with it under more controllable circumstances. Maybe it could direct us to some ruins that might still be intact."

"It was a good call if you ask me," Rainbow announced before Twilight could speak. "There's no guarantee the old Thestral capital is still there, let alone if it has anything worth digging up."

"It's still incredibly rude to have foalnapped her like that," Twilight rebuked. She waved off Aegis' rebuttal before it could leave her lips. "But we might as well try to communicate. At the very least so you can apologize."

Aegis remained stern in the face of her mother's displeasure. "It sounds like a corrupted version of ancient Thestarian."

Twilight's horn lit up and a small sphere of dancing letters and symbols appeared in front of her. "Then at least I have a starting point to work with. Just make sure she keeps talking."

Rainbow Dash huffed comically at the torrent of fearful shouting. "I don't think you have to worry about that."

Over an hour passed before the sphere of letters grew dense enough to grant Twilight enough understanding for her to make an attempt at establishing a dialogue. She opened the door with a tray holding bread and water at her side. She hid the magical sphere behind her to keep it from spooking her guest.

The plant pony stopped crying out and fled to the far wall at the sight of the tall and powerful looking queen. Yet what drew her attention most of all was her ponyish shape and reptilian eyes. Twilight tried to keep a friendly face, but had no idea how any expression would be interpreted.

"Hello, I'm Twilight Sparkle," she said placatingly, and decided to drop the title. "Can you understand me?"

The brown and green pony-thing nodded dumbly. "The Mark of Reformation is upon your being! By what magic are you not of the lost ones?"

Twilight furrowed an inquisitive brow. "Umm… I have no idea what the mark is, nor who the lost ones are; but can we start with your name? Do you have one?"

"Y-yes. Mine ancestors bestowed the name Arya upon my person, Arya Ge'ula." Arya's wing-branches stopped quivering in fear, but her ears were still pinned back.

"Good to meet you, Arya Ge'ula." Twilight suddenly wished the storeroom they were in had been given a chair or cushion. "I must apologize for my daughter's rash behavior in bringing you here."

Arya zeroed in on Twilight's carnivorous teeth and fangs. "Not good meal am I, oh great and powerful Twilight Sparkle!" Arya attested hastily. "I am more sap than blood."

Twilight brought the tray over and set it down in front of Arya. "We only brought you here to talk. We don't want to eat you."

Arya's gaze drifted down to the presented bread and water. She glanced warily between the food and Twilight as she sniffed the presented items. They reeked of oil and smoke that was commonplace on the ship, but fine otherwise. She snatched the hunk of bread and tore into it before looking around at the wood and metal room she was bound in. "What manner of flying beast clinks and clanks and thrums and churns?"

"We're on an…" Twilight said 'airship', but the spell failed to translate it out of Vespid. "We're on a—" _Stupid spell never worked right._ She sighed to center herself. "We are on a large construct that we have built. It is not a living beast, but an object of our own design."

Arya quickly devoured her small meal and had started sniffing the steel deck at her hooves while Twilight spoke. "You hear the beast's thrum and the churning and burning, do you not? How can you not see the life?" Yet before Twilight could even think of a counterargument, Arya gasped with excitement. "Are you the Queen of Prophecy!?"

Twilight's first replied died on her lips. _Let's hold off on telling her I'm actually a queen._ "What prophecy?"

"Yes, yes, you would not know of it! The elders said as much!" Arya bounded over to grovel at Twilight's hooves, her tone was too ecstatic to carry the reverence she should have been displaying. "She said you would be tall, far taller than any of us. That you would bear the Mark, but also have the eyes of our foremothers!" Arya spread her wooden wings out low in a submissive gesture, something that was mostly lost on Twilight. "Farseer Vel'in once spoke of a great metal sky beast bearing two children of the royal caste! Please, I beg of you to enlighten me, do you have an equal here with you?"

 _At least she's completely forgotten about the foalnapping,_ Twilight mused dryly. "Slow down, please. Before we go into this prophesy business, I'd like to know _what_ you are."

Arya leapt to her hooves and flared her skeletal wings out to their full height and prostrated herself before the queen. "I am Arya, Child of the Lost Empire, Second Seedling of Ve'tul'na. I may only be a second circle druid, but service to the Ponies Hidden in the Leaves is the highest of callings." When Twilight did not immediately answer, Arya risked cracking an eye open to see Twilight's unreadable expression, and inwardly slapped herself. _Ah tach! None of that means anything to the prophesied one!_ "My people are called Tea'la."

 _Ah, good. Now we're getting somewhere._ Twilight gestured with a hoof for Arya to rise, and was glad it translated. "As I've said, my name is Twilight Sparkle." _There's no point in hiding it, or insulting her intelligence._ "I am a changeling queen here with my sister Rainbow Dash on a…" The spell failed to translate the word she wanted to use, making her grumble at it. "We're on a journey to uncover our people's past."

Arya's face lit up like a Christmas tree. "And the sky would carry a steel bird that carried two inquisitive podmates born from royal amber. You must come see the elders! They will help you on your journey, I swear it on my people's honor."

Twilight was initially taken aback by Arya's enthusiasm, but inwardly shrugged at herself. _I'd probably be just as bad if monkeys from space came down and said hello._ "I must admit I wasn't expecting to meet anyone" _or thing_ "friendly out here." _If they can point me at some ruins or even some authentic pottery, that'd be perfect!_ "If I take you to one of the viewing areas, can you guide us to your people?"

"It should not be difficult to locate. All you must do is find the tall hill with a ring of purple leaved trees. My people are at the center."

Rainbow Dash had been content to let her sister handle everything up until now, but she felt Twilight was missing a key element. Hey, Twi, are you going to ask what our part in this prophecy is?

Twilight halted before she turned around to open the door when Rainbow's question stopped her. Bah, I nearly forgot to ask. Hopefully nothing too drastic. She turned back towards Arya who was trying to decipher the pattern of the woven tray. "Arya, did the prophecy ever say what those of the returning royal family was supposed to do?"

"The elders would know more than I, but all I know is that you will find the true nature of your forbearers' sins."

Twilight couldn't help but tilt her head in curiosity. "I found mention that the royals of old felt that they had done something terrible, but they never said anything definitive. Do you or your elders know what happened?"

"Hiding the truth of the matter? Or has time truly stripped you royals of the inherent guilt?" Arya replied cryptically. "Your desire to relearn is telling and curious all the same." She eyed Twilight carefully, studying her intently. "This land that I call home is the product of magic beyond imagining. Magic wrought by the old imperial family."

 _I don't like where this is going one bit,_ Twilight thought dourly as she turned to fully face her guest once more. "What are you trying to say?"

"I know not all the fine details my elders do." Arya extended her left wing and traced a hoof along the longest branch. "The oldest tales say that this land was once a vast lake of sand and rock. The royals, like yourself, changed all that. But they also changed all who dwelt here. In essence, this land is of our own making."


	27. Chapter 27

The Tea'la

The air shimmered around the cloaked _Deception_ as it slowed to a stop near their destination. The hill in question was scant meters from being called a mountain. The dense ring of purple leaved trees surrounding its base marked it as the home of the Tea'la people. What threw off Twilight's expectations was that there were no signs of a civilization anywhere to be seen. For all intents and purposes, the forest on the hill looked completely untouched by civilized hooves, save for a comparatively small break in the canopy towards the summit.

Once her fear of her hosts had abated, Arya marveled at the feeling of flight. She was currently on the bridge with both royal changelings as she watched the landscape sail by. To see the Nel'lok Forest from above was breathtaking. A trip that would have taken her a week passed by in a matter of hours. The dangers of the forest seemed almost insignificant to the great monster of steel and steam. The stories of death and fire that surrounded the objects identified as 'deck guns' sent shivers running down her spine every time she looked at them.

 _Such power! Does the rest of the world possess such destructive potential as the forest distilled into this directed form?_

"Hey, Planty, we're here!"

Arya turned away from the porthole to see Twilight elbow Rainbow Dash in the ribs before walking over. The form of address had not translated, but its meaning had. "Did you want to talk to your people before we meet?"

"Wisdom worthy of the imperial family you show. Our home is guarded by many druids such as myself. With the dangers of the forest being as they are, my kin would act first, and act with aggression. Even if you could withstand their wrath, the whole area is smothered in our pollen. You would fall into a sleep so deep that there would be no waking."

"Right," Twilight replied with less diplomatic calm than she would have liked, "we'll just drop you off outside the purple ring okay?"

Arya glanced out of the window, only just now getting nervous from the sheer height. "Unlike you, I cannot fly. To carry me down would expose you to our sleepful pollen."

"We have ways to protect ourselves." She turned to find an aid waiting nearby. "Flint, escort our guest to the ground outside the ring."

"Aye, my queen."

Rainbow watched Arya leave the room with a troubled look. "Hey sis, how do we know these guys aren't going to try and eat us when we get down there? This whole prophecy thing could be completely bogus."

"That sort of mentality is healthy against rival queens, Rainbow, but we should at least give Arya's people the benefit of the doubt."

"Yea well the last time Daring Do had some natives say she was part of a prophecy, they tried to throw her into a volcano."

Twilight tittered and playfully swatted her blue sister. "Only after she told them she was a virgin, and neither one of us have to worry about that."

"Kind of hard to hide that with so many purple kids around," Rainbow trailed off as she watched a pair of masked drones carry Arya to the ground. "But these ponies have survived in a lethal forest not unlike Jungle of the Lings for a long time, and you know how cutthroat the other queens are."

Twilight held back her first reaction to rebuke Rainbow's argument when a memory of Celestia brushed the edge of her mind. _My biggest mistake, Twilight, was dismissing my little sister's ideas simply because I thought I knew better._

Twilight's slight frown switched to a thin smile. "Alright, Rainbow, tell you what. How about I weave some dead mare's switches? If either one of us falls unconscious we'll be teleported back here."

Rainbow thought about it with a hoof on her chin few a few seconds before slowly nodding. "Yeah, that should work. Don't you need a physical object for that since you can't cast it on the pony herself?"

Twilight beamed a smile as she took her crown off her head. "That's exactly right, sis. I'm glad to see you're actually remembering stuff like that."

 _Just accept the compliment, Rainbow._ The cyan queen kept herself from rolling her eyes. "I kinda have to since magic and alchemy go hoof-in-hoof."

"How's your wing research going by the way?" Twilight inquired as she focused on constructing the spell within her mind.

"Meeeh, slow. I've been too focused on learning the basics and mastering telekinesis." She tapped her horn and looked at it from her reflection in the windshield. "Being able to move stuff with my mind's really addictive."

Twilight's crown started glowing in her magic as the enchantment started taking shape. "You're making excellent progress, sis. I was groomed since I was a filly to master the arcane arts. Celestia once told me to take magic at my own pace, and I'd like to tell you the same thing."

"Pah! Your study pace _almost_ rivaled my sonic rainboom speeds." Rainbow shrugged nonchalantly at her sister's lopsided grin. "I'll make the time. Even if I can't be the speedster I used to be, I'll make sure my kids can be."

"That's the spirit!" Twilight cheered as her mana flowed into her crown. "Speaking of which, have you talked to your kids back home since we left?"

An embarrassed smile forced its way over Rainbow's face, making her turn away. Unfortunately for her, her embarrassment also made her fur turn completely beet red which only further compounded it issue. _Stupid disguise!_ It only took a moment for her to get her changeling magic back under control. Once she got over her lapse in control, Rainbow could not, and would not, deny how much the five hundred voices of her nymphs pulled on her heart. "Yeah, I talked to Blitz's clutch while Aegis was busy gathering fruit, and to the lot of them in general this morning."

With her thoughts centered on them, a few dozen cyan nymphs brushed upon her mind, smothering her psyche with their unconditional love. While she could gain no nourishment in this manner, it melted her heart all the same no matter how many times it happened.

Twilight finished her work on her crown and placed it upon her brow before walking over to give her sister a sidelong hug and nuzzled her, much to Rainbow's initial weak protests. A queen is incomplete without her children.

Rainbow snorted in faux disagreement. _Yeah, I guess we are._ Her mood shifted as she pulled away from her sister. "I've got just the thing for you to enchant for my dead-switch!" Rainbow lit up her horn and closed her eyes to concentrate. The magenta glow intensified as she struggled to weave the spell properly. She was gritting her teeth as a blood vessel on her forehead threatened to burst. Twilight was about to ask her to ease up when a large ring finally materialized and dropped to the floor. Rainbow growled at the possibility of having damaged the object. She quickly swiped it off the deck before presenting it to Twilight, but had to suppress her labored breathing all the while.

Twilight's magical senses gave her a shock. "This is real! You actually summoned a circlet using a… hearth charm!"

Rainbow couldn't hide her spike of fatigue and gave herself two deep breaths before speaking. "Yeah well, Gnarled Staff had some interesting spells he was showing off. I figured this one would be useful in case I ever needed a gun or something."

Twilight adjusted her enchantment so it wouldn't interfere with the charm and started weaving the spell. "Even so, I didn't learn that charm until I was a sophomore. Very impressive indeed."

"Me being awesome is old news. That aside though, I was going to make that thing my crown when I'm ready to earn it."

That piqued Twilight's interest. _If she's willing to go that far, then she must-_ Twilight's thoughts halted when the glow faded around the headwear and she recognized what Rainbow had given her. It was the circlet (or a good forgery of it) that had first hybridized her. "I thought we left this back in Canterlot Castle's vault."

"We did. I had this fake made from memory." Rainbow snatched the circlet in her magic and pointed at the engraving along the band with a grin. "I don't recall how it looked exactly, not that I would want to recreate the runes anyway."

"And… you want _that_ as your crown?" Twilight was stunned. Rainbow didn't answer right away as she rolled the circlet in her hooves and studied it wistfully.

Everything Rainbow Dash had gone through over the past several months flashed across her mind's eye. Although Twilight missed it, the date of when Rainbow had first donned the circlet was engraved along the top of the band along with two words in Vespid: Aegis' gift. With a snarky grin worthy of her name, Rainbow Dash placed the circlet upon her head. "I thought it was fitting."

"That it is," Twilight replied with a warm smile and a quick nuzzle along her sister's cheek before Rainbow could pull away.

A ping across the hive mind stifled any further conversation as the two queens looked through the window to see the pair of drones returning with woven baskets. My queens, we've been given powder that will immunize you to the sleep pollen.

Rainbow shot Twilight a cautious look. "Putting a lot of clout on faith here, Twi."

Twilight fell into a regal posture that Rainbow had seen all too often. Her withers were squared, her face warm but strong, and an intense look in her eyes cast her into what Rainbow saw as the definition of a queen. "Sometimes the benefit of the doubt is the only way to give peace a chance."

* * *

There had been enough powder for both queens and a squad of Aegis' best troops. With Aegis taking point, the group flew down towards the forest below. They descended through a hole in the dense forest canopy where Arya was waiting alone for them. She bowed deeply to Twilight and Rainbow Dash once they came down to a landing.

"Returning members of the imperial family; I, Arya, welcome you home."

Rainbow grimaced at the formality while Twilight took it in stride. What set Rainbow on edge was the complete lack of a bigger reception committee. For all the hype Stick-Wings made of this prophecy, I don't see any wide-eyed natives ooo'ing and ah'ing.

Twilight chose to ignore the pet name. Different customs, sister. We must keep an open mind. Assuming her station required less prostration, Twilight opted to dip her head in respect with Rainbow mimicking her a second later. "Even if imperial blood runs through our veins, this is not _our_ land anymore."

"For now," Arya replied coolly as she assumed a normal stature. "You must forgive any strangeness from the absence of others here to greet you. It is not our way to welcome anyone here on the edge of our land where the forest devils can swipe at us freely."

Rainbow crinkled her nose at a coy oder. "Anypony else smell that?"

Rainbow! Don't insult them!

If there was any insult to be had, it flew over Ayra's head as Rainbow shrugged off the scolding. "That could be the many purple Fu'tia trees. With them in such numbers, they change our pollen into life-stealing which slays all creatures but ourselves."

The changelings tensed, but a quick silent command from Twilight stayed their weapons. "That's what the powder was for, correct?"

Arya noticed the change in mood, but did not comprehend the danger of the more mundane firearms that remained holstered among the drones. "Y-yes. The farseers knew this day would come, so we made sure to create something that would allow you safe passage. We would not dare bring harm to any of the imperial family. Such dishonor has only one way for atonement." Arya continued speaking before anyone could inquire further. She proceeded to point towards the center of the hill. "Let us not dwell on such things. Today is a day of celebration!"

Aegis only half listened to Arya ramble as she led the group up the hill. The path barely deserved such a description as it was little more than a semi-cleared trail visible only because Arya's passage. What she saw around her only served to put her more on edge. Stay sharp guys, there are Planties in tree form all around the area. This could turn into an ambush real fast.

Twilight suppressed a groan. You can be vigilant, just don't _look_ wound up.

Nothing but trees and untouched nature surrounded the group as they pressed onward. Arya's originally jovial tone lost some of its happy streak at the thought of the airship above. "I have heard tales of the old empire's power and culture. I fear we have lost nearly all of it ever since the sands gave way to the forest."

Both royals shared a troubled look with Rainbow voicing their mutual question. "It's been thousands of years since then. I'm sure you've made some new stuff on your own."

"We have, your graces, but ahhh… The sands of time are not kind to such things. Even the forest has constantly conspired to rob us of our old ways." Ayra's melancholy tone subsided when she spotted a clearing up ahead. "We are nearing Lūn's embrace…" She inwardly cursed and didn't need to turn around to know the changelings were in various states of confusion. "That is the name for the inner circle where no creature can venture before succumbing to the pollen."

Twilight had instantly picked up on the name "Lūn" and pinged her sister to discover Rainbow had noticed the same thing. It's probably a coincidence, so let's investigate more before jumping to any conclusions. I want hard facts.

The clearing was barely large enough to accommodate a shuttle. However that was enough for the changelings to see well over three dozen Tea'la waiting for them in a wide semicircle. Many more were either exiting their tree-like state or were filtering in from further up the hill. Standing upon aged wrinkled hooves stood five elders, all of whom were stallions. Every last one of them bowed their heads in supplication.

Twilight, used to such functions, had no problems exercising the necessary political caution. Rainbow Dash's ego on the other hoof pulled at her to strut her stuff. She however kept herself from stepping out in front of her more diplomacy-savvy sister. _I figured Planty was just blustering so we wouldn't eat her, but we're genuine celebrities with these guys!_

Upon reaching speaking distance, the eldest stallion in the center looked up to study the mostly purple visitors. "I am Vel'it, seedling of Re'tula. Your subjects welcome you home."

"I thank you for the warm welcome, Vel'it of Re'tula," Twilight began. "It is a testament to the strength of your people to have thrived in what my foremothers thought they could not."

A collective exhale of bittersweet pride washed over the gathered Tea'la. The central stallion elder spoke for the group. "You give us honor we do not deserve, your imperial majesty. We barely survive the trials of the woods on a nightly cycle. Our homes have been uprooted more times than I can count within my own lifetime alone."

A third elder continued the dismal tale. "It is only within the past moon that we have made our home here."

One of the younger hot-blooded mares nudged the elder closest to her. The act went unnoticed by the royal sisters as the other elders reclaimed enough wits to introduce themselves. She glared at the old stallion long enough to impress what she wanted to say through him. The elder's old bones weighed so heavily upon him that his wings drooped nearly to the ground. "Imperial majesties, while our troubles seem unending, we _have_ done more than survive. The farseers have preserved what culture we still possess. It is they who foretold us that your return to these lands would be soon."

Once her station had been named, the mare came forward with reverence in her step. "That we have, elder. Forgive my impertinence, your majesties. I believe this is a time to rejoice, not burdening you with our woes. Come please, we may not possess many of the old ways, but we have made new ones all the same."

"You got music, Miss…?" Rainbow blurted out before Twilight could answer.

The farseer understood most of the question and her eyes lit up while her wings shivered in anticipation. "That we do. Come! We shall fill the leaves with the songs of my people."

Much to the changelings' dismay, the farseer leapt out of the semicircle to face her kin. "Come! They deserve nothing less than an imperial welcome!" Everyone except the elders cheered loudly and clattered their wings together in exultation.

The Tea'la scattered further up the hill, leaving only a select few of their number, Arya included, to escort them up. "You arrived at a most opportune time," she explained to both royals. "Game has become scarce or resistant to our sleep pollen. We know you will help with all of that!"

Twilight felt Rainbow's suspicions grow along with her own ill-at-ease. "In what way?"

"The council of elders and farseers will tell all after the feast!" She waved them forward to follow after the rest. "This way to our humble but proud abode."

The gathered changelings followed after their exultant hosts with a show of friendship and confidence that they didn't truly possess. Twilight was cycling dozens of ideas as to what to expect, while Rainbow kept looking up at the canopy to scout future exit points. If I didn't know any better, I'd think they see us as saviors or something. You don't think they want us to solve all their problems and move here, do you?

Twilight wrinkled her nose at the smell of cooking fires up ahead. We know next to nothing about them. _Judging by distance to the top, it smells like they could feed an army._ In addition, they're acting quickly to welcome us, and are probably emptying their food stores to have this welcoming party. Be ready to leave at a moment's notice if things go south.

The group gave silent acknowledgements leading to a lapse in the conversation. In that lull, Twilight noticed something was off. Furrowing her brow slightly she expanded her magical senses, and Twilight didn't like what she felt. Sister, something's not right here. The air and earth itself feel as if the ambient magic is wild and chaotic.

Rainbow tried to keep her exterior demeanor calm, but she went on high alert. Think our hosts are plotting something?

To Twilight, the very air faintly writhed as the atmospheric mana twisted and turned on itself as if a magnetic field was being distorted by some unseen force. I don't know enough about them to know for sure, but I don't _think_ so. It could be a local phenomenon, or it be something far worse.

Then what are we sticking around for? Let's beat hooves back to the ship and get clear. Rainbow tried to sense what her sister did, but her skill was not up to the task.

Twilight absently kept walking forward as she slowly cast her gaze along the hilly forest around her. The trees swayed in the mild wind that blew faint clouds of golden pollen through the air. This is old, very old. I can't tell without some equipment, but if I had to guess… Remembering where she was, Twilight shook of her bad feeling. If something were to happen, it's not going to be any time soon. I'll keep an eye on it, but let's focus on the here and now. We need to see what we can glean from the aboriginals.

* * *

Twilight first caught sight of the village in the form of tents and hastily fabricated tree houses. The structures ringed the top of the hill with a large clearing in the center. The presence of various tree stumps made her hum in contemplation. Seems they moved here quite recently. They might be nomadic.

Rainbow snickered much louder than tact would call for. Nomadic plant ponies, now I've seen everything.

Twilight rolled her eyes and saw several cooking fires were scattered around while a tall pile of logs was being piled up in a circle of stones for a future bonfire. Each fire pit had knee high stone barriers around them to keep any would be rogue flames at bay. Even with such precautions, Twilight noticed Arya's wings started to clatter as she trembled at the sight of the active fires. The druid averted her gaze and ears away from the flames to keep her composure.

All the while, Arya probed Aegis and her siblings with a barrage of questions ranging from mundane to personal, anything to distract her from the flames. "Exalted Captain. Why do all of you look so much like one of your queens?"

Aegis passed the question on to her mother to see if she could truthfully answer it. She didn't like the response, but complied regardless. "We are all Queen Twilight Sparkle's children."

"W-wha?" Arya took a second, then a third and fourth look at each of the drones and then back at Twilight. "You are _all_ royalty?!"

"Ah, no. We don't work that way." Aegis tried to keep her kind's true nature as obscure as possible, and passed it off as no big deal, because it wasn't. _Might want to keep it simple for her._ "Only the tall ones are royals."

Arya wanted to probe deeper, but a barked command from the gathered farseers grabbed both her and the changelings' attention. "Arya Ge'ula!" She immediately identified the senior farseer and bowed in respect. "Go make sure the eastern ring has enough defenders so our revered guests will be in no danger."

"By your will, honored one."

Arya departed quickly, leaving the Tea'la alone with the changelings. The grey furred mare prostrated herself in front of the changeling queens. "I am He'la, third seedling of Del'la'rus, and Chief Farseer of my people. I want to extend my people's full hospitality to you and your guards."

Rainbow was more than happy to let Twilight do the talking as she addressed the drones. If Twi wants to put on a friendly face, then that's what we'll do. But position yourselves so you can keep an eye of us and each other. I want check-ins every two minutes, and keep your weapons holstered.

Yes, our queen.

Rainbow gave a series of more personal orders to each drone and only refocused on He'la towards the end of the farseer's conversation with Twilight. A stallion Tea'la was whispering in He'la's ear. She shooed the stallion away to speak to Twilight unimpeded. "If I may be so bold, your imperial majesty, can I see the metal sky beast upon which you rode in? No one can see what Druid Arya claims to have been within."

Twilight leaned toward Rainbow to silently ask her advice. The cyan queen wrestled with the idea for a few moments before nodding curtly. "Fine." Captain Veselov, lower the ventral cloak. A few moments later, Rainbow simply pointed up at the small opening in the canopy.

He'la and dozens of other Tea'la quickly spotted the steel warship hovering barely fifty meters from the trees. None of them knew it, but it had to be that close for the dead mare's switches to work. All they knew, was the prophecy was on the cusp of being fulfilled.

A thrill of excitement so palpable that it gave the empathic changelings brief headaches as it swept through the Tea'la like wildfire. Thunderous cheer and the rattle of wooden wings filled the air before He'la ran over to a group of villagers and gave several orders. Soon enough, several crude wooden tables were brought out to give a place for the cooks to display their food. Several musicians produced a collection of large horns and took up position near the gathering tables and started the celebration in earnest.

Several Tea'la guided the changelings to tables covered in what food and drink the locals could spare. The villagers sang and danced to a tempo as alien and violent as the forest they lived in. The flowers on their backs opened and puffs of pollen filled the air, which were tossed about in a tempest as the bonfires were lit. The heavy pollen sent the Tea'la into a psychedelic dancing frenzy. The dancers sang in unison with the deep angry horns, shaking beads, and chilling strings that threw them into a fevered pitch of manic wails and dancing around the bonfires.

The Tea'la scarcely ate anything for hours as the music continued well into the night. Most barely sat down for a scant few minutes to wolf down some food before rejoining their kin. The fires cast eerie shadows across the darkening woods.

By then, most of the changelings had loosened up and found themselves carried away by the intoxicating tribal music that struck a primal chord within them. Not even Rainbow Dash was immune to it and was right there in the middle of the chanting, wailing ponies, throwing all decorum and what little regality she had cultivated to the four winds.

Only Twilight and Aegis maintained their regal and military bearing respectively; even if they were deeply tempted to join in on the festivities. Twilight remained seated more out of intense curiosity, and Rainbow's warning that her dancing would cause a diplomatic incident. Aegis remained at her mother's side out of sheer force of will and profound sense of duty with a heavy dose of paranoia for good measure.

You know, Ratchet, you're missing out on quite the party down here, Twilight teased as she looked up at the ship which had long since resumed full cloak.

Aye, I can see it from here. Looks like one of the raves RD would talk about from Cloudsdale. Fatigue was clearly evident in his voice.

Want come down and join me?

He let of a heavy sigh while flopping onto the royal bed. Right after I just got the engines purring like kittens again? I'm too exhausted to fly, let alone party.

She whined sympathetically. Fair enough. I'll see you as soon as I can.

Twilight barely finished the sentence before Rainbow plopped on the bench next to her, giving Aegis a jump-scare at her sudden appearance. She was drenched in sweat from her fervent dancing. Twilight knew Rainbow well enough that she might slip into vocalized chatter and took her off the translation spell. "I gotta tell ya, Twi, these stick-wings know how to have a bang'n good time."

"That they do," Twilight agreed with a yawn. Aegis tried her best, but the contagious yawn escaped her as well. "You seem to have made some friends." She pointed to He'la who was dancing with a pair of drones.

Rainbow chuckled wholeheartedly. "Say what you want about their food being kinda bland, they have a way to party that would make the Canterlot underground jealous."

"I bet." Twilight paused while her sister shoveled some food down her gullet in a manner unbefitting for a queen. Not that it truly mattered to them; Twilight was just happy to have Rainbow around, and Rainbow didn't care about carrying an air of regality. "Why don't you share party stories with her?"

"I don't think," *snarf* "telling her about," *gulp* "fog machines and turn tables is going to translate."

"Maybe not. But you could tell her about the world outside the chaos lands and she could tell you about the dangers of the forest."

Rainbow was gnawing on a leg bone of an animal she would never be able to identify and spoke with it still in her mouth. "Thaff not a bad idea." She spat the bone onto her plate. "I bet somepony here has to know where the old capital is at least. Maybe they could warn us of some super hydra that sleeps there or something."

Twilight saw He'la collapse in her seat and pile food onto a plate until it was overflowing. "Now's your best chance, she just sat down."

"Uhh… Yeah alright."

Twilight watched Rainbow stand up before holding out a hoof. "Oh, sister?"

"Yeah?"

With a slight smile, Twilight tapped the side of her head, prompting Rainbow to do the same, only to tap her circlet instead. "Remember you're a friend _and_ a queen. She'll think of you as both."

A pit of dread sank into Rainbow's gut, but pride buried it. She grimaced at herself and nodded to her sister. "Right."

Both purple changelings watched Rainbow trot over to He'la and begin talking. Aegis had trouble computing what had just happened for several minutes before turning to her mother. Did you just get Aunty to conduct diplomacy?

I'd hardly call it that, Twilight replied teasingly. Aegis waited for her to expand on that, but Twilight was content to silently eat a few rather tantalizing fruits.

Aegis shook her head. It's scary how you keep coaxing Aunty into more leadership roles outside of the military.

Twilight looked at her daughter and gave a mischievous wink. Rainbow and He'la talked for well over an hour. Twilight chose to hold faith in her sister and refrained from eavesdropping. Instead, she took the time to commune with the hive back home.

 _Looks like the first amphitheater is under construction. Rarity will no doubt love the injection of high society that can bring. Part of a stone wall three kilometers further out from the first wall is getting started tonight, good. We need more room for agriculture. Good thing Zecora is there to help preserve any useful plants that might otherwise have been lost._

Gear Ratio was all too happy to speak once Twilight contacted her. Gear's tone was more business than normal. My queen, you'll be glad to know the nursery is running smoothly, although the hatchery is woefully empty.

 _Poor filly. She only has half a job to do._ You realize that with the addition of RD's eggs our projected population is already going to suffer food rationing as it is within a year.

That's only based on worst case scenarios, but… I suppose caution is advisable. Gear was standing in the hatchery, staring at the rows upon rows of empty incubators with a sullen expression. At least Aunty's nymphs are keeping us busy. Even Fluttershy has trouble keeping them under control sometimes.

Twilight couldn't help but give off a hearty laugh. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, does it?

A fair point, Gear gently rubbed a welt on her flank that one of the dashlings had given her by accident. I've noticed something curious about a few of Aunty's nymphs. Blitz and her clutchmates seem to have a much deeper connection with each other than any other clutches I've seen in either Aunty's or yours. I've decided to let them bunk in the same room from here on out to see if we can foster that.

Twilight's gaze fell upon her sister who had just clapped He'la on the back while laughing uproariously. Blitz is part of RD's first clutch, if I recall correctly.

I knew you would remember that. Gear Ratio's pride in her mother only grew at how deeply she cared for her sister. It makes a rather interesting parallel between them and Aegis' clutchmates, don't you agree?

Twilight hummed at the mention of her own first clutch. If I recall… Aegis bunks right next to Ferrum, Intel, and Riposte, but I never stopped to realize just how close they truly are compared to my other clutches.

Well over two thousand children are a lot to keep track of, I'm sure, Gear amended with dry wit.

Ha! That it is. Twilight tapped her chin in deep thought. Maybe there's a special bond a queen's first drones share that Cadista and I overlooked… Excellent find, Gear. Keep studying it, you may only be scratching the surface of this. And check on the other clutches, it might be present in some of them as well.

One step ahead of you, my queen. I'll keep you apprised of anything new.

Good. Twilight brooded on the discovery for a few minutes. _Aegis has already proven herself worthy of rebirth, not that I'll tell her that. It'd go to her head. Besides, hopefully rebirth won't be necessary for a long time anyway. Still… if I had known how rare rebirthing reagents were, I would have only gone with seven consorts instead of ten. However, if this bond is deeper and more unique than we realize, I'll have to find a way._

Any further contemplation was interrupted by Rainbow Dash flopping onto the bench with a scowl on her face. _Uh oh._ Everything okay, sis?

I messed up, big time. She desperately wanted a stiff drink, but the Tea'la had only supplied water.

Twilight and Aegis scanned the crowd, but the locals only seemed even more enthusiastic than before as He'la spoke to her kin. Well, we're not getting attacked, so it couldn't have been that bad.

"Pah," Rainbow groaned as she frowned at a meatless bone. You know that prophecy they think we're a part of?

Yeeeees.

Rainbow grimaced at as she gave Twilight an apologetic look. A look complete with sad frown, wilted ears, and pleading eyes. Apparently they know where the capital is, and it's strictly off limits to them, like super big time forbidden here. So He'la said that if I could confirm that we _really_ were the heralded royals, then she could do something about evil spirits or whatever.

Wait I'm confused. Aegis leaned forward on the table to she could see past her mother. I thought you two were already seen as the prophesied royals.

Rainbow chewed on her wooden cup as she tried to keep from emotionally exploding on herself. There were some doubters, so I did some stupid balance test. They told me to do it to prove we were who they think we are. Don't ask why, I don't know either. So, I was like, 'psh' why not?

Both purple changelings tilted their heads out of confusion, prompting Rainbow to shrug. Hey, that was my first reaction too. Anyway, I passed the stupid test, everypony oohs and ahhs, and then He'la says it's final proof that we queens are here to tame the entirety of not _just_ the forest, but the whoooole chaos lands too.

Twilight spit-took her drink and slammed the cup down. **"WHAT?!"**

Aegis was rendered speechless. Rainbow buried her face in her forelegs. "I knoooow."

Twilight's eyes started twitching and hairs started popping out of her mane and tail as the urge to scream started to boil up through her carefully constructed regality. A mad hatter grin cracked across her face as she hastily constructed a simplistic Linkscape to scream her lungs out.

Aegis' ears drooped at the sight of her queen. _Uh oh… Mother's got that look again._


	28. Chapter 28

City of Marble

Aegis could see the veins on Twilight's temple throbbing heavily as her mother leveraged every ounce of willpower she had to keep from screaming. The world around Twilight faded away as her mind bent. With her last bit of self-control, Twilight thrust her consciousness into the simplistic pocket of Linkscape she had thrown together.

For the next five minutes, a changeling filly version of Twilight ran in circles while screaming nonstop. Even in this isolated place, her scream echoed faintly throughout the entire hive mind. Every last one of her drones were unnerved by the event, and the queens suffered headaches from it.

Cadista sighed and grumbled as she squelched the scream on her end of the hive mind. _Here we go again. Judging by the pitch and tone, she does not appear to be in any danger. Rainbow probably just pranked her... or she feels she's doomed the world again. I'll have to check in later._

Twilight's hysterical scream petered out slowly; lung capacity meant little in the Linkscape. Once she had regained enough composure to calm down (and revert her appearance to that of her adult self), she forcibly pulled Rainbow and Aegis into the Linkscape consisting of nothing more than a white ground and blue sky.

The new arrivals were disorientated by the forced transfer, but that quickly flipped over to deep concern at Twilight's twitching face.

 _Oh no. It's Want it Need it all over again._

Twilight shoved her muzzle into Rainbow's face. "What. Did. You. Do!"

Rainbow stumbled backward to get some space. "Whoa, whoa, hold on. I didn't do anything. It's the stick-wings that got it in their head that we're the chosen ones. Even if I failed the stupid test of theirs they'd just make up another one."

"How in Tartarus do they expect us to 'tame' the CHAOS LANDS!?"

"Ahhh… magic?" Rainbow flinched at the expected marexplosion, but it never came.

A malkavian grin crept over Twilight's face. "Magic!? Pfffft well why didn't I think of that?! It's so obvious!" Twilight turned away toward no point in particular. "Magic will save the day. He he he, why not? Doesn't it always?!"

"Here's an idea." Both queens zeroed in on Aegis who fell flat on her belly at the off-kilter scrutiny her mother was leveling upon her. "We could just ignore the whole thing."

Twilight's mad hatter gaze unnerved to her daughter as much as her manic tone. "And have these ponies hounding us the entire time we're trying to dig? If we just go back to the ship and ignore them they could retaliate! Do you really think we can survive the Chaos Lands _and_ hostile natives?!"

Rainbow was getting increasingly unnerved by the number of loose hairs in Twilight's mane. _How does that even happen in a Linkscape?_ "Listen, Sis, maybe there's a double meaning to all this, or we might not have to do anything at all."

"What do you mean do nothing?" Twilight barked as her eyes bore a hole through her sister's forehead.

Rainbow wanted nothing more than to calm her sister down. _Every second she's like this, her drones get more and more unstable._ "Y-you know, one of those – ah – self-fulfilling prophecies." _I hope that's what they're called._

Twilight's eyes shifted to random points as she processed the idea before centering back on her sister. "Did you think to ask how they expect us to do that!?"

"He'la said the past and future are one in the same. To find one, is to save the other."

"Damn it all," Twilight growled. She started pacing between her sister and daughter. "This is why I hate divination."

Aegis flew into a hover in front of her queen. "This could be easier than we thought. The past could mean the artifacts we need." Twilight stopped pacing as she mulled over the idea.

Rainbow caught onto the meaning. "Yeah, and if the future bit is us taming the forest then maybe there's some big bad out there that we can trounce with the _Deception._ "

Twilight's scowl wavered between a deep frown to that of a pressed line. "And what if they actually expect us to stay here long term? Our home is back in the Everfree, not the Chaos Lands."

Aegis was getting rather disconcerted by the barren Linkscape. Only queens could craft them, and every one she had been in so far were works of art rather than this painfully empty space. "Maybe we could create a separate corps of drones dedicated to helping the Tea'la. We don't have to dedicate our entire hive to taming the land."

Twilight's wild emotions fizzled out and she deflated a little. "That… That might work. Prophecy or not, surely they don't expect this to be an overnight fix."

 _Whew._ Rainbow sighed before smirking and locking her sister into a friendly neckhold. "And besides, if this actually works, by the time we show some real progress in taming the CL we'll be ready to hatch some royal daughters and they could use the place for their hive."

That caused Twilight's ears to perk straight up. She slowly turned against the neckhold to face her sister. "You really want to have a royal daughter some day?"

Aegis was just as surprised as her mother was. _I knew Aunty had embraced her new species, but I didn't know she was willing to go that far already. She hasn't laid many eggs since her proto-queen days._

Rainbow let her sister go and stared off into the incredibly bland landscape. " _Some_ day, yeah. I think I'd like to do that. The CL is a place ponies have been content enough to leave be. But…" She looked back at her sister. "We Lings seem to love camping out in the worst places to live. I figure our future royal daughters would love the place." She shot Twilight a winning smile. "After we till the land a bit."

If there was one thing Rainbow had learned during her time as a queen, it was how strong the instinct to expand was. She watched as the gears turned in her sister's brain with a knowing smirk. _Twily would never pass up an opportunity to continue our bloodline._

True to form, Twilight eventually nodded. "You're right. The CL _would_ be an excellent place to found new hives. The danger around here is perfect to hone our biological and technological evolution."

"I don't know if I would put it like that, but whatever works, right?"

Aegis felt Intel ping her mind and exchanged a few words. "My queens, the Tea'la are starting to take notice of our vacant bodies. The last thing we need is them thinking our souls were stolen or something."

With the plan for the future in her mind, Twilight cracked a smile, but she didn't quite catch Aegis' warning. _My children have amazed me time and time again at their ingenuity in surviving the Everfree. I get it now. We changelings thrive on adversity. However…_ She could hear the laughter and joy of her children both on the ship above and the hive. _I think the other queens possess only half the answer._

Aegis tactfully tugged on her mother's leg. "My queen, the natives are getting restless."

"Yes, you're right." Twilight shook off her introspective. She nodded to her cyan sister. "Let's get back and talk things over with He'la. We have work to do."

* * *

Twilight awoke in her body to find a ring of drones trying to keep the worried and concerned Tea'la away from her. She took a moment to gain her bearings and to locate He'la. It didn't take long when the pony in question tried to jump through the cordon of drones to reach her.

"Your imperial highness! What happened to you and yours?"

Twilight stood and held up a calming hoof. "Fear not, I was merely using a special technique to talk to my sister and guard captain privately."

The drones had spread talk of comparatively strange magic that many of the Tea'la had never dreamed existed. So it was that the vast majority of them passed it off as just one more unreal magic the royal family possessed. He'la let the drones holding onto her push her back out of the cordon. "Amazing. With such power, you would have no problem taming the forest and rebuilding the empire anew!"

Twilight glanced at her sister out of the corner of her eye. You really want to do this Sis? We can always tell them to test us again and fail on purpose.

Rainbow snorted with that competitive edge she was famous for. Not a chance. I don't want our hive to just grow, any queen can do that. I won't be satisfied unless we have to have a purpose bigger than ourselves. What better way than playing our part in some planty prophecy, eh?

 _Right!_ Sharing her sister's smirk, Twilight's gaze zeroed in on the expectant farseer. "Before I break it down for you, He'la, let me ask you something. Does the old imperial capital or any other cities of the empire still stand, or do you at least know where they were?"

The gathered Tea'la became uncomfortable, most of them gasped or took an involuntary step backward. Both queens noticed it instantly. He'la cleared her throat to hide her own worry. "Rookhaven?" She looked up at the faint ripple that marked the _Deception's_ position. _The steel beast may have strength, but can it withstand Gethar's wrath?_ "Yes, we can show the way, but I must warn you away from that place. I do not think even you possess the power to sunder a god."

"A god? Really?" Rainbow replied with far more sarcasm than Twilight would have liked.

Several Tea'la nodded slowly with one of the stallion elders stepping forward, his head bowed in submission and respect. The drones had eased up on the cordon now that Twilight was on her hooves again. "We would not jest, exalted ones. The old capital is the frozen domain of Gethar himself. To enter it is to let the pains of death enter into your body."

"Heh!" Rainbow propped herself up on the table to bore a hole through He'la and the elder with a stare that exuded confidence. "Twi and I've beat down spirits of chaos, a beefcake power-hungry centaur, and a small army just to name a few. I think we can take on a _'god'_ any day of the week."

"I pray that you are correct, your highness." He'la sounded less than convinced, eliciting a grunt of dissatisfaction from Rainbow. "I truly do, for you will need all your power against _him_."

* * *

The next day, half past noon, Twilight Sparkle was munching on a late breakfast brought about by the late night celebration. She presided over the forward observation blister with Ratchet at her side. The cramped space meant that it was the perfect excuse for queen and prime consort to have the room to themselves.

The sweeping glass offered a panoramic view of the landscape below. As the _Deception_ chugged along, the forest was slowly giving way to a swamp. Drooping green-grey trees poked out of an unnatural mist so dense that it took on the appearance of filthy water. Endless swampland expanded in all directions, untouched by civilization. Even the noonday sun could not dispel the mist hanging over the land. Ratchet's ear flicked every time he saw a large shape slide just barely out sight.

Twilight swallowed a lump at the sight as well, but was content to rest her head on her lover's withers. _The observation teams will spot anything that can threaten us. Even if something could, our altitude should be sufficient defense._

"It was a good call dropping the cloak while we're over the swamp," Ratchet commented as Twilight shifted her seating. "We'll be able to save fuel for the journey back out."

Twilight turned away from her alchemical notes, savoring the coarseness of his fur and oil-tainted musk. "True, but we'll be leaving a smoke trail behind us now. I hope the smell of it alone is enough to keep any would-be predators at bay."

He hummed in agreement. "That plant pony's a weird one. Do you really believe her story that the old capital is out here in the swamps?" He twisted his head around to find a contented Twilight rubbing the back of her neck on his withers, smiling all the while.

"Arya? I do. This is still in the general direction Luna told us it'd be. Even if the old stories and journals said this place used to be a desert…" She glanced outside and gasped as a monstrous beast the size of a building rose up from the mist. There was a second beast grasped within the claws of the first, which proceeded to throw its prey into a group of trees before pouncing. The second crustacean-like creature shrieked so loudly that it rattled the glass before the first's claws cracked its shell, silencing it forever. The changelings were frozen as both beasts slid back into the mist with the first beginning to feast.

 _Just what have we gotten ourselves into?_ She noticed Ratchet shrug it off, even if it still unnerved him. The existence of creatures on par with hydras didn't surprise Twilight, but it was still disconcerting. _Taming these lands for my future royal daughters isn't going to be easy or quick. Heck, I might need to be reborn once or twice before our hives cover the land._

"Hey!" Ratchet's call broke Twilight's brooding as he looked at her out of the corner of his eye. "Don't worry about it, all of that is future Twilight's problem."

"Huh? How did you know what I was thinking?"

Ratchet chuckled and flicked her snout with a wing. "After all these years, you're as open to me as a book." He licked the top of her head. "We're already mapping the land as we go. Once we grab some pots and bones we can come back later with a bigger crew."

"Heh, I can't help it." Twilight chuckled as she rolled over to lay parallel to him. Even with him being a consort, Ratchet was still smaller than his queen. Twilight held his gaze for a few seconds before looking off into space. "Taming the land to make room for the next generation of queens is too exciting." She gave off an impatient sigh and rolled over to drape herself all over him, squashing the poor engineer under her weight. "If only my estimations didn't place this project as such a long term gooooal." She flailed her legs around out of exasperation.

Ratchet belted off a long laugh at her expense. _I can count the number of ponies she completely drops the air of royalty around by the number of holes in my right leg. It's an honor, really._

Twilight narrowed her eyes and pouted at him. "What's so funny?"

"You," he teased. Ratchet licked her nose to make her flinch backwards. He chuckled again. "You're funny when you let that queenly instinct get the better of you."

"Meh," Twilight wrapped her legs around him. She huffed, ruffling his mane. "It's difficult to control myself sometimes." She briefly rubbed her abdomen. "Especially since I have countless changelings within me, waiting to be brought into the world. I can't wait until we have a larger food supply so I can start laying in earnest again."

She sighed contently at the mental image of a full hatchery. Purple and sky blue eggs covering every scrap of space in the room. A wide beaming grin split her face. "Being a queen is so rewarding." _I'm glad Sis came around to that fact as well._

Ratchet rolled his eyes, and blew at the bits of her purple and vanilla mane that had spilled in front of his face. "So you keep saying. Me, I'd rather spend my days in the engine room. And…" He glanced below at the murky wetlands. The clinging mist obscured the dangers lurking below. "Away from this Tartarus pit. Something about the mana around here just feels… wrong."

"You sense it now, too?" Twilight asked rhetorically. She lit her horn to taste the ambient magic.

"It's sour to the point of bitterness." She gave his fur a long lick just to get the taste out of her mouth. He stiffened at the long line of damp fur, but didn't complain. "The ley lines have been thrown out of sync with the natural flow for a long time, possibly as long as changelings have walked Equis. It's almost as if they have been ripped out of the earth and tossed into a blender and then left to fester. Just what happened here?" She lifted her hoof up to look at the holes in her leg. _What did our foremothers do to turn us from thestrals into changelings and Tea'la?_

Ratchet suppressed a shiver as he followed the overwhelming trail of rotten magic. "Whatever it is, it feels like we're moving in deeper to the broken ley lines."

"Right where Arya's guiding us to." Twilight climbed off her prime consort to stand. "I've got a really bad feeling about this."

Ratchet put his manual down to join his queen in observing the horizon. "Could you imagine if we had to walk the whole way?"

"Agh, that'd be horrible!"

Before either one of them could speak further, Riposte addressed both of them over the hive mind. My queen, I think we found something up ahead.

Twilight shared a glanced with Ratchet before nabbing the two spyglasses off the bulkhead and giving one to her consort. Jutting out of the mist, gleaming pillars of marble reflected the sunlight with such a luminous shine that it made both of them rub their eyes just to make sure they weren't seeing things. "There's something practically glowing out there. Rainbow Dash, where are you?

Stuffing my face in the mess hall with Stick-Wings, what's up? Rainbow was glad she could speak via the hive mind with a mouth full of dried rations. Not that she would let conversation interrupt a meal, of course.

Good, you're with her already. Gear up some clockwerks, we're nearly there.

A manic grin spread across Rainbow's muzzle for a split second before she wrapped Arya in her telekinesis and bolted for the door. I'm on it!

"Going where, your imperiaalll?!" Arya screeched as she was dragged along, narrowly avoiding all of the tables and drones the whole way through.

Twilight ignored the mild cries of alarm marking her sister's wake. _Aegis and her squad are off duty right now, but she'd give me those sad puppy eyes for months if I didn't let her lead the vanguard._

* * *

Minutes earlier, sweat, labored breathing, and a variety of odors clung to the claustrophobic four-bunk room. Intel rolled off of Aegis and fell a short drop onto the floor. "So, how was it?"

Aegis was still basking in the afterglow, and was staring up at the top bunk with a stupid grin on her face. "Not bad at all." She turned to look at her clutchmate with teasing grin. "You've improved, that's for sure. If I had to grade you, I'd place you in third behind Ferrum and Riposte."

He grunted from the effort of standing up. "I'm sensing a 'but' in there."

Aegis chuckled. " _But,_ you still did _a lot_ better in bed as a mare. You have no real talent as a stallion, plus you never did get your voice any lower than a countertenor." She saw him starting to look crestfallen and stumbled to quickly rectify that. "But, you're high on the list because you can kiss like a god and are a master of foreplay."

"Pah!" The compliment did the trick, and Intel scoffed with faux irritation. He nudged Aegis over so he could lay down next to her. Of all of their siblings, Intel felt the closest to his clutchmates, Aegis most of all. "If that's the case, why were you screaming my name a minute ago?" She shrugged wordlessly, but that didn't stop him from nuzzling her with a content yet thoughtful sigh. "Still…" Aegis saw he was still hanging off the side of the bed and scooted over to give him some more room, only to find herself squished between him and the wall. That, however, was a small price to pay for his comfort. "I do kinda miss the mare side of things," he said at last. "Ferrum, on the other hoof, I don't think he'll ever go back."

"Yeah, he's taken quite a shine to it. As for you though, why don't you switch back over when we go home? The other queens will be placated with the artifacts, and there won't be much of a need for us soldiers while we build our numbers for a few decades or so."

Intel tapped his chin as Aegis started nuzzling him. "Well, our clutch _has_ been sitting at an imbalanced ratio of 3:1 long enough already, and I haven't seen any noticeable improvement in our combat effectiveness because of that."

Aegis shuffled to look him dead in the eye with a malkavian grin. "Yes, Intel, return to the mare side. It is your **destiny!** " she egged on overdramatically while ribbing him.

Intel arched an amused eyebrow at her. "Say, just about all of our siblings have tried both genders for at least a little while, but you've never tried out stallionhood. Why is that?"

"Doesn't appeal to me," Aegis rolled over to face the wall and buzzed her wing a little to get them stiff enough for flight.

"Why not?" Intel walked over to gently massage his sister's back along her wing shoulders to loosen them up. "Mother always encourages us to live life to the fullest, and experiencing both genders from time to time is part of that."

Aegis sighed contently at Intel's soothing touch. It was his personal way of cooling down from such activities which made him her favorite romp partner. "Going male doesn't coincide with my life's goal."

"Huh? What goal could possibly exclude being a stallion?" he asked while moving on to her lower back. He snickered at her right hind leg wiggling whenever he loosened a knot. As he eased their recent activity out of her wing muscles, he caught a glimpse of a faint, complex pattern etched by the longitudinal veins in her wings. Intrigued, he brought up a horn light, only to see there was nothing actually there. _Must be my imagination._

Aegis was slow in her response. "One of these days, I'm going to truly prove myself to momma, and earn the right to be reborn as a royal daughter."

He was taken aback by the audacity of it all before he broke down into laughter. "Right, and after that I get to come back as a unicorn to be a living memorial of mother's roots."

"That would be rather amusing, but you'd miss flight too much… If you remembered what it felt like at least." Aegis flipped around and planted a lustful kiss on him, to which Intel eagerly reciprocated. The sheer amount of love he poured into the act could keep Aegis fed for hours. _He may not be all that good in bed, but by the First Mother is he a great kisser._ Aegis let him take over the loving embrace for half a minute before speaking again. But I'm being serious. One of these days, momma will rebirth me into a royal, just you wait and see.

Intel broke the kiss to give her a strange look. "Of all of our siblings, I don't think I've ever heard of anypony wanting to be a queen."

Aegis took to the air to let Intel take her place on the bed. She started massaging the tightly bound stiffness out of his wing muscles. "I asked around, but I haven't noted anypony else either. It's strange, if you ask me."

"I'd rather avoid having to lay eggs all the time, plus I don't have the mindset to wield alchemy the way mother does." Intel melted into the sweat (and other fluid)-soaked mattress. _Blah, I knew I shouldn't have let her talk me into using_ my _bunk._ He fell silent to fully enjoy the massage until Aegis moved on to his legs, rubbing his muscles into loose putty.

Aegis was more than happy to return the favor. She furrowed her brow as the veins in his wings seemed to form an unnatural starburst pattern, yet as soon as she lit her horn to take a better look, it was gone. _Weird._

"So." He dragged his sister out of her inspection, and she squelched her light. "Have you asked mother about that? Being reborn out of merit is one thing, but to come back as a royal seems out of any of our reach. Especially since Aunty became one only recently."

He moaned in comfort as Aegis lovingly kneaded his neck. "You never know. With our queens' new goals for the Chaos Lands, they'll need more royal daughters soon enough."

Intel found his thoughts becoming sluggish at her gentle touch. "I hadn't thought of that. Still, becoming a royal and all the muck that goes with it? Sounds like such a drag."

Any further conversation was stifled by Twilight barking over the hive mind. Aegis, Intel, clean yourselves up already and get ready to scramble! We're nearing our destination… you're not going to believe this.

Yes, my queen! they shouted in unison before bolting to the showers. Or at least Aegis did. Due to the massage, Intel's body didn't want to respond, his muscles being _too_ relaxed, resulting in him crashing to the floor hard.

"Get up ya lump of meat, we got work to do!" Aegis growled playfully as she wrapped her brother in her telekinesis and took off to the showers with him in tow.

"Right behind you, Sis."

Aegis kicked the hatch open to the semi-busy bathroom and threw her brother into the nearest empty stall. "How does momma always know when I'm doing the nasty?" Aegis grumbled as she shivered at the momentarily cold water.

"You might want to trying _not_ screaming into the hive mind during climax," her brother offered with a smirk. With adrenaline pumping in his veins, Intel was able to stand on his own again.

Aegis wasted no time in lathering her brother up as he did the same to her. "This is no time to be snide, Intel, we gotta boogie!"

* * *

By the time the core members of the Jevruun Vrunningee reported to the bridge, both queens and Arya were already there. Aegis could feel that the ship was slowly descending, its bow pointed below the horizon. What lay beyond hushed every voice onboard.

Spreading out from a stark border at the edge of the swamp sat the lost city of Rookhaven. The fabled white city of sparkling marble shone forth with the color of moonlight. It sprawled out before them with an otherworldly beauty seemingly untouched by nature or time. The clinging mist was completely absent, revealing cobbled streets, homes, wooden carts, vendor stalls, everything imaginable in a living city, including countless thestrals. Only something was wrong. Everyone on board felt it, and it didn't take them long to see it.

Arya shivered on the floor, her wooden wings rattled noisily. "Lost ones! Lost in time, lost in space, bad omens abound. The ribbons of the world are twisted and broken."

As far as the eye and spyglass could see, hundreds if not thousands of thestrals were frozen in mid-flight as if they were trying to flee from the center of the city; but they weren't alone. Countless mutated ponies were attacking many of the thestrals, with their numbers increasing the closer towards the center as everyone looked.

Rainbow Dash held a scowl so fierce it seemed as if her lips might fall right off her face as she examined the motionless scene before them. She looked at one of the lost ones frozen in place as it raked its hoof-turned-claws right through a stallion's wings. Even though she couldn't make it out at this distance, she knew the civilian's face was likely frozen in a mask of terror and pain. Everywhere she looked, there were more mutants, or 'lost ones' as Arya kept calling them. Each of them were in the process of chasing, attacking, or eating the panicked civilians or grossly outnumbered soldiers.

None of the lost ones were the same. Some had claws instead of hooves, others had spines growing out of their back that dripped with venom. Still more were legless with over sized wings and a prehensile tail that bore bony clubs or spikes. Some were the size of a small dogs while others the size of chimeras. If there was one word to describe them all it would be: diverse.

"The mana of this whole area reeks." _I wish Twi hadn't taught me how to smell and taste this stuff._ "Not to mention the carnage all over the place. Just what in blazes is going on here?"

Twilight looked away from the carnage to focus on the smaller details. Helm, bring us to a halt just outside the city limits. _The roads are cobbled, but everything in between the buildings is sand and dust._ Everywhere she looked, breaks in the streets, the spaces between houses, even the dress style that some of more affluent ponies were wearing told her everything she needed to know. "Arya's right. The whole area's frozen in time. Whatever apocalypse caused all this, the epicenter took the worst of it."

Everyone followed Twilight's pointed hoof to the distant center of Rookhaven. The shredded buildings of the imperial district were surrounded by countless ponies being hunted down by lost ones, although at that distance they were little more than dots.

Aegis ground her teeth at the sight of it all. _Great. We get to go down into a funhouse of horrors the size of a city. All we need now are ghosts and vamponies to complete it._

"Aegis," Twilight commanded with quiet steel. "Round up a Clockwork squad and send them down to make sure it's safe for the rest of us. I don't want anyone stuck in time, or whatever might be holding those ponies."

The four present Jevruun Vrunningee gave a crisp salute before thundering off, with Ferrum remaining behind at Twilight's silent request. The lavender queen studied her son's injuries. The welts had shrunk down considerably, but she could tell they still caused him discomfort. You're still on sick leave, my son.

Ferrum squared his withers to put on a show of strength. I'm fine, really. The venom was short-lived anyway.

Twilight arched an inquisitive eyebrow and hummed carefully. Her gaze weighed heavily on him. I don't like it, but I'm going to need every able drone if we're going to survive whatever the city has in store for us. Are you truly up for this?

 **Yes,** my queen!

Good. Get going.

Ferrum gave a second salute, turned about face, and sprinted off of the bridge. Rainbow Dash glanced away from Arya and excused herself to walk up to her sister. Twi, you know I'm the first one to jump into a fight, so let me tell you this. Twilight gave Rainbow a sidelong glance to find her sister was sweating. I can smell it. If we're not careful, this whole city could turn into one giant death trap.

Wouldn't be the first time a milk run turned into a warzone. Twilight nodded at Rainbow, prompting her sister to give out a series of orders. "I'll be counting on your expertise to survive whatever we find out here."

Rainbow's ego got the best of her and a massive grin cleaved her muzzle. "Ha! You worry about collecting pots and dusty old hairpins. The soldiers and I will keep you covered."

" _Right,_ " Twilight replied with a fire usually only seen in Rainbow Dash. Both sisters locked eyes and shared competitive grins. "We sisters of Phoenix's Roost will show the other queens what we're made of."

Something pulsed between them that resonated with Rainbow in a way she had never felt before, but liked it intensely. The bridge crew and Arya watched the display with keen interest. "Yeah, the Chaos Lands ain't got nothing on us!"

"So long as we're together," Twilight chimed, riding the same thumping pulse her sister was feeling.

"United in our cause!"

"We cannot fail!" Both queens shouted in unison. Twilight's horn glowed brightly before she teleported both she and her sister to the marshaling bay. Captain Veselov stood there with a befuddled look that was mirrored by most of the bridge crew.

Arya cursed in her native tongue. "Giah! Gethar will not welcome you if you don't bear the Stone of True Spirit!" She sprinted off to try and catch up.

The fire control officer regained her bearing first and trotted over to him. "When did they start doing that?"

Veselov exhaled slowly and readjusted his naval hat. "Must be a queen thing, or something from their pony days. Either way," he swept his hoof at the bridge crew. "Standing orders for constant diligence are still in effect! Pony those stations and be ready to lend naval support at a moment's notice!"

"Sir!" everyone shouted back. Veselov was about to leave it at that, but he sniffed something out among the commotion of the local hive mind: fear. Run away imaginations were leading to terror and it was seeping through his bridge crew. He let off a quiet sigh at the sight. _They fear this place. This isn't like facing down rival queens. Rotten mana, uprooted ley lines, and a city seemingly frozen in time right in the middle of some Mother-damned invasion. Who's to say those beasts won't wake up when mother and Aunty set hoof down there. However…_

Veselov flew over to his seat and retrieved one of the cigars Fancy Pants had gifted him in Canterlot. He sat down and lit the tobacco with a brief snap of mana. _It's not like mother to jump in like this. I hope it was just to get Aunty fired up because at least_ one _queen has to keep a cool head down there._

* * *

Twenty clockwerks landed heavily onto the outskirts of Rookhaven. Some cracked the old cobblestone roads while others descended onto the low rooftops of tightly packed houses. One such automaton landed on the edge of a balcony where a frozen thestral mare was being ripped apart by a six legged mutant that only held any similarities to a pony thanks to it's head. Everything else was covered in chitin and serrated green claws.

The emotionless machine regarded the pair with cold logic. First directive achieved. Mission timer of ten minutes proceeding. Secondary objective: eliminate lost ones.

With cold machine efficiency, the clockwerk's left foreleg opened up to reveal a wicked skysteel blade. The air sung as the blade scythed the mutant's head clean off its body. Or at least that was the plan. The robot hesitated for a few seconds, waiting for the head to fall off, but it stubbornly remained attached to its body. It retracted the blade and pushed at the lost one's head, only to find its hoof pass right through as if it was an illusion.

 **"Anomaly discovered. Nature undeterminable. Logging for further study."** It ignored the pony the mutant was attacking. Even if it could interact with her, she was beyond saving. The clockwerk looked down at the roof it was standing on and tapped it hard with a hoof, then moved on to various other inanimate objects and found each one offered the expected resistance. **"Assessment logged."**

It looked around to find its brethren encountering similar circumstances. Thus far, nothing else was reportable so it remained in place to wait for the mission timer to expire.

* * *

Back on the bridge of the _Deception,_ Captain Veselov puffed on his cigar as he waited for the ground teams to depart. His stoic vigilance was halted when both he and the helmsman spotted a blue point of light coming from dead center of Rookhaven's shattered imperial district.

Something stirs in my city.

Veselov rose from his chair as he heard something over the omnipresent thrumming of the engines and coursing wind.

"Captain, do you see that?"

Veselov coolly motioned for silence as he twerked his ears. _What was that noise?_

When it did not repeat itself he refocused on the light. _Could be nothing. A repeating cycle perhaps that we're here to see it start. On the over hoof it could be trouble._ My queen, there's something going on at the center of the city. A light of some kind.

Twilight was in the middle of her final checks for their descent to the city below. I don't have a bow side view from the marshaling hangar; I need to borrow your eyes.

They are yours as always, my queen.

Within seconds, Veselov's eyes were replaced by Twilight's own. She did not dominate him completely, and he was left to move and think freely. Twilight's heavy presence in his mind grew concerned yet calm, a mostly welcome change from her demeanor on the bridge. _Maybe it was for Aunty's benefit after all._ What do you think it is, my queen?

No idea, but the ley energies are starting to move. Benign or not, expect it to be trouble, and keep the ship away from them. If the engines come in contact with that much raw mana they could explode.

Aye, my queen.

Twilight withdrew from her captain to refocus on her immediate surroundings. Around that time, one of the clockwerks returned bearing a crystal. **"Primary directive achieved."**

Twilight Sparkle took the offered gem in her magic and signaled Rainbow to join her. Both queens used their magic to peer within it. The collected recordings of all deployed clockwerks. It doesn't look like there's any degradation in the crystal's matrix, Sis, that means it's safe to be down there, right?

That's right, Twilight grinned at her fellow queen. _RD may be no good at normal studying, but playing to her flight perception has really paid off._ She refocused on the images within the crystal. It's Tartarus on Equis down there, but so long as everypony and every _thing_ remains frozen, this can be a quick in and out.

Smash and grab. We can handle that. The sooner we're out of here the better.

I wouldn't be so sure, Twilight warned, eliciting a confused look from her sister as they stopped looking at the crystal's contents. "That might have worked originally, but we have to take into account your conversion into a queen. Traditional fossils and pottery isn't going to cut it if we want the other hives to leave us in peace."

Far from feeling guilty, Rainbow grunted in expectant thrill. "You think we should go raid the castle? There's got to be some juicy stuff in there."

"Right!" Twilight replied definitively. "Not to mention we might find a gift or two that would be perfect to give to mother. Something material to symbolize my thanks her for what she's given me."

Rainbow could feel her sister momentarily expand her presence on the Link to briefly brush upon all of her children's minds. The ocean of love that washed over her was potent enough to leave the taste of strawberries in Rainbow's mouth. _Can't really blame her._ Rainbow touched the minds of her own nymphs. Although their numbers were but a fraction of Twilight's own, they were more than enough to move her to tears. _Why do they taste like oranges though? The first time my drones' love tasted like grapes and then bananas after that. Ah whatever. At the end of the day, it's my kids who make the whole changeling thing worth it, but my sister…_ She looked at Twilight who turned to match her gaze.

No words passed between them. Silent understanding was all they needed to convey the mirrored thought that passed between them. _We're going to show the world what united queens can do!_

Rainbow nodded to Twilight before addressing the gathered drones. The place is safe enough to travel in. We're moving in with a team on the ground to make sure nothing can ambush the ship as it trails behind us to lend fire support if needed. Let's go!

Yes, my queen!

The room was filled with the buzzing of a hundred wings as the drones took to the skies. Rainbow jumped after them with Twilight about to join them were it not for a panicking Arya jumping in front of her. "Wait oh imperial one, please beg I do! Take me with you."

Twilight skidded to a halt and had to flap her wings to keep from ramming into the Tea'la. She sighed and relayed the situation to her sister to keep anyone from worrying at her tardiness. "Is this part of the prophecy?"

Arya nodded quickly. "Yes, but a different separate one. Farseer He'la had a vision before we left the village. If I am absent at the imperial city, all will fail and the land will continue to rot and grow."

 _Rot_ and _grow?_ Twilight passed it off and lit her horn. "Well I can take you down in my magic."

"Aahhh eeiaa! To be held aloft in the magic of the heralded empress! I am unworthy! Oh, important fact!" Arya pointed her left wooden wing at an irregularly shaped boulder the size of a proto-queen. "We must bring the Stone of True Spirit. To not is to invite death. Certain the farseer was."

Twilight grimaced at the size of the boulder. _Ugh. I could carry it, but I'd rather not do that for too long. I want to save my mana and stamina in case we run into trouble._ She scanned the hangar to find an engineer working on a hovercart just as he was putting the finishing touches on its repair. _Perfect!_ Thanks for the hard work, Socket Wrench, I'll be taking that off your hooves.

Ah… sure thing, Momma.

Twilight presented the hovercart to Arya and hefted the Stone onto it. The cart's engine grumbled at the weight, but it wasn't that much more than the field artillery it was designed to carry. "This thing can remain active for two hours before it'll need to leech off your mana. Think you can handle that?"

 _Leech my soul blood? If that's what it takes!_ "Yes, heralded one. I would gladly accept this honor to bear the Stone."

"Very well then." Twilight's telekinesis hitched the laden cart upon Arya's back before levitating both of them off the deck and towards the ground below.

Arya flailed the whole way down, ineffectively flapping her wooden wings from long dormant instincts. "Aiieeeaaaaa! Ancestors watch over meeee!"

* * *

Four city blocks away, a clockwerk surveyed the frozen carnage along the rooftops surrounding a small plaza. The scene of death meant nothing to it. Its only directive was to map out the surrounding area before returning to its queen.

Its gaze noted a red ley line heading straight up from the ground and directly towards it. The robot barely reacted in time to leap out of the way. One of its incorporeal mana wings were hit by the barrel sized vein of raw magic.

The clockwerk stumbled on a clothesline but managed to stay upright. It faced its wing to find it flickering wildly before the emitter cracked and exploded. The emitter of the other wing had a piece of steel lodged in the crystal that sputtered and spat before failing as well. **"Damage sustained. Contingency directive initializing. Returning to the queens."**

It turned around to come face to face with a snarling lost one. The automaton halted and tried to swing at it in an instant, but its hoof passed right through the frozen mutant. Its logic centers tried to process what it was seeing. Continuity error. Designation: lost one 8845b not in previous location.

A much larger ley line passed right in front of the clockwerk and straight through the lost one. The mutant solidified and bellowed a roar at the robot before biting into its neck, denting the armor. Combat protocol engaged. With an electronic growl, the clockwerk's right forehoof opened up into a claw and the robot sunk it into the lost one's barrel. The lost one howled in pain and let go of the robot as the metal claws dug their way to the beast's backbone. With clanking gears and an exhale of steam, the clockwerk gripped the spine and ripped the lost one away from itself and slammed it straight through the white painted sandstone roof.

The expectant wet splat on the floor below never came. The robot saw that the lost one phased out of time in midair. **"Contact with hostiles made. Priority directive: report to the queens."**

A third ley line smaller than a thimble, flashed right through the robot's knees, frying the majority of its motors. Within moments, three more lost ones swarmed the disabled clockwerk. The mutants made short work of the robot and jumped away before phasing out of time.

Intruders of blood and metal. This place is forbidden to all.


	29. Chapter 29

The Sins of Our Mothers

The air was heavy with the sound of buzzing wings as a hundred changelings quickly descended through the choppy downdraft of the _Deception_ towards the sandy city below. Rainbow Dash was the first to set hoof on the sandy cobblestone road on the far southwestern edge of Rookhaven. The mists roiled and shifted scant meters behind her from the turbulence caused by two hundred wings as each drone landed in a forward semicircle centered around her.

Movement from behind drew Rainbow's attention towards the swamps. Within the thick mists stood a two stories high monstrous shape full of spines moving just deep enough within the mist to obscure its features. Even for such a novice empath such as herself, Rainbow Dash could feel the beast's instinctual hunger and how it saw the gathered changelings as a potential meal. She was moments from sounding an alarm, when the whiff of unmasked fear skirted the edge of her awareness. The beast regarded Rainbow Dash for a few seconds before its hunger and fear of the haunted city drove it deeper into the swamps.

She tsked and dug her hoof into the road as the drones started forming a perimeter. _What was it that Soarin said during wilderness training? "Pay attention to animal behavior, they know danger even your observant eyes will miss."_ Rainbow pivoted her ears backwards at the sound of her sister landing nearby.

Twilight took a brief moment to give some orders to her retinue before looking to her sister. _Everything looks clear so far._ Sis, is there something at our backs?

Rainbow finally turned away from the mists and jumped into a low hover. No. We should keep an eye on the mists, but I don't think we'll have any trouble from the swamps.

Being up close and personal with the frozen inhabitants was unsettling to everyone. Both queens tried to keep their ill-at-ease from leaking across the local hive mind, but it wasn't a complete success. Twilight tried to shake it off as she looked up to her flying sister. "We should progress slowly. We need to study the time phenomenon closely and keep in constant contact with the ship. It's still possible a prolonged stay could trap us here."

"Maybe…" Rainbow Dash forced her ill at ease to the corner of her mind as she regarded the scattered thestrals around them. "Do you think they're still alive, even after all this time?"

Twilight cantered over to the thestral mare Rainbow was inspecting. She was looking back towards a stallion directly behind her who had a badly wounded wing, keeping him grounded. Both ponies wore horrified expressions that were mirrored by most of their kin. Twilight had to choke down her emotions to inspect them impartially.

"Horology has only theorized at prolonged time-locking. Every theory states that nothing can be completely pushed out of the timestream. After a year or so, unless the environment is perfectly controlled, the subject would expire. That's why many of Equestria's worst criminals are set in stone." She stepped away from the ponies and gave a forlorn sigh to her sister. "I doubt anypony here is alive anymore."

"Great, then it's like we're digging around one of those freaky wax museums." Rainbow shuddered at the memory of a few before flying a little higher, enough for a few drones to join her as escorts. I'll watch the skies and ground all the same. I'm not taking any chances here.

As with the extraction operations of the Fu'tia trees, Aegis and her Queens' Guard quickly took up a perimeter enclosing close to thirty sandstone houses. With Rainbow's order to largely ignore the swamp, more soldiers were being freed up to expand the zone of control. Aegis, keep at least one guard on each lost one you find. I don't want any surprises.

Aegis petted the nozzle of her flamethrower lovingly. She had perched herself on a roof next to a particularly nasty wolf-ish lost one that was covered in blood from ear to paw. The crazed eyes spoke of a madness that sent chills down the captain's spine. Already on it, my queen. That's why I'm keeping the cordoned area small.

 _She's not calling me Aunty right now,_ Rainbow mused dismally. _Good. That means she's taking this too seriously for pleasantries._ Alright, keep it up. Be ready to move at Twilight's orders. She'll be directing our movement until contact is made.

Don't you mean "if"? Aegis replied hopefully. She saw her siblings nearby start to hang on Rainbow's reply.

Rainbow Dash's eyes saw what she didn't want to. _No footprints, sloshed water, or even small insects around. Something's not right here._ No.

Aegis didn't reply. She was too busy trying to swallow the lump in her throat without the others seeing.

Twilight pinged her warriors to find them moving into in place. Once they were, she addressed the thirty scientists assembled around her. "Alright listen up." She turned to a group of ten drones weighted down by saddlebags full of testing equipment and pointed at the trio on the left. "You three will start scanning the area for any concentrated points of temporal anomalies. We don't exactly have the best equipment for that, but try to make do. Even if everything looks stable around here, that doesn't mean it's uniform throughout the entire city. You're to make sure no pony gets phased out of time."

"At once, my queen!" With a nod from her, they stepped away from the group to start calibrating their equipment.

"Group B," she said to the center four, "your job is to find any books or script in the area." She jabbed a hoof at Arya. "And take her with you." Arya jumped at the attention. "Now that we have a native speaker, she might be able to help us add pronunciation rules to the translation spell." Twilight gave the Tea'la a warm and friendly smile. "If that's okay with you, that is."

Arya clapped her hooves excitedly. "Oooo! You wish to expand your understanding!?" Twilight's nod confirmed it, making her prance on her hooves for a moment. "Such a high and noble goal that is, but that need to wait for another time!" Much to the gathered changelings' bemusement, Arya pulled the Stone towards the two queens. "First we must appease Gethar, the Blind God of Justice with the rites of supplication and mercy. Lucky day that all druids learn these rites ever since the vision was seen."

Rainbow cast a sardonic look at her sister. How can a god be blind?

Twilight suppressed the urge to roll her eyes at Rainbow so she could focus her attention on Arya. Remember Celestia's diplomatic training. Be polite and sound like you're agreeing when you're not. While she directed the comment at her sister, she said it more to remind herself as well. "Arya, I truly appreciate the help, I really do." Twilight kept a friendly tone all the while as Arya dug into her saddlebags with one eye on the queen. "And for that, why don't you walk one of my personal guards through the ritual before we get started?"

Riposte found himself lifted bodily up by Twilight's magic and presented to Arya. He faked a charming smile that was enough to win over the druid. "Ah yes, very good idea, imperial one. Such wisdom! Much intelligent. Gethar will not excuse a failed ritual, so is good that we can have trials with your kin, very acceptable!"

"Perfect." Twilight nodded to her son who could see Rainbow stuffing her hooves in her mouth to keep from laughing out loud. "Riposte, I trust you'll handle this with the respect and diligence this deserves."

"It would be an… honor," Riposte replied with as much tact as he could muster. Every changeling in the vicinity could hear the swordling's frothing grumblings. _It'd be my luck that it's some kind of blood sacrifice._

As Arya set about preparing the ritual, complete with face paint, tattoos, something smeared on Riposte's snout that smelled of sulfur and vomit, leaves stuck to his tail with mud, and topped off with Arya teaching him a chant that would last for half an hour.

 _The things I do for the hive…_

With Arya left in contentment, Twilight sent out two groups of scientists to investigate the time-locked city with one of them accompanying her. Rainbow Dash busied herself with enforcing the security zone.

While the changelings set about their tasks, the ley lines started to converge on their position. The living bands of the world moved towards them but suddenly fell away before anyone could notice them.

Tainted guilty beings. Why do you possess the Stone of True Spirit and a faithful that stands among you? Why are you here if only one of your number heeds her words?

* * *

Twilight Sparkle surveyed the "safe" zone her children had created from the air. Each house was made of the same white painted sandstone to make the appearance of marble from a distance. _Must be the lower class district. Marble must have been expensive even back then._

The voice of one of her team's researchers snapped her out of her inspection. My queen, I think we might have found a temple on the second northbound street.

On my way. Twilight almost took off immediately, but her eyes were drawn to the Stone. _It'll slow me down, but leaving it behind would insult Arya._ With a brief use of telekinesis, she strapped the harness on and took off to the temple.

Just out of sight, a thin ley line, no thicker than a bit, emerged part of its snaking mass out of a house where a ghostly eye followed the lavender queen and her rocky burden.

What lies in your heart, corrupted one?

The snaking ley line twisted itself upward so the eye could follow Twilight all the way to the small and modest temple.

Twilight found half of her team waiting just outside the only building with a sharp blue color. Standing above the whitewash were several blue patterns and diagrams. Each one had a stylized deer head, complete with antlers appearing as head high statues around the entrance.

The drones were standing away from the entrance which was surrounded by a ghastly frozen scene. No less than seven lost ones were engaged in bloody combat against three thestral temple guards armed with spears that were trying to keep them at bay. Some of the drones cringed at the bloody corpse of a fourth guard being dragged away to be eaten. The ghostly eye remained out of sight and narrowed at what Twilight said next.

"If any spirits or gods are still watching over this place, please forgive our trespass." Trying to crush the seed of fear in her stomach, Twilight stepped through the fight and into the temple with her children close behind.

The words were lost to the eye, but the emotions behind them were not. You dare to enter his domain weighted down by such sins. One cannot pass judgment without understanding.

Within the temple were five rows of pews overcrowded with ten ponies on each bench. A single priest in simple white and blue garb stood near the marble altar at the back of the building holding a sapphire antler to the air, his mouth frozen mid-speech.

The room was completely crammed with thestrals bowing and praying, whether it be for deliverance, protection, or penance was unknown. The changelings typically tried to avoid walking through the frozen beings, but it was impossible to do so here. Even the air was filled with more pleading ponies.

"Alright team, fan out and try to find any religious texts, but put them back when you're done. This place is unnaturally heavy with magic. I don't want anypony setting something off."

As each drone moved off to investigate the stained glass windows and holy murals painted onto the walls, Twilight headed over to the altar. She unhitched herself from the Stone and let it rest next to the priest. Upon closer inspection, she found the altar actually had two tiers. The smaller top part was actually shaped like the proud but caring face of a stag. His antlers were missing. She turned back to the priest and the antler in his hoof. _So maybe this place is dedicated to that deity._

She turned back to the altar's second tier to find it was a simple slab with tiny marble statuettes arranged in a spiral pattern. She tilted her head as she inspected each one: a goat, snake, lion, eagle, lizard, bat, blue jay, dragon, a thestral stallion with gleaming armor, with the sun and moon being larger than all the others. The last three were the closest to the center of the spiral, with a stylized half-moon being dead center. Curiously, the two halves of the moon were given two different names: Lūn, and Sweva the Dreamer.

Their presence bewildered Twilight to the point where she kept scratching her head. _I Don't get it. Do the statues represent gods? Aspects of a moral code, perhaps? Constellations maybe? Why would some be animals while others are not? The journals from the Ebony Castle and under Canterlot never spoke of any gods except the Night Mother and Gethar. Could my foremothers have abandoned the old religion along with their homeland when all this happened?_

She turned back to the frozen priest and the sapphire antler held aloft in his outstretched hoof. Out of sight from everyone in the room, the phantom eye focused on Twilight as she closed in on the priest. _Religious objects would score some big points with the Summit._ Even as she said it, the words rang hollow. She wrestled with herself and stared intently at the glowing antler for a solid minute.

Eventually, she released the holy symbol. _No. This just doesn't feel right. These ponies deserve to be laid to rest before we do anything further. But how are we supposed to go about that…_ She stopped herself dead cold. Arching an eyebrow, she waved her hoof through the priest's outstretched leg, only to pass through as expected. After that she grabbed the blue antler and moved it around as a normal object. While holding it both in her hoof and then in her magic, she waved the antler through the priest as if he were an illusion. As a final test, she dropped the antler on the priest's hoof and it fell right back where she had found it.

"This place makes no sense!" She growled before turned away from the priest, causing the disembodied eye to scrutinize her further.

Judged one, you bring forth the Stone of Pure Spirit, and have yet to beg forgiveness. My patience nears its end.

Twilight flicked her ear at the faint noise and turned towards the eye, barely missing it as the ley line pulled back into the wall. "Did anypony hear something just now?"

The scattered drones looked between themselves and her, with the closest of their number voicing the shared thought. "Nothing out of the ordinary, my queen."

The queen stood still to try and hear the faint sound again, an easy feat since she could fully ignore the hive mind traffic. She didn't get much to time investigate when a drone pinged her loudly enough to get her attention, and induce a mild headache to boot.

 _Oww._ She brought the Link back to normal ambience in her mind and recognized the sender as the leader of one of the science teams. Finished already, Particle?

Even though she addressed the group leader, the transmission encompassed the whole team. Our preliminary findings at least, my queen. We've discovered that while we can touch inanimate objects, if they remain undisturbed for too long, they will, oddly enough, slowly fly back to their original location. It's really quite fascinating. In fact—

Twilight tilted her head in preparation for the rambling of a lifetime. _I think Fulcrum got the worst of my genes._

Yet before the chief scientist could gather any steam, his apprentice interrupted him. M-my queen, I think we can save the ponies.

Twilight's eyes narrowed out of confused suspicion. Save? How?

Fulcrum slapped his unruly apprentice upside the head, and two others on the team for no doubt encouraging the apprentice. You'll have to forgive Particle, my queen. He adjusted his glasses while looking down at the young bug. She's barely a month out of the shell, and still has that nymph impatience about her.

Particle grumbled, but said nothing. Twilight however, jumped at the idea. No, I want to hear this. What do you mean they can be saved?

Fulcrum gave Particle a stink eye that could peel paint, but she used Twilight's interest to push forward. We tested short bursts of mana on a lost one's leg to see if we could follow Stopwatch's Theorem of reanimating—

Please, Particle, I would love to pour over your findings in detail back at the hive, but I need the short version now.

S-sorry, my queen. What I mean to say is everypony here could potentially still be alive and well. We tested on five different lost ones. Every last one of them reanimated… and tried to kill us before the- She cleared her throat at the memory. -soldiers stepped in. If it worked on them, it could work on the uncorrupted ponies as well.

Twilight grinned massively and turned to the priest to charge him with mana, but stopped herself short. How much power was needed? I'd rather not pump too much in and cause a temporal feedback.

Fulcrum butted into Particle's response. That is the reason I _didn't_ want my fool of an apprentice to speak out of turn. Particle pouted at her superior. The problem is that the "cure" doesn't last more than a few seconds, half a minute at most. It's the damned ley lines. The mana around the city is too chaotic to keep any of the time victims free for long.

As soon as he uttered those words, Fulcrum instantly regretted it as he knew what Twilight would do. Good work, all of you. Rendezvous with the rest of the teams, we'll be leaving for the center soon.

Yes, my queen, the team replied eagerly.

Fulcrum scowled deeply at his youngest apprentice, but Particle was already flying away with her gear. _Now we're going to end up dead for sure._

Twilight told her own team to pack it up and leave for the _Deception_ before contacting Rainbow Dash. Change in plans, Sis.

Rainbow Dash was roosted on a cloud overlooking the security zone. Something exciting, I hope. The whole area's been super quiet.

We're heading for the center of town to try and correct whatever's disrupted the balance of mana. If we fix the ley lines, we can push the thestrals back into the timestream. Twilight sent out a dozen orders and the drones moved as one to form a moving chevron formation with the scientists near the front.

Any idea how we're going to move a whole city's worth of ponies out of here, let alone explain ourselves so we're not attacked by them? Rainbow wasn't disagreeing. In fact, Twilight could tell in her sister's tone that the idea appealed to her greatly. Rainbow barked off a few dozen orders of her own to improve the formation before they moved out.

I'll think of something. For now, we need to reorganize and move in on the imperial district.

Rainbow scoffed and waved a hoof at the drones. You worry about fixing whatever we need to fix, and let me worry about getting you there safely.

Within a half an hour, the whole expedition had gathered on one of the larger streets that ran straight towards the central imperial district. Rainbow's observations revealed there were five other streets patterned out like the spokes of a wheel. _Good, we'll have a straight shot towards the castle._

As the mass of changelings marshaled into a chevron formation with the scientists and queens in the center, Arya ran over to Twilight and Rainbow with the Stone of True Spirit rocking in its hovercart. "Imperial ones! I have finished preparing the rituals of supplication. We should begin at once to appease The Justicar."

Twilight saw Riposte was doing everything in his power to keep from gagging on the reeking paint Arya had decorated him with. You doing okay there, Riposte?

Never… Tears from the bile rising stench reddened the suffering drone's eyes. Better, my queen. _I think I'm going to hurl if I have to speak aloud._

The royals took an instinctive step away from Riposte with Aegis and the rest of their squad giving him both a verbal ribbing and sympathy at the same time. Rainbow addressing Arya to keep from joining in. "I guess some sort of hocus pocus protection is fine, so long as we can bathe right after."

Arya nodded in agreement, but did not avert her nose from Riposte as others were doing. "That is acceptable. The smell is to add to ones suffering, to let to Him know the penance is sincere. Gethar outlawed self-flagellation before the Huge Doom, but found this acceptable."

Twilight cringed inwardly, but steeled herself. "How long would it take exactly?"

"The farseers knew, yes they did. With the blame of the Big Bad on your wings, and the corruption of the land into what now stands, Gethar would only be appeased by at least a decade long ritual." The collective jaws of the local hive mind dropped at the idea, not that Arya noticed. "I'm sure Gethar would allow biweekly interruptions for refreshment, but he would demand that time to be recompensed."

Rainbow Dash dragged her sister away from Arya. "Give us a moment, would ya, Stick Wings?" She gave Twilight a desperate frown. Look, sis, I get that I have to be all diplomatic and whatnot because I'm a queen, but there is no bucking way I am chanting or dancing or whatever for a damn decade straight with manure all over me. I wouldn't even make Chrysalis do that.

You know I'm normally one for respecting local customs, Twilight began with a shuddering sigh at the time frame. But I have to agree. We can't do that. Finish preparing the expedition, I'll talk Arya out of it.

Fine by me. Rainbow separated from her sister and fired off a bright blue horn light high into the sky to summon the clockwerks, leaving Twilight to talk to Arya.

She approached the pensive Tea'la with respect and dignity. "I'm sorry, Arya, but that's simply not possible. I'm more than willing to help tame the Chaos Lands, but performing that ritual for so long is impossible."

Arya's ears wilted and her branches started to tremble out of fear. "He will know of your refusal and punish us all for it. Please think twice on this you must. Lest we all die here in this lost city in time."

"I'm sorry Arya, but we can't do that. Maybe for a day or so, half a week at most, but ten years is far too long."

Arya sat on her haunches and wrapped her wings around her to hide her face. "He will not relent. If you cannot or will not serve your sentence wholly, then his wrath will know no bounds." She peered out from between her branches at the worried queen. "But my role is clear. I was chosen to be the one to aid you in the prophecy. Without your taming hoof upon the lands, we Tea'la will die, god or not."

The entity that had been watching all along felt its patience run dry. _They are so bold as to come here with one of my disciples and bear the Stone of True Spirit, but then deny proper penance?! I will suffer their sinful presence no longer._

A single ley line was pulled out of the ground and expanded rapidly to encompass the entire group of changelings and the _Deception_ above them. It happened so fast that most were only noticing the slight blueshift in their vision a few seconds after the fact. Yet what really got their attention were the dense black stormclouds that started to materialize above their heads.

Twilight was busy trying to find out what the cause was when lightning cracked in the sky, striking the warship with enough force to fry an army. However, the vessel took the hit with only a little carbon scoring. What it did do, was grab everyone's attention. Let them tremble at Justice's might.

Rainbow Dash started hovering next to her sister. Her muscles were coiling for a fight. "Sis, what in Tartarus is going on?" As she spoke, rain started trickling down before quickly ramping up to a heavy downpour. "Where'd this storm come from?"

Twilight's horn ached from the primal forces at work, and noticed some of the cartographer clockwerks were returning. _The ley line must be too diluted to damage them._ Twilight saw that the rain wasn't pooling anywhere. "The water's evaporating almost as fast as it's falling. There's an intelligence behind this, I bet my crown on that."

The fur on the back of Rainbow's neck stood up as she scanned the blue tinted sky. "Well I wish he'd stop showing off and show himself."

As if it was waiting for the invitation, a bitter ghostly voice breathed through the air, cutting perfectly through the noise of the storm. "Children of the imperial family, your bodies have changed much since your ancestors fled these tainted lands, but you cannot hide what you are with my mark of judgment branded upon your cursed forms." Everyone was stunned to silence by the righteous malice that dripped from every word. "You stand in the domain of the incarnation of justice itself. I am Gethar the Justicar, the ever vigilant. By my divine right, I demand to speak with both you before I mete out your sentence anew."

The cordon of drones tightened around their queens. Rainbow bristled while Twilight looked across the various one story houses to try and find a singular point to speak towards. _I don't think pleasantries are in order here._ "You say you are the spirit of Justice, I would like to know what exactly we're being accused of!" she challenged back nearly at the top of her lungs to make sure she was heard.

Gethar did not speak for several seconds. "...A fair request." Three large vibrant red ley lines barred the way by slowly weaving in front of the changelings. "You stand accused, bearing the sins of your ancestors, of dooming the Empire with profound hubris. Since you stand before me, it is obvious my judgement did not enact out the prolonged death I had intended."

Rainbow scowled at the disembodied voice. "Prolonged death? What, you mean cast them out in the wild and hope the pampered nobles could survive out there?"

Gethar ignored Rainbow's tone. _Such insolence._ "No. As the royal families fled the city, leaving their people to die at the hooves of their abominable creations, I judged them with a holy curse. I would have just killed them then and there, but Sweva thought of a more fitting punishment that I was proud of until your existence proved its failure. Since they were wholly incapable of feeling love for their supposed "lessers," I branded them so that those who were without love for others, could not survive without the love of others. Sweva and I were in agreement that it should be a slow end." Malignant bitterness choked many of the drones into whimpering. "Obviously it was too slow."

"So sorry to disappoint," Rainbow spat venomously.

Try not to piss him off just yet, Rainbow. "You keep saying all of this was our fault." Twilight stared placatingly. "We know next to nothing of what happened here, only that we're allegedly to blame."

The very air in the whole sector of the city rumbled in unbridled rage. "I should have expected no less. You of the royal family were always quick to forget your crimes against nature and land. Your ancestors discovered a form of magic. Judging by your forms, I'm sure you know it all too well. Arcanum." The hatred for the word alone tinted the ley lines a few shades redder. "No doubt you used that demonic art to save yourselves from my judgement."

Rainbow's anger was starting to eclipse her fear. _I remember Sis saying that was the old word for alchemy._ "And what's wrong with wanting to improve yourself and others, huh? You keep saying our foremothers were cruel, but I think you're twisting the real truth!"

"I am justice INCARNATE!" Gethar boomed back, rocking some drones out of the air. "I do. Not. Lie!"

 _Damn it, Rainbow, we need answers out of him for as long as we can._ "If the practice was so evil, why didn't anyone stop it or revolt?"

The ley lines shifted a little back towards blue. "The lies your family spread throughout the lands made them ignorant of the danger. Even the other avatars either encouraged or were indifferent towards the practice. What I saw as a cruel twist of nature was seen as just another piece of technology to the others. Lūn and Sweva approved of it especially, and look what became of her." The changelings could almost feel a thousand condescending eyes upon them. "Or have you forgotten that too?"

Twilight ground her teeth while passing quick words of warning to her drones. "The first generation of changelings made us genetically uncaring about the past, and as such, we've forgotten nearly everything."

"I still don't get why you have to lash out on us, just because we're of the same bloodline." Rainbow snarled.

"How very typically of the imperial family to try and escape my justice. You haven't changed at all." Gethar's voice rattled the walls and quaked the sand with its intense baritone. "It was to be the empire's crowning achievement. The day you would alter the land and bend it to your will. But I knew the real truth. The imperial family wanted absolute control, as all rulers end up craving. They tricked my fellow avatars into helping construct a vast array to make the desert lands fertile, but I knew they were also using it to change the population as well. You need only look upon the abominations around you to see what they wrought."

All eyes fell upon the scattered lost ones. Twilight recoiled at the idea. "No, no, that's not possible! Alchemy is meant to strengthen and improve! Even if somepony was deranged enough to abuse it, alchemy is strictly controlled by what it can do based on the array and reagents. There's no way it could produce so many different mutations in a whole city's worth of ponies!"

"A child's naivety. You know nothing of the power the Empire once possessed. Not only did your ancestors mutilate their subjects, but their true intent was made clear by what happened to the other avatars. All save for myself, Celesti, and the twins of the moon were ripped asunder by the array's activation. Most of their life-force was used as fuel. Had I not taken what tattered remains of the other spirits and fused them together…"

Every changeling had experienced pain before, but the ageless torment Gethar was suffering was akin to an avalanche of frigid bone numbing agony to the empaths. "I know not what happened to Celesti or the twins, save that they would never recover from their wounds."

Rainbow wanted to verbally tear into Gethar, but Twilight jumped in first. "Fused the spirits together? What do you mean?"

"Exactly that," he replied as if it was a stupid question. "Their minds were as shattered as their forms. I only had time to save their lives, but not their sanity."

Rainbow pushed past her sister, only to find there still wasn't a central point to yell at. I'm done with the history lecture, he doesn't really care what we say. "Look, pal, we're here to fix the damage that was done. Shouldn't that be enough penance?"

"There is no salve that will mend the scars of this land. However, justice can still be satisfied… With your lives. How fortuitous that you have come here on your own. Now, I have finished extolling your sins, and by ancient laws, you still bear the weight of your foremothers' actions. Accept your sentence with dignity and there may yet be a place for you in the Silver City."

Several additional ley lines twisted and turn through the city streets and buildings, spearing many lost ones, pulling them back into phase. The changelings were dumbstruck by the dozens of lost ones all around them suddenly coming to life. Their howls and cries for blood filled the air as Gethar's voice echoed across the city.

"The sinner will always be consumed by her sins."


	30. Chapter 30

Gethar's Fury

There was a brief moment when time seemed to come to a halt. Twilight could not hear the hive mind as she stared over her drones towards the legion of lost ones. She stood stock still, surrounded by her children staring death in the face. Many lost ones were in the air, but others crawled across rooftops and the biggest ones shook the ground with each step.

The diluted leyline that encompassed her, along with a whole sector of the city, vibrated with anticipation of the coming vindication of the law. Gethar did not care about losses, the lost ones were better off dead anyway. All that mattered to him at this moment was enacting righteous retribution. The old laws demanded no less.

A slow almost lethargic voice, both in the real world and across the hive mind rang out from directly above her. She looked up to discover it was Rainbow sweeping a hoof across the area in front of them. "This clown thinks he can blame us for some long lost ancestor? Screw that! Fight for the hive, and your queens!"

The last thing Twilight heard before the world snapped back to normal speed was Veselov's voice broadcasting over the local Link towards his gunners in the disturbing calmness that only a naval officer could possess in combat. Cauterize the area. He puffed on his cigar as the delightful boom of heavy cannons rattled the deck.

The underslung deck guns fired true, bombarding the elephant sized lost ones that were charging across the streets with shells the size of a pony. Puffs of black clouds filled the air in front of the changeling formation, cutting down numerous lost ones before they came anywhere near the defensive line.

The lost ones on the ground couldn't care less about the death raining down from above and charged headlong into the wall of fire and dust. The _Deception_ made no effort to spare the historic structures surrounding the queens. Homes and businesses were riddled with holes or outright destroyed to get at the lost ones. However, the warship was only a frigate, and as such, countless lost ones still made it through to the waiting changelings.

Aegis was in a low hover at the very tip of the chevron with her three clutchmates at her side. She smirked in anticipation while giving her flamethrower a kiss on the nozzle before activating the pilot light. The lost ones were upon them in seconds once they got too close for naval support. Four other flamethrower armed changelings took position directly behind the armored swordlings and waited for Aegis' command. They didn't have to wait long.

Aegis brought her weapon to bear with a malkavian grin cleaving her muzzle. My queen?

Rainbow held a restraining hoof up. Hold. We need to make every shot count. _We have to weather the first wave before we can start to advance._

When the time was right, she pointed straight at the broken palace in the distance. "Fire!"

Aegis couldn't be happier. Slammin'! Streams of burning oil traced sweeping ribbons of fire in front of the defensive line, burning everything it touched. Screeches and wails of pain filled the air as nearly all remaining lost ones were burned to charred meat. Aegis' grin only widened as a feral wolfish lost one slid under the streams of fire to charge Riposte. She momentarily cut the stream and unleashed it again, straight into the gaping maw at the same time Riposte's magic wreathed skysteel sword buried itself in the wolf's chest.

Riposte yanked the sword out to find it covered in flaming oil. The flaming sword found a new target as a warped lost ones dashed to the side. He was barely able to bring the blade back in time to catch the monster's claws just short of his neck. The creature roared in pain as the flames spread to its fur and fell dead to a bullet from Intel.

Three more broke through the wall of fire only to be gunned down before even reaching the blade line. Aegis's grin dipped a bit at the sight of a five lost ones she had just doused in oil were still standing frozen in time. It was only then that she realized that the enveloping red ley line had split itself to open a patch of clear air around the changeling line. _This is bad._ My queen, if we try to advance, the lost ones could come back to life right in the middle of us!

Rainbow saw more and more lost ones were starting to phase out of time along the route towards the palace. _Damn it. It'd be a massacre if we try to walk through that._ Twilight, she shouted, only to find her sister casting shields around any drone who was about to get cut down.

A little busy here. The split second distraction was almost enough for her to miss one soldier who nearly took a raking claw to the neck, only for the attack to be deflected by Twilight's lavender-orange shield.

We can't move forward or back with the mutants freezing along any direction we try to take.

 _I don't have time to think._ Fulcrum! Find out why the lost ones are suddenly active or how we can keep them from phasing back.

The chief scientist was cowering a few meters behind his queen. The ground quaked from the naval bombardment with the thundering hooves and claws only adding to his terror. I-I don't know. I'd need to take readings, but these are—

A tear escaped Twilight when she was too late to save one of her children. Find it! NOW!

Particle wasn't doing much better than her superior. If I may suggest a t-theory? Twilight could only grunt impatiently. Maybe it's the ley line. If we could disrupt it, it may stop that Gethar thing from bringing them back.

With a bear-sized, tooth-filled lost one slashing at one of her children with bloodlust, Twilight relayed the problem to Cadista. Momma, you know of anything that can help?

Just a moment, I'm putting my hive on hold to think of a solution.

Please hurry. Twilight's horn ached as the bearlike lost one was riddled with dozens of bullets but never stopped its brutal assault on the three drones. It finally it singled one out and slashed, finally shattering the shield and tearing the drone to ribbons. Ferrum buzzed over with a rifle wrapped in his magic. He landed on the bearlike lost one, bit onto its mane and pulled up so he could angle his rifle to fire down the lost one's ear. The shot liquefied the bear-thing's brain, and it fell with a thump.

Ferrum jumped back behind the swordlings and tossed his rifle at Fulcrum. "Don't just sit there! Help reload the firearms, go, go, go!"

Aegis cheered at each target that fell to her infernal blaze, but she was getting increasingly worried. For every five lost ones she put to the torch, one phased out of time within spitting distance of the swordlings. Already there were over thirty lost ones frozen in place directly in front of the formation. Her grin faltered when the surge of burning oil from her weapon sputtered and died. She growled while smacking a frothing mad lost one with the pommel of her combat knife and slicing its throat. Logistic company, we need rearmament, pronto!

* * *

Veselov briefly noted several clockwerks and drones flying to rearm their brethren. The constant chatter from the hive mind painted a grim picture to match what he saw below. Yet he did not remain alone once Cadista barged into his mind and snatched his eyes and ears. I need your sight, Captain. He felt compelled to turn this way and that to fully survey the battlefield.

He couldn't help but feel a flash of indignation. Wouldn't somepony else be more suited for this task at the moment? Veselov grumbled.

I don't have the time, and your gunners are more than capable of finding targets on their own for a few moments. Cadista saw the gap forming in the ley line and the growing throng of frozen lost ones forming around her daughters' drones. _The ley line…_ Ratchet Altair! she barely waited for him to acknowledge before speaking again. I need you and a team to go to junction 6B.

 _6B? That's the primary cloak control center._ A second heavy lightning bolt struck the _Deception_ amidship, again doing little more than marring the paint. But it did set everyone on edge. At once, my queen.

Cadista released most of her hold on Veselov, but continued to make use of his eyes and ears. While I am still your mother, I am no longer your queen.

As you say…mother. He looked to his right-hoof changeling. "Flint, you have the engine room." He then summoned four other engineers to go with him. Ratchet ran out of main engineering and one deck down to the cloak control center. He barged through the door to find an intensely bored engineer mare inspecting the dials. She jumped at the team of drones storming into the room. It had been a while since Ratchet had last worked with the dizzying array of knobs, switches, levers, and dials spread out wall to wall. "Rusty, I'm going to need your expertise with this one."

 _Finally, something to do!_ Rusty snapped a salute. "Sure thing, Pops, what can I do?"

Cadista was not one to waste time on pleasantries, not even to give her son a chance to refamiliarize himself with the control layout. I have ordered Veselov to descend to one fifty meters. Follow my instructions to the letter if your new queens are to survive this day.

Roger that. Ratchet designated positions for each of his team members as per Cadista's instructions. So what are we doing exactly?

We queens know quite a bit about ley lines, and since Gethar's power resides in manipulating them…

* * *

Gethar tested the warship with a third strike of Judgment's Hammer, only for it to once again shrug off the lightning as if justice's wrath meant nothing to it. What sort of demonic magic allows a siege engine to withstand such power?

His indignation was put off as the vessel slowly sank towards the center of the sinners' position. Perhaps it is less formidable than I gave credit. Still, some might escape to breed again. We can't have that, now can we?

He tightened his grip on the bloated ley line's gap and prepared to close it the moment the ship crashed to the ground. He took no pleasure in their deaths, only in carrying out a just sentence.

* * *

Rainbow Dash hovered above the line, watching the battle like only she could. With her level of perception, the drones below her moved almost flawlessly to shore up any weakening point in the line. No matter where Gethar focused the lost ones, Rainbow was always one step ahead of him. Twilight was hardly idle. Due to her sister's raised position, Twilight focused primarily on shielding Rainbow from Gethar's lightning and the airborne lost ones. She leveraged her pony family's expertise in shields to keep her flying kin alive.

However, the battle was not the only thing on Rainbow's mind. Granny Caddy, that's has got to be the craziest idea I've ever heard. A sinister grin crossed her face. I _like_ it.

Stop calling me granny. Cadista growled back. Twilight, Brace yourself for the pulse!

Twilight sent a concussion wave harmlessly through her drones, only to have it blast five lost ones back far enough for the riflelings to fire, but unfortunately only two bullets found solid targets. Five sets of field artillery along with their clockwerk handlers dropped down hard enough to crack the street. Twilight barely acknowledged them locking down all around her as the _Deception's_ cloaking crystals were extending in an unusual pattern with them pointing downward. Everypony hit the deck, **now!** Every drone on the ground fell flat on their bellies while those in the air pulled up to Rainbow's position.

Twilight mustered all her strength to form a tight lavender-orange shield directly above her prone children right as a bright purple sphere of light burst forth from the _Deception._ The energy wave beat back the enclosing ley line, sending shockwaves of confusion and pain towards Gethar. The pulse pushed the dense ring of lost ones back into phase.

A grim scowl tugged at both Rainbow and Twilight's faces. They unintentionally shouted in unison. "Clockwerk squad, command, FIRE!"

 **"Acknowledged."** With a deafening series of booms, the field artillery launched grape shot at the frothing horde, ripping dozens into ribbons in mere seconds.

Reload! Rainbow commanded, though she needed not have bothered as the changeling crews were already slamming the next shells into the breech. What little survived of the lost one horde was tearing at the shield protecting the drones, only to be ripped asunder by the second volley. The _Deception's_ gunners were not idle, and blasted away at the lost ones until a cloud of dust and smoke obscured their targets.

Gethar recoiled in pain at the pulse and withdrew the massive red ley line, shrinking it back to normal size. Every single lost one for eight city blocks phased out of time within seconds. His howl of pain rumbled the sand between the changelings' hooves and rattled the windows of the warship. "Damn you all! I will not stand for this! I will not be humiliated by you mortal gnats!"

Twilight saw the path towards the imperial district was clear of reanimated lost ones and a collection of seven ley lines were writhing as Gethar recovered from the pulse. Everypony, now's our chance, advance!

Rainbow located several of the logistics drones and focused on them as she surged forward with the air support. Get the wounded back to the ship. We'll come back for the dead.

As one, the drones and remaining clockwerks charged forward, heedless of any remaining lost ones in their path in order to gain ground. The _Deception_ above followed closely behind, and readjusted its crystals back into a spherical pattern.

The ley lines tightened together and flung themselves at the warship. Instead of passing through, five ley lines grappled the hull with one around a crystal boom and two more tightening their grip on the rear engines. Veselov chewed on his cigar while his eyes darted back and forth to the red tentacles of raw mana trying to wrest control of his ship from him. Chief, I hope you have another pulse for us.

Ratchet's hoof rested on a large lever as he watched the capacitors recharge. Even after ordering the boilers to redline it was still too slow for his liking. Just a little more… The sound of groaning steel and snapping cables resounded through the ship. Almost there, Captain. This one should get his attention.

"If you have any sense of justice, servants of sinners, then cease all activity, and I will allow you to repent." Gethar's voice echoed throughout the entire vessel.

A sneer cleaved each engineer's face as the panel lit up to one hundred percent charge. The general consensus from the crew was mirrored in Ratchet's retort. "We have our own justice, and do not care for yours," Ratchet called out to the walls before he pulled the switch.

The exterior crystals rapidly became blindingly bright before sending out a riotous shockwave of lavender energy. The ley lines disintegrated under the magic destabilization field. The ship lost some altitude before the engines compensated and restabilized. The same could not be said for the ley lines as the pulse burned them to cinders.

The shriek of pain came not only from Gethar, but the very planet itself. The ground beneath the city broke apart. Columns of earth shot up almost a hundred meters while other parts sank into bottomless pits at the loss of the local ley lines.

Twilight felt the wave front from the _Deception_ coming and turned back to see the earthquake following in its wake. Holy shh—Everypony, in the air, NOW!

As one, the whole formation took to the air, only to have most of them fall right back to the ground as the wave destabilized the changelings' ability to fly. Several drones rolled on the ground at the sudden shift in momentum while others managed to land and keep running. Rainbow and her squad of ten drones were blitzing through the air well ahead of the wavefront and somehow managed to outfly it before it petered out. In a moment's time, she scanned the area. The last surviving visible ley lines were hanging limp in the air as Gethar fought to recover from the attack. No lost ones were in phase with normal time, and Twilight's grounded changelings were falling out of formation in a mad dash to flee the oncoming earthquake. To her stunned horror, the quake was already spreading throughout more sections of the outer city.

Rainbow, get to the castle! Twilight screamed once she realized Rainbow was just hovering there. Find the center, if I'm right, Gethar _has_ to be there!

What about you! Can you fly yet?

Twilight feverishly buzzed her wings as she ran. At first she had only short hops, but they were slowly becoming longer and higher. Maddeningly, the clockwerks were already fully airborne, except those five with mounted field artillery. One of their number was holding onto Arya who was dumbstruck at the devastation nipping at their heels. We'll be fine, just get to the center before Gethar gets pissed!

The thunderstorm expanded wildly to blanket the whole city with a torrential downpour to match. Too late for that, I'm on my way!

"Damn you all! You compound your sins by sundering the very fabric of the world! And here I believed your kind could not surpass your old sins, your hellish machine only confirms you are beyond salvation!"

Gethar summoned more ley lines and narrowed them down to a razor's edge. With his focus solely upon the _Deception,_ he largely ignored the changelings surging towards him. Veselov was surrounded by the smoke of his cigar as he looked upon the cracked and shattered remains of the primary bow crystal. Engineer Altair, something tells me we don't have a repeat performance in the cards.

The cloak control room was belching black smoke that was flooding the whole section. A few crewlings with gas masks were using fire extinguishers to control the flames in the walls while Ratchet was coughing up a lung as Resta provided first aid for his burns and cuts. No can do, Captain, even if we have any crystals left, the wiring's completely burnt out.

Veselov witnessed a few flak shells and deck guns fire on the incoming ley lines, but nothing even fazed them. Just as well. All we can do now is buy time for the queens. Get back to the engine room if you can.

Ratchet waved Resta aside and started limping to his post. Aye, captain. For the queens and hive.

Aye, for queens and hive. Veselov started barking more orders when a ley line stabbed through the windshield as though it were wet paper and impaled him where he stood. The last thing he saw was his cigar falling from his mouth, and a phantom image of Twilight Sparkle. _Looks like this is it. Give him hell… mother._

Hot tears spilled from Twilight's eyes as she shoved her grief into its little box as the crew of the _Deception_ bought her precious time with their lives. Rainbow Dash felt the same pain. Her wings burned as the deaths of each of her nieces and nephews spurned her to ever greater speeds.

When the steel armor of the _Deception_ proved too strong, Gethar focused on the propellers, and ripped them off one by one until the ship took a nose dive and crashed between two pillars of stone, where it was wedged in place. With the gunners slain, he was free to snake his ley lines in through the shattered windows and began hammering away at the sealed bulkheads. "I will have your heads mounted on pikes and your entrails scattered out into the streets!"

His rage was so great and so focused, that he almost forgot about the queens until Rainbow Dash breached the outer plaza of the palace. "Do not think I have forgotten you, demon."

Rainbow Dash was overwhelmed by the chaotic disaster area of the palace grounds. There was a blue light radiating from the shattered remains of the once magnificent seat of power. The true marble walls and columns that once spoke of authority and might were shattered. Fragments of marble debris that hung in the air were so dense that it made flight next to impossible. What Rainbow noticed most of all, was the complete lack of lost ones. Well over a hundred thestral imperial guards armed with archaic weaponry were frozen in a battle that lacked an opposing force. It didn't take long for her to realize that they had been fighting lost ones, but they had all been pulled by Gethar to attack the changelings. Rainbow glanced around to see Intel and Ferrum were still at her side, along with eight other members of the Jevruun Vrunningee. All of them were exhausted by Rainbow's grueling pace, but not a word of complaint passed between them. Every last one of them could sense their siblings dying simply from how much quieter the local hive mind was becoming.

Rainbow didn't like her new surroundings one bit. _We can't fly with so much clutter in the air. The palace looks like someone took a giant hammer to it from the inside. To top it all off, the whole place is so thick with mana my horn hurts._

Her eyes darted across the frozen soldiers and then behind her. Close to a kilometer back, the lead elements of Twilight's formation were racing towards the palace on both wing and hooves. Squad, listen up. We need to secure the area and wait for reinforcements.

No sooner had those words left her mouth, when a red ley line expanded over the courtyard. The imperial guards were thrust back into normal time with most of them shouting war cries and still amid swing. It didn't take long for confusion to set in for the changelings, who quickly rallied around Rainbow Dash who had ducked behind a shattered fountain to stay out of sight. The guards glanced about at the sudden disappearance of their lost one opponents.

"Servants of the imperial crown!" Gethar roared to pierce through the confusion. The soldiers immediately knew who was speaking. "The empire has been betrayed by those you swore to serve. Look around you at the devastation they have wrought."

Ferrum made sure his rotating four barreled rifle was primed to fire. My queen, what do we do? We're not going to kill these ponies are we?

Rainbow Dash ground her teeth at the idea. The way their disembodied boss is talking, I don't think we have a choice. _Twilight might be able to talk them down, but I'm no good at it._ The uneven tiles under her hooves made her slip a little, and Rainbow looked down to resecure her footing only to spot the holes in her leg and nearly slapped herself out of the brilliance of the idea that struck her. The fact that she had practically forgotten her changeling nature didn't help her mood either. I got it! We disguise ourselves as more of these guardponies. We might be able to slip past them, and then sandwich them between us and Twilight.

A round of affirmatives came back at her, prompting Rainbow to relay the plan to Twilight as she wrapped herself in the guise of an imperial guard. The earthquake stopped, and Gethar seems to have abandoned the lost ones for the moment. We can slow down to give you some time to sneak past them.

We're not going to try for diplomacy? Rainbow questioned somewhat worriedly. These guys are innocent as far as I'm concerned.

Twilight tried to keep her voice controlled, but the mounting losses of her children was taking its toll. It was only with Cadista and her brood back at the hive bleeding off her grief that kept her focused. If we can talk, then we'll talk, but I'm not going out of my way to avoid harming them if they threaten us. And if Gethar gets it in their heads that we're the enemy...

Everyone in Rainbow's squad heard her, causing most of the changelings' tension to surge. It's your call, Sis. I'm just the military mule here. After double checking her disguise, Rainbow leapt over the fountain and galloped towards the imperial guardponies who had formed up into a box formation with two of their number stepping towards the palace. The pair standing at the front consisted of a lithe mare covered in blood that was not her own, and a stallion in worn but well maintained armor.

"Protect the palace at all costs, while I personally deal with the remaining loyalist troops."

The soldiers stamped a foreleg and shouted over the torrential rain. "For the restoration of the Empire, for Rookhaven!"

Ferrum furrowed his brow at the imperials. They sound remarkably clear.

Riposte tsked at him. Of course they would, we've been translating their language for almost a year now. There's been no phonetic drift from the records we've unearthed. _Personally, i'm just glad the rain washed off all that funk Stick-wings slathered all over me._

Gethar's gaze turned to the advancing disguised changelings. At such close range to the palace, his presence felt like a heavy pressure wave. There was a moment of deep concern as the group feared he could see through their disguises. "Good, you have heard my voice from afar and have come to join your brethren."

Ferrum feigned ignorance and measured fright to mask his relief. "Do you know what happened to our city? To the imperial family!?"

"I will leave such discourse to your commanding officers. For now, Champions, I will grant you my boon."

Two ribbons of teal mana emerged from the bright blue core of the palace and sank into the two lead thestrals. Their forms grew as their bodies began to glow a magnificent teal light. Their armor became more elaborate, forming engraved lines and sigils while the edges flared with artistic splendor. Everyone stepped away from the pair of oversized luminescent guardponies as they grew to match Celestia in height. "Arise, Scions of Justice. Defend the palace until I purge the city of that accursed war machine."

The twin teal ley lines remained attached to the new scions, but Gethar's shift in attention was palpable this close to the center of the city in the form of lessening air pressure. The disguised changelings slowly crept forward towards the scions in cautious curiosity. Riposte couldn't tear his eyes off the glowing imperials. "What… what did he do to you?"

One of the scions found his spear had been warped into a staff with the crescent moon symbol of the Empire. It was matched by his counterpart. "I have been charged to be judge, jury, and executioner in His name." With a stoically neutral face and a flourish of his staff, the former brigadier general pointed in the direction of Twilight's group off in the distance as they reformed around her. They were close enough now that the gathered thestrals could see the changelings' alien natures. "He must have granted us purity of sight so that there would be no mistake."

The scion mare looked up at the clutter making flight impossible. "To think the imperial family has gone so far as to rip the nature of the world apart." She bit her lower lip until it bled. "Just what sort of monsters did I spend my life protecting?" Finding her staff moved with her thoughts, she leveraged the arcane knowledge granted to her by Gethar and blasted the air clear.

Rainbow's squad was slowly filtering into the imperial ranks, but was stopped short when one of the imperial guardponies noticed something off about them. While a changeling's magic could disguise their appearance and clothing, it did nothing for their weapons. A flamethrower wielding changeling was stopped by one of the lieutenants.

"Hold it." Everyone within ten meters froze. "What is that thing you're carrying?"

A few other thestrals finally started to take notice of the newcomers' strange equipment. The flamer drone sweated as he turned to the officer. "It's something I found lying on the ground when the Justicar brought me back. I just assumed it was an instrument of his will."

The other drones without swords caught on to the ruse quickly. "Yeah, same here. My old weapon was shattered."

"He must have granted me this replacement when he guided me here." Ferrum commented as he made sure to physically pull his rifle off his back.

"Wish mine glowed like you two's," Riposte gestured to his skysteel blade. "Wish I was the favorite."

Most of the thestrals seemed pleased by their responses, and refocused on the changelings that had started to march towards their position. The scion mare however, was not, and watched them carefully. _Something's not right._

* * *

The remaining seventy eight crewlings aboard the _Deception_ waited in nervous anticipation for either Twilight to end the threat outside, or for the unspeakable. Ratchet and a couple of marines slouched against the wall of a lower corridor. They were facing a sealed bulkhead that lead to one of the secondary defense turrets. The door was banging constantly as Gethar's ley lines tried to pierce through, but the steel armor held fast. One of the marines checked her blunderbuss for the twentieth time in the past half hour. "Hey, Papa. You really think Momma and Aunty can pull through? We're stuck here with that tentacle monster outside."

"Just because I'm the prime consort, doesn't make me your father," Ratchet replied dryly. _I'll never understand why Twi's brood feels the need to call me that. I never thought of my sire as such._

The other marine huffed in amusement and playfully punched his mouthy sister on the withers. "Ha, and here I thought only wet navies had to worry about sea monsters." His sister punched him back into his old sitting position.

He laughed it off if only to ignore the amount of death it took to bring them to this point. "Hey, Father, you think the bastard will finally realize lightning and pounding his hoof at us isn't going to work? That even with us grounded every ship in the fleet is practically invulnerable to that?" He clanged his hoof against the metal hull. "Grounding wires and steel's pretty good at that sort of thing."

Ratchet's ears flinched as the pounding on the door picked up tempo. "Just be glad your mother is Twilight. I've never seen so many drones be apt enough at magic to turn away a ley line" _Even if it's taking over half of the surviving crew to do it._ He remembered passing the infirmary of the bare handful of drones that had been pulled from the turrets before the doors were sealed. "Otherwise we'd all be Swiss cheese right now."

The mare marine smirked in satisfaction. "Mother's something else, that's for sure."

"Makes me wonder what Aunty's kids will be capable of."

The mental image of hundreds of cyan drones pranking the entire hive sent a shiver down Ratchet's spine. "I _can't_ wait."

A massive impact rocked the side of the ship, knocking everyone off their hooves. The mare growled at the noise echoing through the ship. "So he finally figured a sledgehammer was better than a thousand needles?"

A second hit rattled the lights, dimming them briefly. Ratchet listened to the tone of the noise. "He'll break through eventually, but…" He inspected his revolver. "It's too diffused along our most armored section. It'll take weeks."

The stallion sighed in relief. "Then we got nothing to worry about. Momma will cream this guy long before then. Too bad I won't be there to see her do it in person."

What little mirth that had filled the room evaporated when a new sound came from the door. It was a noise Ratchet knew all too well. "What the…? That sounds like acid."

"Acid?" one of the marines queried incredulously. "Pah, that'd probably take longer than the-" *BANG* "the beating the ship is taking outside. But I'll give him props for being creative."

"It's too loud," Ratchet warned, silencing his companions. By now, the sound of hissing animals along with banging and scratches on the door were coming in loud and clear. They were interrupted only by Gethar steady beating on the side of the ship. All hooves, prepare to repel boarders. Get the warding teams to main engineering and protect them at all costs!

The locking wheel on the door started to wobble before falling heavily to the deck. A fast growing hole in the center of the steel door was forming as the steel dissolved away. The mare saw the snarling lost one vomiting more acid on the door and promptly ran forward and shoved her blunderbuss in its face. The creature snarled a challenge, only to receive a face full of shrapnel and gunpowder.

 ***SCREEEEEE***

The piercing wail threw the marine off guard long enough for a second lost one to spit acid through the hole. She yelped in alarm as her weapon started dissolving and jumped back to avoid a second attack. However, instead of a glob of acid, a third lost one spat a trio of spines through the hole. The mare cried out as one grazed her on the neck and the other two punctured deep into her chest.

"Damn it, Screwy!" The male marine grabbed her in his magic before she could collapse, and pulled her towards him. "Papa, get her to a medic, I'll hold them here!" I need reinforcements to junction 4D ASAP!

"We don't have a stretcher up here, I'll have to carry her manually." He gently flipped her over and placed the wounded marine on his back and faced the adjoining bulkhead. "We can't hold this position, fall back to the next security point!"

Both stallions fired at the quartet of manic lost ones trying to squeeze through the slagging door, entirely heedless to the acid burning away at their hooves and claws. The marine emptied his five barreled blunderbuss into three more before flipping it around to use it as a club. "You go, I'll buy you all the time I can!" He picked up the fallen corpses and used them to plug the ruined door, but the living lost ones were quick to rip and shred through the meat shield.

Ratchet nodded his understanding and bid a hasty retreat with Screwy coughing up blood on his back. _Say what you will about Twi's brood, they understand personal sacrifice._ The chief engineer found a corpsling and two more marines waiting for him at the next point right as he heard the stallion's death cry behind him as the lost ones tore through him. "Patch her up, doc. The rest of you, seal the door."

Ratchet found a spare shotgun thrust in his face by one of the marines and took it with a grateful nod.

All hands, this is Lieutenant Rourke, and now the highest ranking officer on board. Lucky me. I want all able bodied personnel to enact contingency plan, Beta Alpha Three.

"Nooo! Are you kidding me!?" Ratchet yelled as he bucked the wall out of fury. "It'll take forever to fix the place if we do that!"

One of the crewlings started running to the nearest armory while the three marines finished sealing the door. One of their number clapped Ratchet on the shoulder. "Don't feel bad, Engy, this just means you'll have the perfect excuse to renovate and improve the wiring and deck plating when this is all over."

"I hardly call setting land mines _inside_ the ship a good idea!" Ratchet barked back.

Scant seconds later, the lost ones were at the hatch, banging away with wild abandon far out stripping even the most vicious predators of the southern jungles. Everyone knew it wouldn't take long before this door was breached as well.

"Sorry, Pops, but I don't think we got a choice in the matter," the sergeant replied. "For every second we keep that justice guy focused on us, Mother has that much longer to do her thing."

The familiar sound of dissolving steel filled Ratchet's ears. _Hurry, Twilight. Please, hurry._

* * *

Twilight Sparkle had waited long enough. She and her remaining escorts of just over sixty changelings and eight clockwerks marched straight at Gethar's scions along with their one hundred strong imperial gaurdponies. Several of her best mages warded off the nigh constant bombardment of lightning and stabbing ley lines from striking anyone in formation.

Rainbow Dash primed her magic as she held onto her disguise while standing near the two scions, and waited for the right time to act. Sis, you've got the freak himself attacking you constantly right in front of them. I don't think they're going to want to talk to you.

I have to try, Rainbow. If I can get them to talk, then no more of our drones have to die.

"Damn your wretched hide, sinner! Why won't you die!"

A snarl circled Twilight's lips at the being who had ripped so many drones from her, and was continuing to do so. "Your spellwork is as archaic as your sense of justice, Gethar! A foal could deflect your magic." She stopped a hundred paces from the two scions who crossed their staves in open defiance of her. "You wouldn't bother trying to stop me from proceeding if you weren't at the center of all of this, now would you?"

"You will not harm our lord and master," the mare scion shouted flatly at the encroaching queen. "I've seen your Arcanum work before, but your destruction of our beautiful home is all the evidence I need that you must die here!" An emotional tremble colored her voice, but her stance remained rock steady.

"We did nothing of the sort-"

"I will suffer the royal family's serpent tongue no longer! Kill them, justice demands it!"

"You heard him," the thestral commander shouted to his troops. "Blades of the Empire, take a long look at what the true colors of the royal family! They have finally taken on the monstrous forms that truly defines them! Cast aside any remaining loyalties to these monsters so that Rookhaven can be rebuilt stronger than ever!"

Even as he spoke, Gethar unfroze more surviving guards from around the fragmented imperial district and dragged them through his ley lines and deposited them towards his champion scions. The glowing champions were a known symbol and served as an instant beacon for them to rally around. It didn't take long for Rainbow and her squad to find themselves in a throng of soldiers numbering well over three hundred.

"End this, and together, loyal sons and daughters of Rookhaven, we can remake the empire as a model of morality and justice!"

Twilight Sparkle was not idle as her enemies gathered. Her drones formed ranks with clockwerks and swordlings up front, riflelings directly behind them, and the remaining three artillery clockwerks aimed down range. The only thing staying her hand was Rainbow and her infiltrators who were trying to quietly filter towards the rear of the gathering thestrals. Each of them laced their presence in the hive mind with a locator spell so they would appear bright lavender to the other changelings.

Arya was heartbroken at the presence of the scions. _My blasphemy against the lord is not enough, oh harsh fate? I must aid in his blessed ones' demise as well? May my ancestors forgive me for what I must do._ She stood guard in front of Twilight and eased out her wooden wings and focused her innate magic into them. The bark hardened to match steel, and the tips of her branches sharpened to cruel barbs. "This one stands with you, imperial one."

With a mighty surge of lightning that left four of the mages in a daze, Gethar signaled the attack. With a bone-chilling war cry, the thestrals charged in to carry out their master's will.

Today, you are all Jevruun Vrunningee. Let's show these guys what that means, Aegis challenged as she primed her flamer. Intel started to hum an old battle song over both the hive mind and aloud for the Queens' Guard. He was soon joined in by Aegis and all the other changelings as they stared down the imperials while the scions hung back to remain in the center. The field artillery blasted almost the entire front line of soldiers, but Gethar's ley lines intercepted one of the shells, allowing the thestrals' morale to remain strong under his protection.

The front ranks of the imperials came into range of the rifleling second, and the last verse of the war song signaled their first deadly volley. It would not be their last.


	31. Chapter 31

Of Guilt and Sin

The ensuing conflict was not a battle, it was a slaughter. The thestrals were not the innumerous mindless hordes of lost ones that blindly threw themselves at the changelings, but sane beings that barely numbered over three hundred. The field artillery cut a wide swath of them to ribbons with grapeshot. Those who survived that found a wall of lead from the riflelings sizing them down to just over half their original number.

Although only five remained, the flamethrowers proved the most terrifying of all. Primitive fire magic was well known in the empire, but those spells were useless in the rain. With the flaming oil however, the rain only succeeded in spreading it far across the ground. The changeling spell-weavers took advantage of that and pushed the oil away from them to form a wall of fire. The oil clung to fur, and seeped through chinks in the imperial's armor. The blaze was as brutal as the swordlings waiting for them at the front. The changelings didn't need to rely on their mouths or wings to wield their weapons. Their telekinesis gave the drones the reach of a spear and the dexterity of a dagger. To make matters even worse for those few imperials that reached the changeling line, the swordlings were focused completely on defense. They stalled just long enough for the riflelings behind them to take the easy shot. Even while Arya fended off two imperials lucky enough to reach the front with her iron-bark wings, she couldn't help but to gawk at how quickly the thestrals were being cut down.

Rainbow Dash and her squad feigned death near the beginning of the charge and stayed along the left flank, so the artillery fire could focus elsewhere.

The two scions struggled to keep the imperials' morale intact in the face of such technological disparity. She dropped to the ground to keep a perfect field of view on the two glowing thestrals. The male was slowly walking forward with a convex teal barrier protecting him and well over a dozen imperials. _He stops moving every time the artillery buckles his shield. I hope they'll be willing to surrender._

The scion mare flinched from behind the teal shield as an artillery shot deformed it frightfully bad before it recovered. With most of the imperials dead, she slammed the butt of her staff into the marble ground so it would stand on its own. From there she drew upon the ley line tethering her to Gethar to empower her staff. Gethar himself stopped his electrical assault to assist his champion.

Rainbow Dash waited for the clockwerks to reload as she watched the scions. _What is she doing?_

While her wings were extended, the raw power the scion was channeling lifted her off the ground as her voice took on a deep husky tone that demanded to be heard over the rain. "Servants of the Empire, arise anew!"

A blinding wall of golden light enveloped the entire plaza. The guns fell silent as everyone averted their gaze. The power needed was so massive that the ley lines withered, and the rain stopped completely. Even Gethar felt dimmed by the sheer demands of granting another his power. I can only channel so much of the world's energies before having to use my own.

Twilight Sparkle rubbed her eyes to clear the spots from her vision. _That was a massive restoration spell. Just what kind of power did the old empire have?!_ She shook her head to finally clear her vision to find the dark clouds above were breaking up as Gethar could no longer focus on them anymore. Yet that was not what stunned the changelings as they recovered their sight.

All of the imperial guardponies that had been cut down by the changelings were now standing around the scions in perfect health. Most stumbled about in a daze from having their lives returned to them. The male scion impatiently and noisily slammed his staff onto the ground, cracking the marble floor. "Form ranks and prepare to charge again!"

With practiced ease, the imperials obeyed, forming a phalanx. The changelings were stunned by both the magic, and the ponies' swift acceptance of a second suicidal charge. "Again?" Ferrum challenged as he shoved his way through the gathered thestrals to get in front of the scions. "We just got slaughtered!"

"And?" the male scion replied coldly. "Attack and resurrection is standard operating procedure to gauge an enemy's tactics and strength when scions lead the army. Shouldn't you know this?"

Ferrum's ignorance caught him flat-footed as more thestrals started to scrutinize him until Rainbow Dash came to his rescue by shoving her way in front of him. "Have you taken one good look at our equipment?! We're in no shape to attack again."

The imperials may have been physically healthy again, but many of them had broken weapons, shattered by cannon or rifle shot. Some of them had torn up armor while others feverishly tried to remove their armor which was still covered in burning oil.

The female scion was too winded to respond, so it left was up to the stallion. He snapped his head around to bark angrily at Ferrum. "Know your place, Recruit! It is not our place to question the avatars!"

"Maybe it should be," Rainbow Dash replied harshly as she shoved her way to the front. "Were you _watching_ that fight? We were slaughtered!"

"And yet here we stand, whole again. We can fight indefinitely!"

The mare scion propped herself up on her staff. Her steely gaze tried to instill discipline in Rainbow Dash, but the queen held her ground. "The Justicar protects his own. I can bring you all back again and again if need be."

Riposte made a show of slamming his sword on the ground. _Please don't break._ Ignoring his sword's plight, he swept a hoof at the changelings who had stopped firing. "That might help if we actually _did something_ to them! As far as I can see, not one of them lies dead."

Rainbow Dash risked a quick talk with her sister. How long do we have to jerk them off before the blow hard comes back?

He's already monologuing again, but I draped a sonic dampener over the thestrals so they won't hear him. I'll stall for all the time I can.

Rainbow nodded slightly before returning her attention to the argument. The thestrals were starting to look questioningly between the disguised changelings and the scions. It was obvious many of them did not want to face down the technological might of the changelings a second time. "Why don't we try talking to them?" She interjected in the middle of the scions' rebuttal.

Everyone stared at her as if she was mad. "The royal family sees us as traitors for attacking them. They'd never let us live." One guardpony called out nervously.

"He's right. Our best chance is to run. We can't stand up to such power!" said another.

"I can't believe what I'm hearing!" The mare scion raged as she swept an accusatory glare at them all. "We have the _Justicar_ on our side! With him, we can't lose."

"We just lost pretty damn badly a minute ago," called out a disguised changeling.

"That's right," Ferrum pointed out. Several nearby thestrals shouted their agreement. "If the imperial family wanted us dead, they'd still be attacking us right now, but look!" He pointed past the translucent barrier. Every changeling remained where they had originally started. "Of all the monsters we've fought so far today, not one has given quarter to any of us, let alone be smart enough to use whatever magic they have to wipe us out so fast. I say we try to talk to them."

The stallion scion's eyes flashed with anger and leveled his staff at Ferrum's face. The drone froze in place as the scion spoke slowly, clearly, and dangerously. "You will fall back in line, or I will kill you where you stand. And this time, we will _not_ bring you back."

Riposte was not about to let his clutchmate stand alone, and pushed two thestrals out of the way to stand at his brother's side. "Take a look at her!" He stabbed a hoof at the scion mare. The ley line connected to her was as thin as a candle, and she was gasping for breath. She struggled to rise to her hooves, giving Riposte an excuse to press his point. "She's got what? Maybe one, two of those left?" The scions growl at him as he grabbed a soldier and hauled him forward. "Look at him! His armor's ruined, and his sword's nothing more than a hilt now." He let go of the hapless pony. "How many others have ruined equipment?" Most of the soldiers started muttering to each other as they compared the poor state of their arms and armor.

"Enough!" The male scion roared. He slammed the butt of his staff into the ground, creating a teal ripple along the cracks. "Get back in line, all of you, or be sentenced for treason."

Rainbow pinged her sister, letting her know now was the time to sow even more dissent. Twilight used her magic to make her voice carry to the thestrals without distracting Gethar from his monologue. "Soldiers of Rookhaven. Stand aside and you will not be harmed. Judging by your priest's weakened state; I know you cannot resurrect yourselves twice."

The scion in question tried to rise on shaky legs until a sudden influx of power from the ley line in her back and Gethar finally discovered Twilight's subterfuge and ripped the sonic dampener away. "Do you honestly think your paltry tricks could prolong your lives? The true sons and daughters of Rookhaven will no longer stand by while you destroy the land!"

The disguised changelings silenced themselves while the scions cheered for their master. Twilight opted to play a different game. She made sure her voice would carry to everyone. "I did nothing of the sort. The destruction of the ley lines was _your_ fault! If you knew one iota about them, you would know they are not to be used as somepony's personal playthings." The very air rumbled at Gethar's fury, but his hesitation gave Twilight an opening to continue. "Have you bothered to tell them you allowed the good ponies of Rookhaven to be trapped here for thousands of years? If you could free them at any time, why have you not done so earlier?"

"Trapped?" one thestral queried with confusion. "What is she talking about?"

"Yeah, it's only been four hours, max, since everything went to Tartarus!" yelled another.

"They remained here to defend this city!" Gethar raged, silencing all debate among the soldiers. "They swore an oath to defend the Empire with their lives, and they will keep it."

"And what about the civilians?" Twilight challenged. "Did they swear an oath too?"

"Any loyal citizen of the Empire would die to protect it! It appears that is something you have forgotten."

Rainbow Dash saw a perfect opening to dissolve the imperial guard's loyalty, and put on an air of insulted rage. "Is it true, Justicar? Has it really been thousands of years?"

"So what if it has? Everything I have done was in the Empire's name, and to protect the world from the corrupted ones."

"How do we know **you** didn't cause it?" Ferrum barked accusingly. "You always hated Arcanum, and yet there you are controlling the threads of the world."

The male scion slammed the crown of his staff next to Ferrum's head, purposefully missing it by inches. "It is not our place to question why, only to follow and die."

Gethar's ley lines blue-shifted as he regarded his champion, but Riposte saw an exploitable flaw that he was all too eager to snatch. "Isn't that exactly what we did when we attacked the royal family in the first place? Our duty lies with them, not the Justicar!"

The scions quickly found the soldiers starting to bicker about who to side with. The drones kept sowing more confusion on top of it all until the scions became the objects of the soldiers' distrust. Twilight was getting increasingly impatient with every second the lost ones gouged their way deeper into the _Deception._ Let them bicker, we're leaving. Children, lend me your mana.

Twilight concentrated on the shattered steps leading into the palace. The glow of her horn would have pierced the growing gloom of nightfall were it not for Particle having the presence of mind to weave an illusion to mask the spell cast.

Not that Gethar would have noticed as his rage reached new heights at the growing resentment against his scions. "Traitors, all of you! I should have you all executed, but you have served your purpose in stalling the royals."

Right before their eyes, hundreds of lost ones raced out of the northern districts of the city filtering throughout palace itself and every nook and cranny they could squeeze through. The scions dropped their staves out of profound shock and betrayal. The mare was the only one of the two that could speak. " _You_ were controlling them all along?"

Gethar ignored the comment. "I will consider everypony's… assistance when I call upon you again. But I have a special task for you, my scions." Without another word, he removed the ley line from around the thestrals, leaving them frozen in time within moments. The two scions were heaved into the air by the ley lines tethered to them and were yanked in towards the center of the palace. During which time, Gethar scarcely noticed Rainbow's squad was still active in his attempts to keep the lost ones corralled away from the imperials so his monstrous minions would not phase back out of time.

Twilight's spell neared completion with only one other thought running through her head. Rainbow, _Run!_

A moment before Gethar could unleash another bolt of lightning, Twilight and her entire remaining escorts blinked out of existence, rendering him dumbstruck. The changelings reappeared on the far side of Rainbow's squad, in the middle of the one place that the lost ones were not coming through, a long flight of stairs that lead straight towards the center of the marble palace. Rainbow and her squad dropped their disguises and made a mad sprint towards Twilight's new position as her drones opened fire on the waves of lost ones. "You can teleport!?"

The sea of mutants may have lost their original target after the teleport, but Rainbow's squad was exposed in the center of the plaza and an inviting meal to them all. With Gethar still reeling from witnessing teleportation of such scale, Twilight and a few of her mages dropped their protection to grapple the fleeing changelings with their kinesis. Hurry and pull them in before he thinks to electrocute us! Gethar saw Rainbow's team as an easy target, and abandoned his thus far ineffectual lightning in favor of seven spear-like ley lines that he sent racing towards them.

"YOU! You caused them to betray me!" The sky turned red at Gethar's boundless fury. "I should have killed the whole royal family all a long time ago. Time to rectify that mistake."

Serrated tendrils speared through the air at Rainbow's squad, catching two luckless drones along the way. Aegis saw her two siblings casually tossed into the carpet of lost ones to be torn apart. She briefly checked her fuel gauge which sat at just above half a tank. _Better make it worth it._

The moment Rainbow's surviving team entered the formation, the changelings opened fire with everything they had to slow the tide. Even with the withering opening salvo of rifle fire and ribbons of burning oil slaying nearly a hundred in seconds, the mutants behind them simply trampled the dead to get at the drones. Arya saw a hole open up in the hastily formed ranks and jumped in to shore up the flagging left flank. The instant she was at the front, she planted her hooves on the ground and lashed out with her iron-bark wings and sunk her barbed tips into a skinless lost one and ripped it away from the rifleling it was about to cleave in half. The lost one's blade-like forelegs slashed at her wings, but her hardened bark proved superior, for the moment. Trusting her allies, Arya refrained from going on the offensive and wrapped her wings around herself to ward off the barrage of retaliatory slices from her opponent.

She barely had to suffer four seconds of its blistering assault before a trio of bullets and one magic blast found the beast's head, pulping it in the process. A series of heavy whumps drew her attention above her head to find a lavender-orange dome was flashing constantly at the relentless ley lines hammering against it.

Rainbow Dash did a quick assessment while her sister provided a heavy kinetic pulse to push the lost ones back far enough for a round of artillery grapeshot. _It'll buy us time, but not much._ She studied the lost ones before realizing something. She was stunned and exultant at once. Twilight, the freaks aren't coming from the central hallway! We can rush right through and kick this bastard's ass!

Twilight's face was a permanent scowl as she blasted three airborne lost ones with arcane ice. These things are faster than we are, plus we can't fly _and_ concentrate enough to keep those ley lines from ripping us apart.

Then I'll stay here with the crew. Get to the center and end this! She growled as a lost one tackled her in midair. Rainbow suffered several cuts across her belly before she got her legs underneath it and kicked it away with a pained yell. Lighting her wing with a steady magneta aura, Rainbow spun in mid-fall and cleaved the lost one in two. She did not get long to savor her victory because the act forced Rainbow to the ground, dragging her injuries across sharp broken stone.

Barely a moment later Twilight and two drones helped her back up. A medic quickly started to bandage her wounds with what little gauze was left. "Go" *grunt* "On, I'll be fine. Somepony has to keep these Hollymare rejects busy."

Twilight knew that stubborn angry look meant her sister would not back down. "Just stay alive, RD."

"I could tell you the same thing," Rainbow shot back with a pained smirk.

Nodding, Twilight let go of her sister to concoct a plan. Under Rainbow's direction, the changeling formation slowly backed into the main entry hallway of the palace. It was spacious, but the entrances themselves were quite narrow, and there was only two ways in or out. Once they were inside, Rainbow had the mages erect a heavy energy barrier at each entrance. Luckily, the sturdy construction of the palace meant that the countless cracks and fissures in the walls were not large enough for even the smallest lost one to crawl through.

Twilight only glanced at the frozen history she was standing in as her mind focused on the matter at hand. "Aegis, on me!"

Not knowing what to do, but sensing Twilight was going to try something, Arya joined Aegis and her clutchmates in escorting their queen. For her part, Aegis was winded, but refused to show it. "Good work, all of you, against the thestrals. Now we just need to get to the center of this place before Gethar can send his army through the service passages to block us off." The drones nodded their understanding, prompting Twilight to look to Arya. "I was going to call for you, but I'm glad you showed up first. Is there anything else about Gethar you might know about?"

"Maybe yes, maybe no. Many tales of him that would shine light you already know through his actions. Justicar is _avatar._ I know not what is story and what is truth. But one always gave my branches a cold night shiver. It is said that when one avatar's body failed the druids of old would prepare a new body for them."

"Are you saying if we kill him, he'll try to find somepony to possess?" Ferrum queried incredulously.

"Or us?" Aegis replied out of disgust for the idea.

"As I say, it is the story that reminds me of all the avatars. The Justicar will not rest his blade until he suffers true death."

"Then we'll figure out how to give him that death later," Twilight butted in while trying not to sound impatient. "I can handle it if I can get in contact with the ley lines at the center. Is there anything else we need to know about Gethar?"

"None you have not seen, if your intent is to fight."

The deaths of two more drones from within the _Deception_ erased what was left of Twilight's patience and willingness to plan. "Then we're moving out." Rainbow, keep the lost ones and Gethar focused on you until we deal with him.

The shields blocking the entrances were buckling under the pounding assault from Gethar and the lost ones. Nearly every drone was adding their magical talent to the shields to keep them intact. You got it, Sis. Just get it done.

Twilight only nodded in response. With her five escorts huddling around her, Twilight concentrated on the expansive ley line that flooded the whole area. The drones were at odds with Arya joining in with Intel voicing the shared thought. "You should stay here—"

The front shield crackled loudly as it bent backwards under the constant attack. Rainbow wisely kept several drones in a reserve cycle between resting and reinforcing the barriers. Yet it was obvious over the hive mind that fatigue was starting to set in. It would not be long before the shields fell.

Arya's fear of the flamethrowers was starting to overcome her fear of being torn apart by the horde. She had to say something to get the group moving before she ran for the hills just to get away from Aegis and her flamer. "I must go! Promises and oaths made to see this queen's victory today."

"We don't have time to argue," Twilight snapped more hotly than she intended. "Brace yourselves. No pony could be manipulating this many ley lines without being at the center, so we're going to ride one straight to him."

"What do you mean, ride it?" Riposte asked with a lump in his throat.

The group's perception of the world twisted from the altered teleport spell. They were compressed into a thin line and streaked through the massive, yet diluted, ley line. Arya wanted to scream in terror at the warping reality around her. The group blitzed through half a kilometer to find a massive antechamber. A small figure was held aloft in the center of the uprooted ley nexus, and only noticed the changelings in the last instant when they were flung out of the fount of mana.

"What, how!?"

The baseball stadium sized antechamber's floor had been ripped out by the ley lines into a jagged landscape. Were it not for the changelings' ability to act quickly after a teleport, the lot of them would have smashed into the rocks. Arya slammed into a thankfully flat surface. Her bark-like hide took the brunt of the damage, and she found her footing on a small patch of marble below. The changelings spread out to encircle Gethar.

"Aegis, burn him out of them now!"

With a quick flick of her magic, Aegis took aim with a sinister grin at the half-full fuel gauge. "Ready to roast!"

"HOLD!" A massive blast of magic exploded out from the center to blanket the entire city. Every single person in the city was locked in place except for one, Gethar. The spell was so thorough that not even Twilight could summon her magic. His astonishment fell away quickly as he took stock of Twilight's sudden appearance. "You continue to surprise me, royal. Since you're so intent on reaching me in person, I will allow you to see the extent of your family's sins before I kill you. Here is where your family's fall was total."

Now that all she could do was look at him, Twilight finally registered what she was seeing. The once regal structure was truly massive for its time, reaching seven stories tall. Not that anything of the roof remained aside from chunks of stone floating in the air. The ley lines themselves ranged from spidery filaments to ones as thick as houses. They uniformly shifted from red to a steady sky blue, but Twilight's real focus was the figure held aloft at the center. It was obvious to Twilight from the amount of floating debris that the ley lines had exploded out of the ground, destroying much of the palace in the process.

Gethar was easily the size of Princess Luna, but aside from his roughly equine shape, that was where the similarities ended. He had been a thestral originally, but he could no longer as claim such anymore. His forelegs were broken and twisted from wild mutations. His hind legs were little more than emaciated bones wrapped in skin. His barrel had growths more akin to grotesque cancer than any sensible design. His neck had shrunk away to the point where his head emerged out of his barrel. His wings were elongated and rippled with misaligned muscles rendering them useless. Only his head remained somewhat normal, save for being furless.

Twilight shared in her drones' disgust at the avatar's appearance. "You murdered my children!" She shrieked with heartbreak. "As soon as I break free of this enchantment, you're **dead!"**

"And you murdered an empire. As for you breaking free, you might as well try to lift the world itself. Unfortunately… I can do nothing else while holding this stasis spell." He narrowed his eyes. "What I can do, is wait for an eternity." It was a slight bluff, as he wanted to keep the scions empowered, but couldn't do it for weeks on end.

The local hive mind buzzing in Twilight's ear was in complete disarray. While everyone was locked in place, many drones both aboard the _Deception_ and in the entry hall of the palace were staring down the jaws of a lost one. Others were kept on death's door, with one unlucky changeling having a claw freeze in the process of eviscerating him. Twilight couldn't stand for it and tried to lash out with a trio of psionic blasts only for the density of the ley lines render the attack powerless. "I don't care about your archaic sense of justice, all I want is your _head!"_

Gethar ignored her threat. "You are obviously unrepentant, that comes as no surprise." A tendril rubbed his chin as he regarded her further. "Regardless of your dismissal of the law, you traveled along the ley lines." Twilight squirmed in her fur at the burning gaze Gethar was casting her. "That is an art I thought only us avatars knew how to perform. Tell me where you learned how to do that, and I'll grant you a painless death."

"I'll tell you exactly where to shove your painless death!" Aegis barked back. "Now let me go so I can burn your ass!"

"Your execution will be in due time. For the moment, I find myself intensely puzzled by you, royal. Not only do you possess a secret art, you bear the curse of the imperial family, and yet you are not suffering from it at all. Why? I would have remembered your unique appearance, so you are obviously a descendant. How is it that you have survived all these years?"

"The only thing I'm interested in is taking you down, Gethar!" Twilight growled. She was finally reigning her emotions in check, if only just.

"You fail to acknowledge the situation," he countered coldly. "I am holding everypony in place while the planet itself powers the spell. I can keep this up for a very, very long time. Long enough for you to die of thirst, of that I assure you." Twilight lashed out with an even more powerful psionic bolt, and almost cut halfway to the Justicar, but again, the sheer raw mana of the ley lines proved superior.

"You really want to know?" Twilight fumed, refusing to avert her gaze from the horribly disfigured avatar. He did an approximation of a nod. "Every changeling in history has fed on the love of others to survive. Aside from myself, mother, and sister, every other queen has forcibly taken love from others. For at least ten thousand years, your curse caused nothing but suffering for innocent ponies the world over!"

The ley lines flashed scarlet at Gethar's first inclination was to denounce her, yet even he could see the facts. "I cannot trust a word you say, but your very presence here this day is irrefutable." Twilight squirmed in his vice-like grip while Gethar turned away to face a massive hole in the building. There he could see the edges of the frozen city. "I will admit that freezing the city in time has blinded me entirely to the world outside. Tell me, royal, if you have any shred of decency within you, tell me of the land outside of Rookhaven. Is it still a desert?"

Twilight was about to verbally lash out when Intel stopped her short. My queen, begging your pardon, her fury washed over him, but he pressed through to speak. See if you can get him to release Aunty and the others for medical attention. _This guy won't free us so close to him, but maybe we can save a few drones this way._

Biting down on her tongue and fury, Twilight put on her best attempt at sounding diplomatic, feeble though it was. "Release my children from your hold so they can be healed, and I will tell you the truth as I know it. I swear on my honor as queen."

As if I could take her word for it. "That is quite impossible. The hold I have on you is either city-wide, or none at all." His demeanor soured at her phasing. Children? An odd phrase to call one's subjects. "Do I need to reiterate my profound patience?"

 _Bastard!_ Twilight growled. Every second her dozens of wounded children remained in agony did nothing to calm her down. "No," she said at length. It took surreal force of will to remain civil. "There is nothing but swamp land surrounding the city. Beyond that is a forest choking with creatures far deadlier than those lost ones you were so kindly throwing at us. To top it off, an active volcano borders the land to the south, and nearly year long gale force winds at every corner gave this land the name, Chaos Lands."

"So that is why none of my scouts ever returned…" Confusion washed over the changelings, plus one tea'la, as the ley lines shifted to a deep blue. "Everything I did was for naught. The damned array's influence still spread throughout the empire." The deep blue tinted to an angry purple as Gethar screamed his eons' long torment. "My sacrifice was MEANINGLESS!"

* * *

In an instant, he removed the ley lines from all the lost ones in the city and severed his stasis hold on the changelings. Rainbow's platoon was in tatters, well over half of their remaining numbers were casualties. The cyan queen herself heaved a heavy sigh at being able to move again. Twilight's bought us some time. There's no telling how long until Mr. High and Mighty brings the mutants back. I want medics tending the wounded, and our shield experts recuperating.

The drones shouted their compliance, but it did nothing to help her mood. _Tsk, we've got too many wounded to move right now. I don't know if we can split up again without leaving both groups too exposed. You better make it out of this, Twilight._

* * *

Gethar's hostile audience was unsure of what to do when he didn't seem to attack immediately, but readied themselves to fight nonetheless. "I damned many to sin and this frozen hell for the greater good. But intent is not enough when the failure is this profound! Only to compound it all by failing to stop the array's influence from spreading out of Rookhaven!?" His eyes stopped wandering and recentered on Twilight. "I see only one path to salvation left before me now."

"Suicide?" Aegis jabbed hopefully. "Or execution by _firing_ squad sounds about right." She briefly nuzzled her flamethrower while keeping her eyes fixed on Gethar.

Ignoring the drone's sarcasm, Gethar's gaze never left Twilight. "Our sins are equally incalculable. Trial by combat is the only way to purge either of us from the stains upon our souls."

"To the death?" Ferrum queried worriedly.

"As if you need to ask."

"Of all the asinine… _Fine,"_ Twilight fired a blindingly bright beam at Gethar to stun him long enough for her escorts to engage.

Aegis left her brothers to handle the scions and tried to blitz towards the disoriented Gethar, but he lashed out in a blind kinetic pulse that pushed her all the way back to Twilight's side. While her mother unleashed a scathing salvo of fireballs, a manic idea graced Aegis. Momma, toss me!

Grunting in the effort of diverting a clumsy swipe from a ley line, Twilight was baffled by Aegis's request. What?

Toss me!

Twilight yanked a chunk of stone up to block a veritable lightning storm. ...Alright. The queen mustered her mana and flung Aegis headlong at the center of the forest of ley lines.

"Wwwaaaa hooo!" Aegis angled her approach to launch a stream of burning oil. Gethar slid through the root ley line to duck under the flames and brought several thin ley lines up to grab hold of her. Twilight let go of her daughter and sent a quick slash of mana to sever the thin strings of mana before they caught Aegis.

Ferrum was light on his wings and ducked and weaved through the stallion scion's attempts to smack him with his staff. He spun his rifle around and thwacked his target on the side of the head, but his helmet absorbed most of the impact. "Why do you keep fighting for this creep? You heard what he did!"

The scion belted a war cry as he swung his staff at the drone. Ferrum flew backwards as predicted and got hit by the unseen pressure wave that followed the weapon. "I have been chosen! My life belongs to the Justicar now!"

Ferrum recovered in the air just in time to see Arya jump down from behind the scion and dig her barbs into his armor. "Blinded one, own your choices." With surprising strength, Arya locked her barbs in place and flipped the scion off his hooves and planted him flat on his back.

Ferrum saw the stallion's underbelly was exposed, whirled his rifle back around and fired. The shot went wide when the mare scion sent a jolt of lightning his way. The bullet cut through a strap in the stallion's armor, allowing him to tear himself loose from Arya's grip.

Riposte's sword flashed to cleave the mare's head off to get her attention away from Ferrum. "Your fight's with me, big mare!"

The alicorn sized scion smirked at her lone opponent and caught Riposte's sword on her staff. Her grin fell instantly after seeing the weapon so up close. "This sword… You were one of the soldiers from before!"

Riposte flashed a savage grin and donned his old disguise. "Guilty as charged." The sudden shift made the scion balk at him, allowing his skysteel sword to slip under her guard and split her neck from sternum to jaw. Just for good measure, Riposte channeled his magic through his sword and severed the ley lines tethered to the scion.

A blast wave from Gethar cut Riposte's victory short as the avatar blasted both Twilight and Aegis away from him. Everyone save Riposte was flung to the far ends of the room while he had crashed into an floating boulder and was pinned in place. "An eye for an eye!" Before Riposte could recover, a ley lines snaked around his body and held him aloft so Gethar could see him directly. "That's enough of you."

Twilight shook the stars from her vision only to watch her son being electrocuted. "Riposte!" The box of pent up grief shattered at the sight of one of her first hatched being killed before her eyes. Arya and the others recovered and stormed Gethar, but Twilight went straight for Riposte.

The grief from every last child she had lost today came roaring back as Twilight sent a wild lance of caustic magic to free her son from the ley line and caught him before he fell. A river of tears and shaky lip obliterated what was left of her regal bearing. She tried to heal him with magic while taking him to a floating boulder. "Come on, Ripossy, you're going to be okay, you're going to be _okay!_ "

The glow of Twilight's spell steady intensified as Riposte failed to stir. "You have to wake up! I can't lose any more, not you, not anypony!"

Gethar swatted Ferrum with an almost lazy swipe, pushed Arya back with a hailstorm of loose gravel, and forced Intel back with a series of rapid strikes. Only Aegis and her flamethrower posed a real threat after she mimicked her mother's spell that allowed her oil to burn away at the ley lines. Yet not even she could ultimately get close enough to truly threaten the Justicar.

However, his attention was fixed on Twilight. She weeps? Since when did royals love anyone other than themselves? Gethar briefly noticed the remaining scion try to electrocute Arya, only for Intel deflect the bolt with his magic. I must test it further. He singled out Aegis and carefully lashed out with a dozen lightning bolts and half-hearted attempts to grapple her in order to guide her slowly towards the distraught queen.

Aegis blindly sprayed the area in front of her while turning back to her mother. My queen, we can't get close enough to hit him!

"I-I can't save him." Twilight whimpered. "I couldn't save any of them."

Aegis could barely stand the sight of her dead brother, but one thought gave her strength. My queen, if we win, we can beat that resurrection spell out of him!

That snapped Twilight out of her daze and she fixated on Gethar. The Justicar sent out just enough lightning to stun Aegis and provoke Twilight, but the queen quickly deflected it with a spear of mana. A cold fury radiated off of her as Twilight summoned the depths of her magical power. Then we take him alive.

With a burst of magic and a feral war cry of her own, Twilight teleported directly above Gethar and unleashed a maelstrom of caustic mana upon the root ley lines protecting the Justicar. He discarded his old plan and pulled from deep in the planet to summon more power. The two forces clashed with a blinding flash of light that sent the drones and Arya sprawling.

Lavender-orange magic burned away layer after layer of the world's ley lines, while Gethar redoubled his efforts. A titanic ear splitting grinding noise quaked the chamber as Twilight poured everything she had into stripping Gethar of his power. Even the scion stopped his duel with Intel to dive for cover. Arya ducked behind a rocky outcropping next to Ferrum. "Is not right! Veins of world burn with her touch!"

"What else can she do? Our magic can't cut through that much raw mana!"

Twilight could see Gethar becoming slowly concerned as she dug deeper and deeper towards him. "I will have you, for killing my children!"

"Why do you care for them, royal? Are they naught but pawns to you?"

Grinding her teeth all the while, Twilight tried to send psychic needles at the object of her hate. "I. Am. Not. My **FOREMOTHERS!"** Even though exhaustion was creeping up on her, Twilight redoubled her beam's strength, further pushing Gethar back.

It took a bit longer before he felt one needle graze his cheek and then a second along a tentacle before he realized Twilight's true attack. Rather than counter attack, he simply slid around the ley line to evade. "Why should I believe you?"

When Twilight's only answer was to keep pushing her attack, Gethar swung a loose ley line around her flank and bashed her out of the air where she smacked hard against the rocks. The wind was knocked out of Twilight. Her beam cut a huge swath of before stopping just short of cleaving Ferrum in two.

"You have power, I'll give you that. But neither you, nor your war machine could ever hope to overpower the world itself!" Gethar's gloating was matched by the sea of ley lines snaking their way towards the prone and dazed queen. "Your wretched life ends here."

"Stay away from her!" Aegis' manic command was heralded by a wash of fire as she landed next to Twilight. Her queen could barely keep her eyes open, so she stepped protectively over her. Her remaining brothers, Ferrum and Intel took position at her side.

Even Arya stood atop of the rock face Twilight was leaning against and flared her branches protectively. "You've not earned her life!"

"Oh I think I have, priest."

Captain, how much oil you have left? Intel inquired fearfully as he loaded his last three rounds. All around him, the red ley lines snaked through and around the rubble.

Pushing him back took almost all I had left. I've got five seconds, tops. Aegis stood firm, even as the ley lines closed in.

Riposte's skysteel sword hovered threateningly next to Ferrum. Tell me one of you knows how to teleport.

All he got back were negatives. "Why do you protect her? What has she done to deserve your loyalty?" The drones stiffened as the monstrous form of Gethar closed in on them. "I will let you, and the rest of your… people leave this place if you give her over to me."

"Never!" Aegis wanted desperately to burn his hide, and her magic tightened on her flamethrower. _Coward has too much mana to eat through._

"Why defend her? She, like all the others of the royal family, controls your lives with no regard to your wellbeing, save to keep you useful. Has she exploited her own laws at your expense?" Gethar tested, fully expecting them to deny it. Yet what he was really looking for, an ounce of hesitation, or a glimmer of striking the truth in their eyes, never revealed itself as Intel retorted with as much acid his voice could carry.

"She's the Queen-mother. I would think you can understand that," Intel spat bitterly.

"And where do you get off prejudging our queen?" Aegis snapped off at Gethar's confused expression. "If it wasn't for Aunty or Granny, she'd be the only queen in existence that truly cares for us drones!"

Ferrum coated the last three rounds in his rifle with mana burning enchantments and aimed for Gethar's face. He only wished firing would actually matter against the Justicar's defenses. "Damn right! I'll kill you right here and now!" _I just got to figure out how first,_ he mused worriedly.

Before any of them could act, Gethar's ley lines sank into each drone and Arya, freezing them in place, and rendering them unable to even think. I must know the whole story if justice is to be satisfied. Movement off to the left of the changelings caught his eye. The remaining scion was clambering over the rocks with his staff primed with mana. "Stay your weapon. The truth of this matter lies within them, and I will have it."

He didn't like it, but the scion would not disobey. "By your will, Justicar."

With the matter settled, Gethar sifted through the drones' combined memories, searching for any and all information on Twilight and anyone else who the drones considered royals. Finding the Tea'la a mostly useless source of information, he focused only on the changelings and zeroed in on the biggest memory fitting those parameters: the summit. As luck would have it, Aegis' squad had been present at two of them. He witnessed the other queens' complete disinterest in history, and utter ignorance of their past. Perhaps they couldn't stand to remember what they had lost, and chose to forget both their subjects and their crimes. How typical.

Gethar was momentarily distracted by movement coming from Rainbow Dash's direction. The palace was massive, and the colossal amount of floating debris this close to the ley line nexus slowed her platoon's movement considerably. I will brook no distractions. A shame it'll be easier to simply delay them. I must know who Twilight Sparkle truly is.

He hesitated before diving into Twilight's mind. No… She was using some kind of new magic outside of normal mana. Even in her state, she could use the mind-link to overpower me.

Sticking with the drones, Gethar grew increasingly disgusted with the actions and motives of the other queens. Just as I expected. They haven't changed at all. These…changelings they call themselves, may be physically different than when I cursed them, but their hearts are as black as their chitin. Still… this Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash are completely different. But why?

His search brought up multiple encounters with Discord, but his alien amalgamation of parts was far different than what Gethar had pieced together in the previous age. As such, he did not recognize the product of his own hasty actions. However, Gethar made a dead stop when one memory came across the royal alicorn sisters. A genuine smile came over him. So Celesti and Lūn survived after all. Their new bodies are strange, but their emblems are unmistakable. If they survived, perhaps Twilight Sparkle learned how to travel the ley lines from them. Either that, or they made the knowledge public. As much as he dearly wanted to know more about his old friends, the task at hand was more pressing and he refocused on Twilight.

That's when he saw it; the series of events starting from Aegis finding the circlet, Rainbow's slow transformation, and when she hatched from the chrysalis. Finally, so much of what had been hinted at from so many different memories made sense.

She wasn't born into the royal family… she was adopted! He pulled back to think, but had the presence of mind to keep his hold on the drones. Twilight is an aberration among her own kind!

Gethar was at a loss as to what to do. She has still committed crimes this day, the destruction of the threads of the world alone is tantamount to heresy and murder. And yet…

He noticed Twilight beginning to stir. Using the ley line as a tether, he pulled the remaining scion to the far side of the chamber so he would not interfere. Locked within this city, I can never bring the other queens to justice, and killing Twilight Sparkle will not satisfy the cosmic balance. His thoughts drifted towards the ebony queen, Chrysalis. Her actions alone made all of the ley lines shift to bloody crimson. I cannot allow such an embodiment of sin to roam free. If Twilight lives, those two will eventually come to blows, of that I am certain. There is still the matter of this trial by combat to resolve.

Knowing what had to be done for the sake of bringing the descendants of the imperial family to justice, Gethar steeled himself for his next act. He withdrew his ley lines from the drones and shifted his position towards them, peeling back his layers of protection all the while. "Twilight Sparkle! I tire of this, and of the sins I bear. I will personally end your life!"

Shaking off Gethar's stasis spell, Aegis hunkered down next to her mother and aimed her flamer. "Not happening!" Knowing it was futile, Aegis fired the last of her oil at the rapidly charging Justicar. Instead of only burning through a few centimeters of the ley line, the oil cooked straight through like dry grass. Gethar was wreathed in flames, howling in pain.

The drones, and Aegis most of all, were completely dumbstruck. "T-that worked?!" Aegis commented dumbly.

Gethar's control over the ley lines faltered and he fell in a heap in front of the group, reeking of burning meat and fur. Arya was quick to act and jumped from her perch with one wing's barbs aimed straight for Gethar's chest.

Intel freaked and tried to push Arya's attack with his magic. "No! We need him alive!"

His magic came too late. Arya's barbs had already rooted themselves into Gethar's ribs and when she was forcefully shoved off, half of Gethar's chest and part of his ribcage went with her. Arya herself went went flying head over heels with her open flowers' sleep pollen away as well. "Giyaa! What you think I doing?!"

Twilight's vision was only just now clear enough for her to see it happen. In a panic, she clumsily pushed her kids off of her to jump to Gethar's side. "Tell me how to use the resurrection spell!"

He ignored her as his brackish brown life fluid drained away. "You walk away, purified of guilt." *gurgle cough* "The reigns of the empire have always lied with the Family. Maybe now you—"

"I don't care about that!" Twilight raged. She shoved her face into Gethar's slackening eyes. "Tell me how to use the resurrection spell!"

Gethar coughed up blood, splattering Twilight's face. His gaze was losing focus and his breathing became shallow. May you bring the rest of your cursed kin to justice. Even if they force—you to…

Twilight's bile rose as Gethar went limp. Any hope of bringing her children back sunk until she heard Ferrum pulling the male, and still very alive, scion out from behind a marble slab. She ignored the low but growing rumble emanating from the center of the ley lines and teleported straight in front of him. Now that Gethar was no longer feeding him power from the ley lines, the thestral had returned to normal, but his magical armor had disintegrated, leaving him defenseless.

Ferrum smirked while pushing the barrel of his rifle into the pony's flank. "Found him trying to run away after Arya wasted Mister High and Mighty."

It took all of Twilight's measure and poise to keep the tears back as she stared down the cowering thestral. "Tell me the resurrection spell, NOW!"

"I-I can't, it's impossible without the Justicar." The normally hard soldier was still reeling from Gethar's death.

 **"Lies!"** Twilight bellowed. Her horn took on an angry sheen of mana. Despite the fury of his queen, Ferrum noticed the ley lines were started to move almost randomly and an impossibly complex alchemy array started to materialize thirty meters above ground. "Tell me how to cast the spell, or _where_ I can find a book on it!"

The former scion could stare at the most hideous lost one and not flinch, but Twilight petrified him. Her alien appearance wasn't helping matters. "I swear to you. Only the avatar of the Justicar Path can wield such magic. With him dead, his spirit will try to find a new vessel. But even if he found a new vessel this instant, it would be too late to use the spell on anypony."

"Vessel? What do you mean?" Twilight demanded.

"T-the avatars are partially immortal. If their bodies die, their power transfers to a new host, preferably a prepared one."

"Arya was talking about something like that." Ferrum commented, breaking Twilight's gaze on the scion.

Everyone turned to find the Tea'la in question, only to find her standing over Gethar's body. She was muttering something while Aegis watched on. Intel had run off to gather Riposte's remains. Aegis, what is she doing?

The captain couldn't decide if Arya's bizarre ritual was more interesting, or the vast pattern centered on the ley line nexus forming over their heads was more disconcerting. Something about locking away a ghost or whatever. But, my queen, I think we better run before whatever that is, does something.

"Ah tech-gala!" Arya fussed as she hurried to finish painting on Gethar's corpse. The ritual markings were next to impossible to adapt to his mutated form, and the gaping hole in his chest wasn't helping matters. Nevertheless, she was skilled enough to make it work. Hopefully. "Stupid bug boy had to push me. If spirit escapes before the true spirit stone can claim it, there will be such fury upon him, ancestors as my witness!"

Her eyes widened as a pulsing blue orb with tendrils poking out in random directions seeped out of the corpse. Arya's work had made Gethar's spirit visible to the naked eye, but was by no means ready for the task. "Yeea' nou! Get back in there, you ball of met'vat'lu!"

"Stick-wings. What are you doing?"

"Amend your kin's folly is what! Now sush sush shh!"

Her painting was starting to become highly difficult as the ley lines writhed in the air and shook the ground. With no one holding them in control, the veins of the world were retreating to their normal states, but there was still an array blocking their path. It was beginning to crack.

From his distant location at Riposte's side, Intel was the only one who could see exactly what was going on. Everypony, get away from the center, the whole array's going to break apart!

 _An array!?_ Twilight gasped at the runes and glyphs that danced across its surface. I thought that was just his method of control! Get out, everypony, out!

Aegis shouldered her weapon and grabbed onto Arya. "The whole place is about to blow, we gotta move!"

"If leave now, he be lost for all time!"

A thunderous crack rang throughout the entire chamber. The glowing lines and runes of the array shattered into tiny motes of mana as the ley lines forced their way back underground. A pressure wave of mana so dense that it threw everyone over forty feet away washed over them. Arya screamed and howled curses as Gethar's spirit was propelled by the wave front and was lost to the sky. The wave spread throughout Rookhaven and beyond, blasting away the fogs over the swamp. It stripped the forest of countless leaves, and went so far as to shove Mount Boom's ash cloud all the way over into Equestria.

The veins of the world set about restoring themselves. Yet that most immediate thing on Twilight's mind was the free floating rocks across the chamber starting to crash back to the earth as gravity reclaimed them. Even now, her surviving brood was reporting both lost ones and thestrals were moving on their own again.

Yet all of that was drowned out by Riposte's body she found draped across Intel's back. The grief she had forgotten about hit her again with full force. Not even Rainbow Dash's call over the hive mind could be heard as the profound sense of loss paralyzed the lavender queen, never again to hear the voices of so many of her beloved children.


	32. Chapter 32

Portents

Cadista found an active linkscape while trying to reach Twilight Sparkle. Her daughter sat upon a hill covered in dead grass with her head low. The Linkscape being what it was, Cadista was able to phase to her daughter's side. It was there that she found a large granite slab with the names of every drone who died in Rookhaven. Twilight herself was weeping silently while carving each name with a mana-held hammer and chisel. There were already just over a hundred names with Riposte's at the top.

"My daughter, there is a time for grief and mourning, but it is not now," Cadista stated softly. "Rookhaven is in chaos, and Rainbow Dash is going to need your help."

Twilight stopped hammering away and simply let the tools disappear a moment later. She couldn't summon the strength to look up at her mother. "I know… I shouldn't even be hiding here."

Biting through her feelings of awkwardness, Cadista nestled down next to Twilight and tentatively draped a wing over her. Even after all this time, it felt off to her. "If it helps, I was the same way when the first time I lost so many children at once."

"Is this when I ask if it gets any better?"

 _I wonder if that's her sister's influence._ "In a way." Twilight looked over to her mother with a question in her eyes. "The grief from each loss softens after a few hundred years, and you learn how to seal away your pain for the next Day of Mourning easier… Sadly, only with practice."

"…I understand." Twilight's ear flicked at her sister's approach in the real world.

"After things settle down, we'll hold the Day early," Cadista said before Twilight could fade away.

"Thank you, I'll need it."

Cadista studied the stone Twilight left behind. Echos of pain new and old danced across her mind's eye. Even as the rest of the Linkscape collapsed around her, the stone remained until she was left in a black void. On a whim, before departing, she lit the area again to find the stone had persisted. _So she means to keep it. Dare I wonder how large such a stone would be had I kept track after all these centuries?_

 _The problem with memories like this, is we long lived beings will end up getting dragged down by their weight. Yet if we_ do _forget…_ She let off a forlorn sigh and faded back to the real world. _What a cruel joke, the universe has played._

* * *

Twilight blinked as her awareness returned to the broken palace of Rookhaven. Dusk had come and gone, leaving only the half-moon above as a light source. Fortunately, thestrals, and their changeling descendants, were quite well suited to seeing by moonlight. Aegis and her clutchmates were clustered around Riposte and Twilight, waiting for her to give the word. It was obvious from one look at their bloodshot eyes that they shared their queen's grief. Arya was fuming over Gethar's corpse at having lost his spirit.

Rainbow Dash flew in with a fireteam at her back. "Twi, I know you're not in the best shape right now, but we've got a giant mess to deal with before we ha—"

"I know, RD." Twilight's half-commanding response drew her sister up short. "It's just a lot to take all at once."

"I get ya, Sis. I mean damn…" She trailed off to briefly hug her sister. It was rare for Rainbow to show public affection, so Twilight leaned into her for support. "This empathy makes your pain clear as day. I may not be their mother, like you Twilight, but they were my family too, ya know?" She silently commanded the medic in her team to tend to her sister and drones. "Last time I was out patrolling the Chaos Lands when I was still in the Bolts, I lost my whole squad to a lava dog, save one fresh recruit. I couldn't get their deaths out of my head for months, and I was losing it until Spitfire sat me down and told me, 'We still have an obligation to the living. The dead are a patient bunch.'"

Taking a long deep breath, Twilight slowly but surely closed the lid on her box of grief, painful though it was. "You're completely right." Standing up, she set her regal bearing back in place. Twilight nodded at her sister who also rose to her hooves. "Our only choice is to move forward until we're safe back at the hive. What's the condition of our remaining drones?"

Rainbow wanted to smile at her sister's strength, but the situation ruined it. "We're messed up pretty badly, but the worst seems to be over. I left the shield mages back with the wounded in that entry hall. The lost ones seem to be living up to their name, and are just as eager to kill each other for food as they are us. But thanks to the shield, they don't seem to want to bother with us anymore."

"Good, good." Ratchet, how are things on the ship?

The prime consort in question was crammed inside a maintenance shaft with four other drones. The room reeked with sweat, blood, and fear. The power was out, so those in the passageway only had a few flashlights and light spells to see with. We managed to keep engineering from being overrun, and we have roughly half the crew hiding out in Jefferies tubes.

Twilight sighed in both sadness and relief. What's the state of the ship itself?

It was at this point where his profound irritation surpassed his fear of the lost ones prowling the halls. Even if he could hear them fighting outside the hatch. Rainbow's marines did about as much damage as Gethar's mutants. It'd take weeks to bring the ship back up to combat readiness.

Rainbow rolled her eyes at the comment about her training, but the last comment piqued their interest. Wait a sec, you're telling me we can bring the _Deception_ back? Rainbow's wings practically vibrated in anticipation.

Well… I'd have to look at the damage to the propellers and engines, but the boiler room is still intact, along with the hull itself. Gethar never did figure out how to crack our armor.

"Well that's good news," Twilight began. A light snapped on in her mind. Gentle Touch, I need you to gather the best arcanists and engineers we have back at the hive, and start building a portal gate.

A portal? Gentle, and about everybody else in Phoenix's Roost had been fretting constantly at their queens' peril. I'll make the arrangements. But we're not equipped to handle refugees here.

I know, I'll handle it. Twilight rubbed her chin in thought. "Rainbow, take what's left of our combat ready forces and re-secure the ship, then go out and save as many civilians as possible."

Rainbow jerked her head at Aegis and her squad. "Got it. I'll try to keep anypony from running off into the swamp if possible."

"Good idea. And try to find the guardponies we were fighting earlier, they can help out too."

Flying off as fast as her wings could take her, Rainbow's face soured. They'd better be more sociable than Justice Guy was.

Arya was left to her own devices as Twilight communed with Canterlot.

* * *

The Night Court was a small affair. While her older sister handled political affairs with a master's touch, Luna's return had seen her take the more clandestine defenses of the nation. _An aspect that Tia never could get a handle of,_ she mused lightly.

The court itself was in a chamber half the size of Celestia's throne room, and had three other ponies sitting around a round wooden table. Stacks of notes and reports cluttered the chamber in a semi-organized fashion. One scroll in particular was held aloft in Luna's magic that had a rather interesting report. "Gleaming Dagger, you were the commanding officer in charge of this operation, were you not?"

She flipped the parchment around for the pegasus' purview. "Strange sightings in the Palomino Ocean?"

"Oh yes, that…" Gleaming Dagger took the offered document. "There were rumors going around from local pegasi that there were wet-ships of unknown design sighted in the area, but none of them have ever tried to investigate under the assumption that they're ghost ships or some-such. I wouldn't have even seen this document if my assistant hadn't knocked over the pile of reports when she told me about the minor earthquake a few hours ago."

Luna continued to tap her chin. _We don't normally get earthquakes in Canterlot. We only noticed because some earth ponies felt it. I hope that it was nothing more than a fluke._

Luna shook the troubled thought away to refocus on the report. _Where was I? Oh right, aside from Vanhoover two hundred kilometers north, we don't have any major settlements along the west coast beyond nontaxable villages and homesteaders. We've never had a port large enough to support an exploration enterprise. Perhaps now is a good time to start—_

The doors burst open with a lavender drone trying to muscle past the two thestral guards. "Princess Luna, I have pressing news from the north!"

"Go through the proper channels," the first guard barked as he yanked the drone back by the tail.

"You're lucky you're a diplomat!" spat the other.

Luna waved a hoof, making her guards halt. "Rolled Scroll. I've been _expecting_ you," she half-growled at her guards.

Luna's court eyed the embarrassed guards. They let the drone go and bowed to their matriarch. "Our apologies, Your Highness, we assumed the nature of your court…"

"Is not for you to decide," Luna retorted. The guards took the hint and backed off to close the door. Luna heaved a sigh. "Don't worry about them, Scroll. They'll get into a bar fight in the morning and forget all about this. Now," she squared herself, "you have urgent news?"

"Yes, my queen requests refugee aid and any available form of transportation brought over to Phoenix's Roost."

The tension in the room shot up to match the frantic drone. "Did something happen to your home?" Luna queried.

"Was there an attack?" Dagger asked. "Do we need to mobilize?"

"I'll give you the abridged version." He cringed in sheepish embarrassment, and fiddled with his hooves. The act only made the ponies around him even more nervous and the leaned forward a bit in anticipation. "My queen may or may not have killed a self-proclaimed god or avatar of one and awakened a sleeping thestral city from stasis…"

Luna pinched the bridge of her muzzle. _It never ends with that mare._ "What would you have us do, Scroll?"

* * *

Aegis landed heavily on the shattered bridge of the _Deception._ Intel, Ferrum, and Rainbow Dash flew in from the window. Every last one of them was exhausted to the bone, Aegis more so than the others.

"Holy Mother of Burrell. I think the Justicar threw a temper tantrum in here." Ferrum commented dryly.

Panels were in ruins, the consoles weren't any better off, and half of the seats were ripped off their moorings. "Why didn't you ditch the flamer back at the palace?" Intel admonished as he surveyed the damage.

"Burny's special, and nopony's going to convince me otherwise." Aegis countered, only to find Rainbow giving her the stink eye.

"Ditch it for now, I don't need to tell you that's not going to be used aboard my ship."

 _NO pony better steal him._ "Alright, let's clean this place out so we can properly rearm."

* * *

A few minutes earlier, Twilight prodded the male ex-scion along as the pair flew through the shattered remains of the palace. It was barely ten minutes since the temporal stasis spell collapsed, and already there were small skirmishes throughout the imperial district. The fires that had been frozen before, now raged anew. The one thing he noticed most of all though, was the swarms of lost ones had been thinned considerably. Most notably, the skies were practically devoid of airborne lost ones, thanks to them being Gethar's most accessible tool during the assault.

"If I'm going to talk with you, I might as well know your name."

He turned to see the large queen behind him, still giving him small jolts of electricity. (an irony she found darkly unfunny.) "Fen'jet, I suppose I am Centurion Fen'jet again, after what happened to the Justicar."

"Well, Centurion, if you would agree to fly with me willingly, I'll stop with the shocks."

He whirled around in midair to stare her down. "I am not some whipped prisoner that will bend to your will!"

Twilight matched his cold stare. "I am not taking prisoners today. I want your help in evacuating the city."

 _"Evacuate?_ That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. The children of the Moonlit Empire will rally, and we will not abandon the city to you or the Arcanum victims."

 _If only every available hoof wasn't already trying to get the wounded to the ship and the rest to secure it for our end of the portal, I could spare some forces to help the civilians._ The fact that Fen'jet had not killed any of her drones, though not for lack of trying mind you, made it far easier for her to be patient with him. "Did you not pay attention at all to what Gethar and I talked about? There's nothing but swamp outside the city's borders. You're not getting any outside reinforcements, and once the creatures of the swamp no longer fear the city, all of you will end up dead. Assuming you don't starve to death without any farmland first."

"Why should I trust you to help us? The Justicar's trial may have cleaned you of sin, but your form is still corrupted by it. How long will it be until that corruption affects your mind once more?"

 _I really hate diehard bigots._ Twilight pointed at a squad of soldiers fighting, and winning, against a small group of lost ones. "Look at that! It wouldn't matter if you retook the city or not. The social order is unrecoverable here without outside support." She calmed her tone, drawing an uncertain frown from him. "I give you my word that I can take you out of the city. If you really want to come back after that, then that's entirely your decision, but right now we need to think of the civilians."

Every inch of the soldier in front of her yearned to go down and aid his troops, but the general in him could see the bigger picture. "…What would you have me do?"

"Gather as many of your people as you can, and make for that point in the center of the seismic disturbance over there." The pair cleared the inner walls to see the city at large. Fen'jet's eyes widened and his jaw went slack at finally noticing the jagged spires and pitfalls all along the southeastern districts. _I think it'd be best to leave the cause of that unknown for the moment._

"W-what happened?!" He shook himself before turning to Twilight. The buzzing noise of her wings and the holes in her extremities were off putting to the point of disgust, but the empire came first. "That can wait. I'll spread the word, but know this," he ended sternly. Twilight arched a curious eyebrow. "I for one, will never serve the imperial family, or you, after this night."

Twilight's expression turned flatter than the second dimension. "To be frank, I'd prefer it that way. I came here looking for artifacts in an ancient ruined city, not a city that still lived." Rolled Scroll pinged her mind, informing her of Luna's agreement to her request for aid. The act reminded Twilight of the pantheon from the temple. _Do I really want to tell them about Luna and Celestia? It's possible it's a coincidence. If it is, using her name to garner cooperation now could bite me later. If by some chance Luna and Celestia_ are _Celesti and Lūn, it might be better to let them speak up about it if they so choose. I should still warn them about it first though…_

Fen'jet was still finding it difficult to believe Twilight's claims, but when the queen fell silent in thought, he departed to tend to his troops. He rocketed down to the squad of soldiers who were mopping up the last of the nearby lost ones. For her part, Twilight flew back towards the palace to help carry the wounded drones back to the ship.

* * *

Clearing the _Deception_ was a rather simplistic and quick task. Without a guiding hand, the tortured minds of the lost ones quickly lost interest in the drones barricaded within engineering or hidden in maintenance shafts. In one such section, Rainbow Dash found a pair of wolfish lost ones gnawing on the plethora of corpses laying around. A singular wall light cast the room into a grim gloom.

Rainbow's ire rose sharply after noticing the mutants' meal was drones. _Aegis went with the others to clear out engineering, but I'd rather handle these two myself. Besides,_ she thought with a down frown, _I need to make sure He's rescued personally. If only to ease Twilight's mind_ Ratchet, I'm right outside your position. What's your status?

By the First Mother, am I glad to hear it. I got waylaid on my way to engineering, so I got trapped in here. Ratchet's tone was slightly pained with a heavy dose of worry. I sprained a hind leg jumping inside, but Lieutenant Rourke here is in worse shape than I. If she doesn't get aid soon, she won't make it.

You got it, I'll kill these two, and pull you out… Rainbow's thought trailed off as one of the lost ones started convulsing. _Damn they're creepy._ Just give me a sec.

Ratchet's reply went unheeded as the convulsing lost one's abdomen split down the center and it keeled over dead. The other one didn't seem to notice, but high pitched squealing met her ears as four infant lost ones erupted out of the mother and started feasting on her remains. Rainbow had to choke down the contents of her stomach. _Okay, that's completely disgusting._

Barely a second later, the second adult lost one started convulsing as well, snapping Rainbow Dash to action. "Oh _hay_ no! You stop that!" Picking up a discarded wrench, Rainbow ran in swinging. The small lost ones were fast, but not fast enough to escape Rainbow Dash. By the time she squashed the last one, the second wolf-thing broke open to loose its spawn.

*SPLAT* "and here I thought" *Squish* "Lings were creepy" *Splurt* "About laying eggs," *Crunch* "At first." ***Smish*** The bent and now useless wrench was coated in ichor and disturbingly green blood. _I don't get it. None of these guys had green blood before. I'll have to give the rat bastard his due. Gethar might have saved us by freezing these guys like he did._ With this section of the ship finally clear, Rainbow tapped on the corroded hatch to the Jefferies tube. You can come out now, Ratchet. I'll let Resta know you've got wounded.

With a grating noise of steel on steel, the damaged hatch swung open, allowing Rainbow's telekinesis to ease the injured drones out. Ratchet was first among them. "Thank you, my queen. I'd stay and help, but Twilight wants me to start prepping the ship to support the portal."

Two more drones, along with Lieutenant Rourke, were pulled out of their hiding place. "You going to be able to do so on that leg?"

Ratchet tested his cramped wings and took to the air. "I've only got one bad leg. Mother saw fit to grant me a few spares."

"The wings help, I'm sure," Rainbow teased. She shared a chuckle with Ratchet before nodding for him to leave. She turned to the engineer and marine who were carrying Rourke. She scowled at the sight of her unconscious form. "She's in bad shape. I'll escort you two to sickbay in case you run into anything."

"Thank you, my queen."

Rainbow's eye lingered on the small lost ones she'd stamped out. _The sooner we're out of this hell hole the better. I better keep a marine detail here to keep the repair crews safe, just in case._

* * *

The sun started to creep over the horizon as more and more thestrals started arriving at the downed warship. The aftermath of destroying the ley lines in that area, and the subsequent earthquake made travel by hoof impossible. That wouldn't normally be a problem for the winged thestrals and changelings, but the sheer number of wounded and personal belongings made flight untenable for many. Luckily, with Gethar's control over the ley lines over, the world was already beginning to heal the damage caused by the _Deception._

At least, that is how it was until what remained of the Phoenix's Roost Engineering Corps found a winding path along the jagged earth toward the _Deception._ After that, where to put so many thestrals became a second issue, what with so little flat ground to rest on. Yet none of that really compared to the trust issue.

Through Fen'jet's position and command ability, what few lost ones Gethar had overlooked in his attack on the changelings were either cleaned up or scattered into the swamp which was already regaining its fog cover.

At present, Rainbow Dash was making sure the broken remains of the _Deception_ remained secure from the curious hooves of the locals, while her sister focused on constructing the portal. Rainbow noticed the majority of the civilians were enamored by the broken warship. Despite its obvious damage, it was an object of wonder and fear to all. Sitting squarely on the side of wonder and awe, Rainbow spotted saw a filly eyeing her mother, who was distracted by her badly injured husband. The filly silently took off, trying to sneak inside one of the shattered gun turrets of the ship.

Rainbow stifled a tired yawn and flew down to intercept the filly. The young one was barely a meter from the ship before the imposing figure of a changeling queen landed right in front of her. The shock from Rainbow's sudden arrival nearly caused the filly to tumble off the side of the ledge. Only Rainbow's quick reflexes with her magic kept the child from falling. "Go on back to your family, kid. The ship's not safe for you."

Instead of being intimidated, the brash youngster puffed her chest out once she was deposited on the ledge. "I'm not afraid of those monsters!" She stopped a moment when the queen in front of her snickered in amusement. "Say, what are you, lady?"

Rainbow mentally told a few of her soldiers to stand down. The kid's not a threat. She studied the filly a bit longer, only just noticing the mother was paralyzed by fear at what Rainbow would do to her daughter. "What do you think I am?" _Where did that come from?_ she mused at herself.

"Well… mama says you big ones are some of the imperial family that caused all this. Is that true? Is that why you look like that? Why do you have a spike on your head?"

"I don't know what your parents said, but _we_ didn't do anything except free you guys from being frozen. And we have head-spikes because of reasons."

The filly scrunched her muzzle. "I don't remember being frozen. How does somepony get frozen in a desert?"

"Of course you wouldn't remember being frozen, that's because you were too frozen to remember." Rainbow inwardly chuckled at the filly's expense.

Any further questions were suddenly stifled by the mother finally breaking her fear and rushing to her filly's side. "S-sorry to bother you, ma'lady. Come along, Garnet."

Much to the child's protests, her mother practically ran scared of Rainbow. _Not too surprising, I guess. Between the world shattering around them, getting attacked by freaks, finding out the empire's gone, and now being told they're to evacuate the city, they're just too shell shocked to say 'thanks for saving our bacon.'_ Her stomach started to rumble. _Speaking of bacon, I wonder if Cookie has some breakfast for us._

* * *

While Rainbow queried about food, Twilight was busy trying to refrain from verbally ripping Fen'jet's head off as he nagged her. Twilight was on the other side of the _Deception_ where the only flat area large enough for the portal, and close enough to the ship, was located.

"As I told you a hundred times, Centurion, this is a portal back to my home. From there, an allied nation will take you in as refugees." Twilight's temple was throbbing at the math in building the portal while the general and two other thestrals, whom she hadn't gotten names for, practically hovered over her shoulder. Or would have been, if Aegis and what was left of her squad were not forcing the locals to stay a comfortable distance.

"Portals are a fantasy," one of the other thestrals scoffed. Judging by her clothing, Aegis assumed the mare was a government administrator. "As is magic based travel in general. Not even the royal family could accomplish such feats."

Aegis, I'm granting you the position of temporary diplomat. Just keep those three busy so I can work. Twilight threw up a sonic dampener around herself to shut them out.

With gusto. Aegis sneered with her refueled flamer bouncing lightly on her neck. She had to "requisition" the last of the oil from her other soldiers, her rank helped expedite that effort. With Twilight now more or less in control of her box of grief, that control was starting to affect the drones nearby. They found themselves more capable of focusing on their jobs rather than who died, but it varied between individuals.

Try not to scare them. They're barely agreeable as it is.

Aegis' ears wilted at the order. _Well there goes that plan._ Yes, my queen. With a groan she holstered her flamer on top of the fuel tanks. "Look, buddy, I can call you buddy right?" She ignored the cold stare from the trio. Intel was too hung up on Riposte's death to see the humor, while Ferrum used it as a welcome distraction. "It's like this. You're like… forever out-of-date." She pointed at the _Deception._ "You see that thing there? The big metal thing with cannons and such? We built that." _Well, Granny's hive built it, but whatever._ "What's the best you can do, a catapult? Trebuchet maybe?"

The more diplomatic of the theseral trio bowed his head in respect. "I realize she is quite busy," the stallion clown, by Aegis' reckoning, placated. She really had to summon herculean strength to keep from laughing at his polka dotted priest robes and face paint. "Gethar's absolvent of your queen's sin means the faithful and I are willing to put this horrible event," _and your appearance,_ "behind us. And yet." He struggled for the briefest moment to find the right words. "It's just this whole "portal" business. I'm fully aware that the imperial family restricted knowledge of the advanced arts from the commoners, but surely teleportation-style magic is impossible. I even heard the Empress herself say as such in conversation once."

"Look clo — friend," she said with a forced smile. "Didn't Queen Twilight Sparkle teleport right in front of you barely a few minutes ago? You're not blind are you?"

"S-she did… Forgive me. It's just difficult to grasp that such magic exists at all." The priest did a short prayer, asking for strength. "A lifetime of hearing about its impossibility is a struggle to overcome."

 _Maybe the clown's not so bad._ "Like I was saying, the empire's been dead since before time. As I told your chum over there, magic and technology's advanced _way_ beyond what you know. Portals are very real," she added with a lethargic shrug. Her pride and duty were the only things keeping her awake at this point.

"I refused to believe this _incident!"_ the administrator challenged, "could topple the Empire." He waved his hoof at changelings at random. "The Moonlit Empire spanned the known world! This catastrophe is trying, I grant you, but it is hardly enough to lay us low. If we could master the sands, we could conquer the swamp just as easily."

I got this, Captain, Ferrum said as he dropped down from his hover. Aegis flourished a bow to her brother and stepped aside. "You know what? You're _absolutely_ right. The empire, probably could. If you really want to stay here, then be my guest. We're setting up a relief effort for you guys because it's the right thing to do, but if you don't want our help then so be it."

Fen'jet chafed at such disrespect from a fellow military personnel. "What will happen to us when we go to this new land? Are we to be your slaves or guests?"

"That's entirely up to the princesses of Equestria. They're the ones who agreed to accept you as refugees. They already host the only known population of thestrals. After you all share some hugs, kisses, and plot slaps, you can do whatever pops in your heads. But until then, you can wait a few hours for the portal to be ready, okay? Go beat each other off until then. You guys need some stress relieve something fierce."

Oh and we don't? Aegis chided playfully.

"What do you mean, 'beat off'?" the clown inquired at the unfamiliar slang.

Aegis and her brothers shared a knowing look before laughing over the hive mind. Even Intel was pulled out of his depression just a little. "Why don't you three go tend to your people? You're not doing anypony any good bothering us."

"I still say this is a waste of time," Fen'jet commented more to his compatriots than to the drones. "We shouldn't be listening to some fantasy about instant travel."

"Let's not be too hasty," the clown cautioned while raising his forelegs up at his companions. "The Captain makes a good point, and the metal war machine makes me believe there could be a chance this might work."

Aegis flew backwards to exit the conversation. _That'll keep them busy for an hour or so. I hope Resta isn't getting any trouble._

* * *

Medicine is and ever shall be a delicate art, at least in Resta's opinion. However, this was one matter she never really thought to plan for. The entirety of the _Deception's_ medical supplies and equipment had been carried out and placed on various spires around the vessel. The medic worked on a badly wounded stallion with a lacerated stomach. Two nurses assisted her with the civilian's two family members watching with equal parts fascination and worry.

"Sawbones, I need another bowl of salve. Joy, get a sleep spell on him so he doesn't reopen the wound."

"On it, ma'am." Joy replied as Sawbones slipped behind some enclosed curtains. There she found a pair of drones carefully spitting salve into tin bowls scrounged from the mess hall. A third was hovering above the curtains, making sure no one came over to investigate the real source of the seemingly unending salve. The bowls were enchanted to keep the salve from hardening upon contact with the open air, but it was only effective for a short time. As a result, she grabbed two full bowls and was about to leave when one of the drones yawned noisily and tugged on her blood covered apron.

"I always get so exhausted donating salve. How come you medics haven't done it yet?"

Sawbones swished her tail to flick her sibling's nose to make him let go. "You just answered your own question. We're out of Salve Aid or else we'd do it ourselves. In the meantime, go grab some chow and rest. Momma promised us survivors some time off to recoup when we get back."

The other donor, Particle, merely stared at the purple gel in her mostly empty bowl. Her eyes were damp, but her voice was level. "Sorry. I gave all I had to try and save Fulcrum. It wasn't…" Particle tugged on Twilight's superior control over her emotions to level out her own, if only for a little. "… Enough."

Sawbones' expression flattened and she rested a hoof on her sister. "What's important is that you tried. Every drop helps."

She only nodded before giving up her bowl. _I hope mother got what she needs to secure her crown._

* * *

Artifacts were the furthest thing from Twilight's mind as she inspected the inactive portal in front of her. It was a circular ring of salvaged armor scraps. The irregular pieces were covered in softly glowing runes on the front. Over a dozen snaking power cables were attached to the lower half of the ring. The portal itself stood roughly half a meter taller than Twilight and three meters wide. The haphazard nature of the device grated Twilight's perfectionism to the point where she had to forcefully keep herself from casting an illusion on it to make it look more orderly.

 _Okay, that should about do it. Better check it a seventh time, just to be sure._ As Twilight and four of her mages inspected the portal, Ratchet and his crew did the same with the connections to the boiler room. Gentle Touch, how are things on your end?

We're all set. Our last five rechecks came back all green. We have your position locked down, and are awaiting your activation.

When Ratchet signaled the all clear, and Twilight found no errors in her spellwork, she allowed herself a small smile. Stand by, powering it now.

Twilight and the others backed off as a thin membrane of teal mana formed over the iris of the portal gateway. It roiled and churned for about a minute as several thestrals came over to watch. With a blinding flash of light, the portal opened, revealing the main street in Phoenix's Roost. Within moments, three dozen changelings passed through into Rookhaven, carrying supplies and coal to keep the _Deception's_ boilers active.

Gentle Touch, I'm going to keep things in control over here for the time being. Let Luna know I'll be sending the locals through first so she can get started on transporting them out of here.

With a silent command, Twilight's soldiers started guiding the ponies towards the portal. Most of them were weary of the device. However, rumors of the giant swamp creatures starting to invade the city pushed many of them into accepting exodus over staying.

Once the first thousand locals passed through the gateway, twenty drones flew in with hover carts and took off towards the palace. Twilight remained near the portal itself to monitor its stability. _Perfectionism is there for a reason. Yet when all I have to work with is scrap, you do what you can, I guess._

Fen'jet remained in Rookhaven to oversee the evacuation on his end, and saw the cart bearing drones. "Where are they going?"

"They're going to find artifacts." _They'd find out sooner or later, anyway._

Understanding dawned on him. "You mean they're going to go looting?"

"Only from the palace." Twilight gave him a flat sidelong look. "I'm entitled to that, at least, am I not?"

He grumbled irritably, but ultimately didn't voice any objections.

* * *

As the thestrals continued to file on through, it was nearly noon the next day and Twilight was practically dead on her hooves. Fen'jet was not much better off. Neither one of them desired to show weakness to the other, Twilight only did so to keep him from nagging her, and Fen'jet did it out of stubborn pride.

It was about that time when Twilight heard someone climbing the ledge a few meters away from the portal. She was about to go investigate when a wooden bony wing flared up from over the cliff and Arya dragged herself up. Several thestrals moved to either get away from her out of fear, or cut her down until Twilight yelled out. "Stop! Arya is a friend, and not a lost one."

Aegis and her clutch rushed to their friend's aid, just in case some of the more militant locals didn't back down. All it took was one pass of her flamer to make everyone back off. "Nice and easy guys. Stick Wings' with us."

"At'tehya. This why I hide all this time."

Aegis noticed Twilight and Fen'jet arguing about Arya's continued existence, but left it up to her queen to resolve the matter. She holstered her flamer and patted the Tea'la on the back. "Where've you been all day?"

"Had to bury the Justice One. Can't let him come back as zombie, very bad omen that'd be." Arya flopped on her belly, exhausted from the climb.

"A zombie?" Intel queried with a half chuckle. "Why would he do that?"

"Eeeeeeeaaaa… My soul trap markings failed to catch _him,_ so bury the body or else evil spirit could claim his shell. Bad mojo surrounded him, big beacon he was."

"I see…" Ferrum commented worriedly. "So since we've finally won, what are you going to do now?" By this point, the passing thestrals were only giving Arya a wide berth as they made their way through the portal.

"Must tell my people the story of Rookhaven. Then, I no know. Maybe we leave the forest, or we stay. Up to elders and farseers to decide." She ended up shrugging with her wings. "But with flying metal monster hurting, I no know how to tell them. The swamps are too troubled to travel."

Aegis pondered the issue with a tapping hoof on her chin. "We can get a chariot through the portal, in pieces if necessary, and let you go back that way. I'm sure some of the Equestrian guards can make the distance."

"Yeah, they're built for endurance flying," Intel added. "In the meantime though, why don't you come over to the hive for a little while? The portal's not going anywhere until the _Deception_ is flightworthy again."

"OOOooo! Yes, yes! Love idea, much good! Too see your… tech-no-gee would be very fun."

"Well I'll be glad to give you a tour, after some sleep," Aegis offered.

It was only after Aegis turned around did Arya notice the flamethrower on her back. _Ahh, nou! I pray she not keep that everywhere. I lose leaves when dragon breather is around._

* * *

It was late in the afternoon when the last thestral who was willing to leave departed through the portal. By then, Twilight's head was swaying back and forth from the sheer exhaustion and she only remained awake through sheer willpower. _Just a bit longer. Just a bit longer, only a bit._

Rainbow Dash tried calling her over the hive mind, but Twilight was too out of it to respond. The cyan queen jumped from her perch on the upper deck of the warship to land next to Twilight. Fen'jet had opted to remain with the thestrals who refused to leave the city, so there was no one around the two sisters except for drones. Rainbow sighed at her sister and used her magic to give her gentle push forward.

Twilight started walking on automatic and almost fell over if Rainbow had not been there to catch her. Rainbow let her sister lean on her as they walked towards the portal. Rainbow sighed in relief at Twilight remaining whole throughout the entire ordeal, and looked up at the gateway. "Come on, Sis. Let's go home."


	33. Chapter 33

For Those Who Carry On

It was a long and grueling week before the Day of Mourning could be held. Between ferrying and temporarily housing the imperial refugees, Phoenix's Roost was busy night and day. Close to an army of relief workers and administrators from Equestria had arrived to help. It was a rather peculiar situation where the changelings found themselves the minority in their own hive. For today, however, Twilight pushed the refugees out of her mind to focus on the Linkscape before her.

A vast landscape of gently rolling hills of grain swayed in a gentle breeze as the hour of twilight cast the skies above in a cascade of purples and oranges. Far to the east, and opposite of the setting sun, sat a full moon and the Silver City rested before it. Cadista and Rainbow Dash stood at Twilight's side, with close to six hundred drones arrayed in a semicircle around the ethereal forms of every changeling who died in Rookhaven. Their numbers weighed so heavily on Twilight's heart that she found it difficult to maintain her regal bearing throughout the week. Today however, she let it fall away completely.

Even Rainbow Dash's brash nature was greatly dulled by the Day of Mourning's effect upon the hive mind. The grief that permeated the Link was so intense, that she found it difficult to project her signature awesomeness. _Twi, always said the DoM hit you in the gut, but I never expected it to be so…_ She couldn't stop the snivels no matter how hard she tried. _So intense._

Drones had been coming and going all day to pay their respects. Unfortunately, not everyone could attend the main ceremony due to the need to keep the hive operating. Rainbow briefly scanned the drones standing in attendance. Profound grief was the expected thing that hit her first, but she wasn't their emotions that caught her interest. _Every last one of them are clutchmates of those who died._ She spotted Aegis and her squad had positioned themselves nearby. While Twilight loved each and every drone, Rainbow couldn't help but notice Riposte was the closest spirit.

Rainbow Dash felt an immense feeling of déjà vu powerful enough to stop her breath for a moment. _This is just like realizing I was a royal bug in the hatchery…_ A shudder of dread ran through her as her mind's eye saw all the dead purple drones shift to a cyan coat for a brief moment. A fresh wave of foreboding washed over her, only with a much darker tone. Rainbow chased it away when Cadista began addressing the gathering.

The elder queen scanned the fallen, and those that still lived. "Sacrifice. It's a word that has different meanings to different cultures. For other hives, sacrifice is a fact of life. Built right into each and every changeling. For Equestria, it is the highest act of service any pony could perform. This is something too often overlooked by the other queens about ponies. After all, there is something to be said about a generally peaceful race willingly going into harm's way to preserve their way of life. For _our_ hives however," Cadista glanced at Twilight Sparkle, who was absorbing every word Cadista said. Rainbow Dash listened intently to learn Cadista's view on Equestria. Her opinion of the elder queen hinged on what she would say.

Even as Rainbow scrutinized Cadista, the old queen's thoughts drifted to her. _Loyalty. Such a thing is difficult for those in high places, Rainbow Dash. I pray you are able to stand firm._ Cadista refocused on the speech and on the drones in particular. "We mesh both worlds. The hive is everything, but none of you serve mindlessly. Take pride in knowing that your brothers and sisters died securing your hive's future. Their sacrifice, their legacy, is Phoenix's Roost itself."

"And the crown upon my head," Twilight interjected, surprising Cadista for a moment. The elder queen let her daughter take the front. Twilight let her changeling crown materialize in a raised hoof. "I never wanted this to carry a blood price, but…" She felt Rainbow lay a reassuring hoof on her back. It helped keep the steel in her voice from fading. "Fate saw otherwise."

She placed the crown upon her brow and looked up at the sleeping ghosts of her children. Her heart felt like it was ripping in half trying to force the next words out. "Go to your f-final rest." She started weeping, but refused to avert her gaze from the spirits. "My beloved children, I hope to see you all again when my time comes."

At her silent command, a few of Twilight's drones flew a few meters into the air and had several instruments manifest before them. As the first notes of the song played, the dead coalesced into wisps of light and started to drift off towards the Silver City.

Twilight kept her bloodshot eyes fixed on the spirits as her legs collapsed out from under her. Each passing wisp was a needle in her heart. Rainbow Dash could be as outwardly tough as anyone possible. However the one thing that could always burrow past her tough exterior was music. Although embarrassment made her try to keep a stoic expression, even she broke down before the song was halfway through its first playing. Cadista stayed at her daughter's side, ever ready to lend moral support.

The memorial stone Twilight had created earlier stood a few meters away from the gathered changelings, and sat under the drifting spirits. As each one passed, the names carved on the stone started to glow faint silver, denoting their honorable final resting place. Her crown felt as heavy as the massive stone. _I must bear its weight so that their sacrifice has meaning._

For her part, Rainbow Dash said little. Not by choice however. She opened her mouth only to close it right back several times. Each time she thought of something to say, it soured on her tongue. _Grr! I've never been good at moments like this. The words never come._ Resolving to let her actions speak for her, Rainbow Dash sat down next to her sister and nuzzled her. Twilight was quick to reciprocate, and leaned against her.

Cadista would have attempted to join them, but the sight of the royal changeling sisters together like that summoned memories of Yumia. The hundreds of years and multiple lifetimes spent with her soul mate turned to old pain at knowing she would never feel Yumia's presence again. Tears she had never been able to heal fell as her eyes turned to the Silver City. As before, she tried to see if Yumia was standing at the edge, waiting for her. _Were it not for Twilight and Rainbow, you know I would rejoin you in a moment, Yumia. Twilight would be a good queen to my children, but she has a long way to go before she can stand against the other hives._ A ghost of a wry grin pushed through her grief. _But she will one day._

* * *

That night, in the valley containing the Tree of Harmony's cave, Twilight held a memory crystal the size of a grapefruit in her magic. A pedestal of stainless steel with a conforming bowl allowed her to place the object onto it so the crystal was eye level with her. _There, now no pony can ever forget them, not even through rebirth._

A golden plaque was attached to the basin, and faced the path leading to the Tree.

The honored dead of Rookhaven.

Seeing that the memorial's exterior was in order, Twilight nestled down on the carved path to the hatchery, and dove her consciousness into the crystal. The separated Linkscape was a recreation of what many equestrian artists depicted as the Summerlands, the pony afterlife. It mirrored the landscape she had recreated during the ceremony earlier. The rolling hills of golden wheat were interrupted only by a single monument: the stone. Nearly two hundred names marked its diamond cut surfaces. Her eyes paused over each name until stopping at Riposte.

Sorrow mixed with vexing confusion, but it took a backseat when Twilight noticed someone had joined her. Turning around, she found Aegis at the Linkscape's entry point, who then phased over to be next to her mother. "Hello, momma."

"G – Evening, my child." There was little 'good' about today, save for finally being able to release all the grief from the events in Rookhaven. Yet it continued to surprise her how much better she felt after every ceremony she'd been a part of. Twilight laid down on her belly so she could be eye level with her very first daughter. "I suspected you'd join me tonight."

Aegis was not about to let time with 'momma' Twilight slip by and latched onto her. The two shared several quiet seconds until Aegis spoke. "Something's been bothering me ever since Rookhaven. Besides the obvious, I mean."

With all the time they'd spent together, Twilight knew Aegis better than she knew herself. "You mean why Gethar let us win?"

"Exactly!" Aegis threw her hooves up in exasperation. The moment replayed in her mind like it was taunting her. "I mean, as much as I hate to admit it, my flamer barely did anything until he charged us and then all of a sudden it burned right through to him."

Twilight's shoulders sagged. The whole battle pained her just to think about it. "At the end, he told me _'May you bring the rest of your cursed kin to justice'._ I'm convinced that his mind was close to breaking after what the failed nation-wide alchemy array warped him into."

"He was pretty messed up," Aegis admitted. The image of Gethar's twisted form brought a shudder out of her. "I guess I never thought to put two and two together on that."

Twilight gave her daughter a weak smile. "We _were_ under quite a bit of stress." Her smile fell into a slight scowl. "Still, what he assumed about what we queens are like, was mostly correct. We end up warring with each other more often than not." _Even if I'd rather not._

"Aside from us and granny, you mean." Aegis scowled so hard she would have pulled a muscle in the waking world. "Of course, if Sticky Spit has anything to do with it, war's inevitable."

"Sadly, you may be right. Mother's spies have noticed a spike in activity among Chrysalis' hive, along with those of her allies." Aegis gave her a worried look as Twilight continued. "We believe she's stepping up egg production. Far more than should be possible."

Aegis jumped to her hooves. "I thought they were in a love drought. Have they been foalnapping ponies again?"

"If it was that simple, Celestia would have already called to arms, or at least deported what love collectors we know about." Aegis tilted her head as Twilight rose to her hooves. "No. Chrysalis and her allies have been taking prisoners, and not just from Equestria."

"So what is Celestia's response? Even prisoners have rights in Equestria, right?"

Twilight huffed in agitation. She looked off into the distance. She weaved a dark cloud to focus on. "You don't give Chrysalis enough credit," she said bitterly. "She went after all of those who have life imprisonment, _and_ went through all the paperwork to do it legitimately. Not to mention prisons cost serious bits, and when Chrysalis offered to take them for free, the local governors jumped at the opportunity."

A perfectly scheduled breeze started blowing in from the south, temporarily making the swaying wheat a little too noisy for normal conversation, so Aegis had to speak a little louder. "And Celestia just let it happen?" Aegis started pacing in the air. "I _can't_ believe that."

Twilight couldn't help but be reminded of her own penchant to pace while nervous. _I think there used to be a rut in the library back in Ponyville._ "Her options are limited. On one hoof, she could decree the transfer contracts void, and get her citizens back. However," Twilight grumbled as she contemplated the issue. "All she'd be getting back are the worst ponies society has to offer. This isn't petty criminals we're talking about, but murderers, psychopaths, and generally unpleasant company. The citizenry is going to be split on the issue no matter what her ultimate decision will be."

"I bet Luna was pissed about missing that one." Aegis' comment reminded Twilight of just how irate the diarchs had been.

"I have little doubt. She's launching an investigation, or will very soon." Twilight's ear flicked as Rainbow pinged her mind. "We can discuss this later. Right now, I have queenly matters to discuss with my sister."

 _Queenly? That can only mean one thing._ "Good luck with that," Aegis snapped a playful salute. "You'll need it."

Twilight watched her daughter phase over to the Linkscape's entrance before fading back to the waking world. "Bah, Rainbow's intelligent enough to understand." She repeated her daughter's steps and exited the memory crystal in the same manner. Unlike normal Linkscapes, the one forged inside a memory crystal could only be exited through a specific location.

By the time Twilight's awareness returned to the waking world, Aegis was already flying off and Rainbow Dash was landing nearby. "Hey sis," her tone was anything but pleasant. "You said you wanted to talk about eggs."

Twilight summoned a mixture of sibling warmth and regal seriousness. "I did."

"Isn't this something that can wait til morning at least? We barely sent the dead off to rest."

Twilight walked over to be side by side with her sister and draped a wing over her and started walking towards the hatchery. "I'm sorry, Rainbow, but time is not on our side. Chrysalis is on the move. She's slow and methodical, and I have no doubt she'll act when she's ready."

Rainbow eyed the Tree of Harmony with half-wonderment as they passed by it and into the tunnel below. Even now, it still sparked an aura of mystery about it. "You really think she'll go to open war with Equestria? Even _she's_ got to realize attacking either Equestria or us is basically stirring up a hornet's nest."

Twilight noticed much of the downward sloping tunnel's floor had been coated in resin to reduce noise. "Which only makes her activity all the more troubling. As…" A wave of nausea at her next statement gave Twilight pause. "Horrible as our losses have been, it does open up an opportunity, as Gentle Touch pointed out to me yesterday."

Rainbow's expression soured. Her time in the Bolts had given her some measure of strategic vision. "Our food problem, is no longer an issue, am I right?"

"I prefer to think of it as giving the fallen's sacrifice just one more boon to the hive." She looked her sister squarely in the eyes with steel that gave Rainbow a slight shudder. "My children gave their lives for us all. You can bet that I'm going to squeeze every drop of worth out of that sacrifice."

Rainbow Dash's scowl abated slightly. "They deserve no less." She nodded slightly, but that only made a pit sink in her stomach at what she knew Twilight was implying. "Alright, Twi." She ran a hoof through her mane to chase away her reservations about egg laying, not that it worked all that well. "I don't like it, and you know I don't, but." She preemptively waved her sister's reassurances away with a hoof. "I've… gah! I've been putting this off for far too long as it is."

She stopped walking towards the hatchery and ground her teeth together. "I know I've already laid a ton of eggs, but I didn't have much choice, and _now_ I do."

Twilight wasn't sure if she should hug, nuzzle, or simply lay a gentle hoof on her sister's back, so she opted to simply keep her tone pleasant. "You're right, it is a choice, and part of what it means to be queen." She took a deep breath as Rainbow looked at her intently. To Twilight, it felt like Rainbow's future role hinged on what she said next. "I personally feel that you, and you alone," she tapped Rainbow's chest for emphasis, "should want to lay eggs. Whether we split the egg laying right down the middle is entirely up to you, Rainbow. I can't make this choice for you."

Indecision warred in Rainbow's mind as she sat down. _Is this what I really want? I mean, I've gone this far haven't I? Twilight and the whole hive already sees me as co-queen. And I gotta admit, I really like the little buggers. But laying eggs…_

The thought of three groups of a dozen eggs growing inside of her, and their eventual laying still made Rainbow's skin crawl. To top it off, all of her reasoning felt like duty-bound excuses rather than personal desire. She was about to give her answer when Blitz and a few other cyan nymphs brushed upon her mind, seeking a mother's love. Rainbow's heart melted instantly and she gave all that she could over the Link. That reminder hit her like a sledgehammer. _In for a penny, in a for a pound._ "Twilight? How about I take the egg laying a bit slow to start off?"

Twilight reached forward and squashed her sister in a tight hug. "Take all the time you need, Rainbow."

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes and pushed her clingy sister off. "Enough with the mushy stuff already." _I get enough of that from the kids._ The fact that she enjoyed such contact with her nymphs rankled her ego. "So are we making a bunch of soldiers or what?"

Twilight started walking again, with Rainbow Dash quickly chasing after her. The fork in the tunnel came and went as Twilight led her sister towards the hatchery, leaving the nursery alone for the time being. "Not quite. We'll need to increase our military power, true, but I don't want our hive to be militaristic."

"Whew, I was hoping you'd say that." When Twilight gave her a quizzical eye, Rainbow elaborated. "Don't get me wrong, I love the military, but I still think civilians should be the lion's share of our hive's population." Rainbow thumped her chest with a smirk. "Makes us military mules stand out and shine better."

"Heh, of course. Then it's a good thing I'm in complete agreement. Besides, personal combat is not our strong suit."

Rainbow's eyes turned upwards, but she wasn't looking at the rocky ceiling. "You want to build more airships."

"Exactly. Luna and I discussed this matter briefly. With our alliance as unbreakable as it is, if war was to come to either of us. We would provide the navy while Equestria supports us with infantry."

"Combined arms doctrine. I like it. But that's a long way off," Rainbow replied with concern. She looked back down at her sister. "Building ships takes a while, not to mention requiring an industrial base we don't have yet."

"Then we have our work cut out for us," Twilight declared as they finally arrived at the hatchery. The chamber was almost depressing. All seven hundred and twenty five incubators were completely empty. A sight that made Twilight's muzzle wrinkle in disappointment. "As queen-mothers, we must accept the cycle of life and death. Death has had its day. Now is the time for life."

She looked to her cyan sister who nodded in agreement. "You said it." Rainbow furrowed her brow in concentration to remember Twilight's teachings. A minute later, both queens were producing eggs once more.

* * *

A few days later, Applejack was proving to the world that she was a mare of habit. Wake up at the crack of dawn to the rooster's crow. Bathe, eat a hearty breakfast, brush her teeth, apply her tried and true Stetson hat on her brow, and step outside to begin her chores.

She was so immersed in her routine of chores that she almost missed spotting a quartet of lavender drones flying in from the Everfree. They arrived by the time Applejack finished setting up the wooden baskets around the first few trees of her orchard. She waved them over with a friendly smile, causing the quartet to veer away from the farmhouse and land in front of the orange mare. "Howdy y'all." She arched an eyebrow at their lack of hovercarts. "Ah'd say your supply of apples is in the second barn, but some'n tells me you're not here for fruit."

The lead drone introduced himself with a firm hoofshake. "Good morning, Madam Applejack, my name's Plied Trade. I'm, or I should say, we're here for you actually."

That made her tilt her head. "Don't call me madam, it feels weird. And what'cha want with me?"

Plied Trade gave a nervous chuckle. "Well the thing is. Mother's in a bit of an agricultural bind, and she wanted to hire your help in the matter."

"Farm'n?" Applejack's face lit up like the sun. "Well shoot, Ah'd love ta help out. Butta… Why does it take four a ya to gimme a message?"

"Well that's the thing," Plied Trade started with an academic tone. His gaze started wandering all over the place. "Mother knows how busy you are this time of year, what with it being apple buck season and all, so my siblings and I came here to help your family with the chores while you're away. She didn't know how long it might take, and she didn't want your crop to suffer for it."

Applejack chuckled. "Well that was mighty thoughtful of 'er." She looked towards the farmhouse to see her brother, Big Mac, walking out to do his half of the day's labor. Applejack raised a hoof to her mouth and shouted at him. "Hey Mac! We got farmhands, show'em the ropes!"

Her brother waved in acknowledgement. "Seein' how there's four a ya, Ya can forget the bits and we'll call it even. It's the least Ah can do for her loss."

One of the drones in the back ribbed her brother, who grumbled and gave up a coin pouch. Plied Trade's friendly nod recentered Applejack's attention on him. "My queen sends her thanks, and a shuttle will be here soon to pick you up."

Applejack's ears perked up at the prospect. "Ah gotta say, those fancy flying machines a yours are a hoot to ride in." The group of drones started to fly off, but Applejack grabbed Trade by the tail before he could leave. When she had his attention, she spat his hairs back out. "So while Ah'm wait'n, what's this farm'n problem she's got?"

"Oh, right, I should have told you," Trade laughed at himself. "Have you ever heard of Jiyya trees?"

Applejack's throat caught before a mask of deep thought crossed over her. "Yeah, Ah know a'them. Granny and Ah heard how profitable selling that fruit would be, and we tried to raise the money to buy a few seeds. Sad to say, we couldn't raise enough. Ah knew the fruit was expensive, but the seeds were even worse. It woulda bankrupted us to front the kind of money the Thestral Agricultural Community was ask'n for. Then they had the gall to say it'd be a waste to sell them to us anyway cause our farm couldn't support it." The farmer snorted in anger.

"Well as luck would have it," Trade flew down and cast his eyes back and forth conspiratorially before leaning his mouth towards Applejack's ear. "We picked up a few cases of the fruit from the Chaos Lands, along with a few saplings and ten crates of soil samples. We also have a greenhouse ready for use." He leaned back up to speak normally. "And mother knew that the only way to make it work was to get the best orchard farmer in the business to help figure out how to grow them."

If there was one thing Applejack and Rainbow Dash shared, it was a stadium sized helping of pride. "Well, you came ta the right place, friend. Ah'll figure them out licitly split. That's on my honor as an Apple."

The chopping and whooshing sound of an approaching shuttle could be heard coming over the tree line as the pilot located a clearing to land. Applejack had to admit it was all happening a bit too fast for her. "Trade, Ah need to tell the family where Ah'm go'n. Don't want them frett'n none if Ah'm gone for too long."

"Take all the time you need, Miss Applejack," Trade called out to her. With his message delivered and accepted, he flew on over to join his kin milling around Big Mac. _I really can't wait for the farming nymphs to mature. I was meant to be a trader, not a tree bucker._ He tried to bury his sour mood before reaching his destination.

* * *

Applejack entered the farmhouse to find Apple Bloom helping Granny Smith with the dishes. "Granny, you won't believe what just happened!" She ran up to the wrinkly green mare with a smile cleaving her muzzle. "Twilight got ahold of some Jiyya! The fruits, seeds, soil, and even some saplings ta boot!"

"Huh, wha?" Granny had to lift an ear with a hoof. "Mah hear'n must be getting real bad cause Ah think you said Jiyya."

Applejack gave a goodhearted chuckle. "Ah sure did. Twilight said she got a bunch of the plants and seeds! Could you image what that would do for the farm if we could grow them right here!?"

Apple Bloom forgot her chores and zipped over to jump up and down between her kin. "Ooo oo oo! That's that stuff bat ponies eat! It's all super rare too! Canna come too? Please! Please! Please!"

Applejack put a gentle hoof on her sister's head to keep her from bouncing. "Maybe next time, Bloom. You got chores to do, and Ah don't want you walk'n the forest. Twi's kids may be work'n on making a safe road between Ponyville and her hive, but it's not ready for travel yet."

Granny waved a dismissive hoof. "Oh hogwash. Ah think it'd be good for the youngin. These old bones ain't good for much no more, and iff'n we do get these Jiyya trees goin' ya'll need somepony else in the family who can do it. Big Mac can tend to the farm fer now."

"Thanks Granny Ah'm going to pack!" Apple Bloom blasted out of the kitchen before Applejack could try to object.

Granny playfully smacked Applejack on the withers. "Well get along. This is an opportunity the family's been wait'n fer. Go on and make us proud."

"Ah will, Granny." She hugged the Apple matriarch as tightly as she dared. She let go and yelled up the stairs to put some fire in her sister. "Apple Bloom! Ya better hurry up or Ah'm leaving ya behind!"

General squeeling and screams escaped the upstairs. Applejack departed the house and got four steps before Apple Bloom and a large suitcase lept out of the second story window. Apple Bloom and the suitcase bounced down the stacks of hay bales before ending up as a jumble of hooves and luggage at the bottom. "What did ya pack anyway?" Applejack asked as she helped her sister up.

"Rarity's been hanging around PR for a while now, so Sweetie Belle's there, and Scootaloo went over to see Rainbow Dash. So Ah packed crusading stuff!"

"Oh. Joy. Well come on." _Even after getting their cutie marks, the sprouts still call themselves the Crusaders._

A short walk later, the pair boarded the shuttle and were ferried off to the not-so-distant hive.

* * *

Twilight Sparkle stood on top of the battlements of the Castle of the Two Sisters with the titular siblings at her side. They were watching the thestral refugees below who temporarily called the stone walls home. Very little restoration work had been done so far, but that mattered little to the newcomers. By Luna's command, only her modern thestrals were providing relief aid aside from the odd drone, and pegasi transportation. She wanted familiar faces to help them acclimate to modern times for a month or so to ease them into interactions with the other tribes. In the end though, racial relations were not the royals' chief concern.

"I've always been seen as the custodian of the sun," Celestia began with a note of concern, "but to be viewed as its avatar is a bit much."

Luna's wings fidgeted in annoyance. "At least you're not outright worshipped as I am." Her roving eyes fell upon a small personal shrine dedicated to the moon. Her scowl deepened slightly as several thestrals were bowing and praying to it. "I'm worried how they'll react to modern views."

"Have _faith,_ sister," Celestia replied calmly. Luna detected a note of sarcastic mirth. Celestia smiled at the generally positive mood of the ponies below, even if there was still an air of tension hanging over them. "They're proving to be adaptable. They may yet surprise you. Not everypony is as deeply entrenched in tradition as the nobility."

"I'm not getting my hopes up." Luna fought the urge to outright ban the practice. _Things were really bad before Tia and I took the thrones. And to think all those years ago I was begging to have anypony love my nights. Now I think I have too many in the wrong manner._

Twilight saw the troubled looks the sisters were giving each other as a good excuse to switch topics. "Speaking of avatars. Are you two sure that you remember nothing of your lives as Celesti and Lūn?"

Both alicorns tried for a moment to dive into the depths of their memories. Celestia was the first to shake her head. "I'm afraid not, although I wish I could. It would have prevented so much death," she added forlornly.

"Thank you, Celestia," Twilight added quickly with a weak smile. "I know you would have, but you needn't worry about me. The Day of Mourning is remarkably therapeutic."

Both Luna and Celestia eyed the rather serene queen with studious gazes. She certainly didn't _look_ like someone who had lost nearly two hundred children. "I'll take your word for it," Luna replied at length with a touch of good humor. Yet it quickly soured. "I however, _did_ have a specter of that old existence for much of my life."

Celestia gave her sister a worried look, yet when Luna glanced her way, Celestia gave her a reassuring nod. "The thing is, Twilight, Sweva was a separate part of me all the way up until you and your friends cleansed me with the Elements."

Twilight turned to Celestia who nodded that she knew of it. "I take it Sweva didn't remember anything either."

"No, she didn't," Luna confirmed. "She didn't even go by the name Sweva, and instead simply called herself 'The Dreamer' because of her ability to dreamwalk. I used to tease her about giving herself such an unimaginative name." Luna's brief lapse of bemusement fell quickly. Twilight took the hint and silently ordered the local drones to make sure they were not disturbed.

"Back before my…episode, Dreamer was the real reason I knew that our subjects shunned the night." Luna wrestled with old pain. Celestia rested a comforting wing across her sister's back.

"You knew of her?" Twilight asked Celestia.

"I did, yes. I had always known the two, well, three of us were far from the norm. I simply thought Dreamer was a natural part of our unnatural status."

Luna gently pushed her sister's wing off. She glanced at Celestia, silently communicating that she wanted to speak without handholding. "Dreamer was also dramatic to a fault, and often exaggerated tales of how much our subjects vilified the night. She and I became so… caught up with ourselves that we… did what we did."

She took a long deep calming breath. _A shame I cannot participate in a Day of Mourning. Given how Twilight's acting, I could certainly use a week or so of it._

"So is Dreamer still with you?"

"No, and at the same time yes," Luna replied bitterly. It was more at herself than anyone else. Twilight became rather concerned at the reaction. "When we were struck by the Elements, the feeling is… difficult to describe. I felt the Elements' power tearing away at our minds before merging us into one consciousness." A shiver of dread crawled up her spine at the memory. "I'm not sure what parts of me are the original Luna, and what parts are Dreamer. But I still feel like I identify more with the old Luna, so I kept the name."

Twilight turned to Celestia who was poorly hiding her aching heart. "I admit it was difficult to handle once we learned the truth of the matter." Luna's head dipped bit while casting her sister a mournful glance. "I still see much of Dreamer within you, your ability to dreamwalk chief among them." Celestia's face warmed and she nuzzled Luna affectionately. "I think you are much stronger now, more… balanced than before."

Judging from Luna's flat look, Twilight couldn't decide if Luna agreed or was simply tired of hearing it. "I suppose it was easier for the public to accept the fused you, since no other living pony knows how you used to be."

Luna's face softened as Twilight's words struck an old chord. She turned away from them to look at the clouds above. The untamed weather of the Everfree was cooperating for once, and she basked in a sunbeam that broke through the cloud cover. "You mean, besides the refugees? I suppose so. After all was said and done, I _do_ feel happier this way." She smirked and looked at Twilight. "I know Tia is certainly glad for it. I prefer to use my dreamwalking to banish nightmares rather than spy on our subjects like Dreamer did."

Celestia allowed a brief moment of snootiness. "Humfph, she was a witch. Unlike you, dear sister, Dreamer could never acknowledge the importance of the sun. I dare say she was a bit touched."

"Careful, Tia, Dreamer technically is half of who I am." Luna chuckled lightly at Celestia's dismissal before leaning into Twilight's ear. "When Dreamer controlled my body during the day, she would always prank Tia rather heinously."

Twilight took one look at Celestia's rare bouts of overt fuming to see the bad blood. "I see. Thank you, for telling me about this, Luna. I'll keep it in the strictest confidence."

"Oh there's no need for that anymore," Luna waved dismissively. She beckoned everyone's eyes to look more closely at the altar to the moon below. "They will undoubtedly spread word about Dreamer's existence, and every being has a right to free speech in Equestria."

"Censorship in this modern world always backfires spectacularly," Celestia added.

A cloud of pegasi bearing chariots was coming in from the north. Celestia looked to Twilight who passed the word on. Relocation teams, the next round of transports are inbound. Get the next group of refugees ready to go.

Acknowledgements resounded in her head. Yet before she could speak further on the matter, the _Golden Harvest_ caught her eye as its shadow passed over them. "Say, Luna." The alicorn in question hummed inquisitively. "With such a massive jump in the thestral population, rations of Jiyya fruit are going to become spread rather thin."

Luna's ears fell flatter than her scowl. "Yes. With Mount Boom and the heavy winds you encountered, retrieving more fruit from natural sources will be next to impossible. And our current gardens won't be sufficient."

Twilight's ear flicked and temple throbbed for a moment at the mentioning of the volcano's nickname. _Oh no, not Luna too._ Hiding her Profound Irritation of Righteous Scholarly Indignation, Twilight remained pleasant. "Well, the _Deception_ can make the journey, and should be operational enough to fly back within a month. After some time spent in dry-dock, it can make regular trips to the Chaos Lands for more fruit."

Celestia gave a short giggle. "That is wonderful to hear. After the reports your ship's crew gave to our own ship captains, our airships could never survive such winds. But such work is hardly befitting such a venerable warship. Even if I prefer it having a more civic use."

Rainbow Dash briefly told Twilight about how exuberant Applejack was at finally being able to work with real Jiyya trees. "That's Rainbow's sentiments as well. Which is why I brought over some Jiyya trees along with the fruit, and enlisted Applejack to learn how to grow them in the _Golden Harvest._ If she can pull it off, we can build more flying specialized greenhouses for you, so you'll never have to worry about Jiyya supplies ever again. You can ground them where ever they're needed."

Luna's eyes lit up like the stars in her flowing mane. "Truly?! By the stars that would solve so many problems!" She tapped her chin and looked down in thought for a few seconds. She looked back up when she came to an idea. "Once again, Queen Twilight Sparkle, you aid Equestria on your own initiative. A gift of this magnitude _cannot_ go unrewarded."

"I agree, Lulu," Celestia added. The next group of refugees below were already moving into the waiting chariots. Oddly enough, several thestrals were gathering around the _Ashes of the Phoenix_ where several drone guards were attempting to find out what they wanted.

All it took was a short conversation with one of the guards to figure what what. _Some of the thestrals want to stay in the hive!? Given how they reacted to our appearance, surely this is a joke in bad taste._ Twilight put the matter aside to focus on Celestia.

"I say, since this is a joint effort between you and an Equestrian citizen, namingly Madam Applejack, which means this falls under the purview of a research agreement between allied nations."

Twilight hummed in agreeable understanding. "Grant funding. It'll be like old times back in my Canterlot tower. I can use the extra funds to accelerate the hive's infrastructure and the industrial center's construction."

"Thus allowing you to build more flying greenhouses," Luna added, "I like it. I'll have my aides draw up the accord as soon as I return to Canterlot."

At Twilight's earlier command, a drone arrived carrying three wine glasses and a bottle of Domane Leroy Chambertin from Prance. He poured the beverage and brought a glass to each royal before placing the bottle on the battlement and taking his leave. Celestia rose her glass, prompting the others to gently tink against it. "Here's to Equestria and Phoenix's Roost. May our two nations be united forever."

"Hear, hear," Luna and Twilight replied happily.

The instant Twilight started drinking from the glass, she just remembered she was currently producing eggs. In a panic she spat the rather expensive red wine out as fast as possible, only to discover Luna had been directly in her path. Twilight's ears fell along with her jaw at the sight of a frozen Luna. The lunar diach was just standing there, with her glass still raised to her lips, which had partially shielded her face. Her mane and front were dripping with wine.

"I'm so sorry, I forgot I was ovipositing!"

Celestia had to cover her mouth to keep from laughing uproariously when it was obvious Twilight was in no danger. Twilight's brain was misfiring in her frantic attempts at summoning a drone with a towel. Luna gathered her wits first, and simply lowered the glass. "You know, Twilight, if you dislike Domane that much, how about you leave the rest of the bottle with me?"

"Wha - huh?"

"Twilight, I thought you spat salve, not wine," Celestia snickered behind her hoof.

"I know Blueblood would think it an improvement," Luna jested as a drone finally arrived with a towel, only for her to dry herself off with a spell.

The drone looked to her queen only for Twilight to wave her away. She knew Luna would still need to bathe, drying spell or not. "Why don't I show you to my personal baths. It's the least I can do." Luna nodded in agreement. Before she took to the air, Twilight gave a harmless scowl and levitated the wine bottle over to Luna. "It's too expensive for my tastes anyway."


	34. Chapter 34

Epilogue

 _A few months later…_

* * *

By the tradition of earning her crown, Twilight Sparkle was the very last royal to enter the Summit theater, save for any heir she had. So it was, that the gossiping and/or bickering between the gathered royals to came to a dead silence when Rainbow Dash stepped in right behind Twilight.

With the weather being hot and humid even this far above the tree canopy, the burning sun above only added to the intensity of the royals' scrutiny. At least it would have, but this kind of weather was extremely comfortable to changelings.

After her unusual introduction at her first Summit, the other queens dissected Twilight Sparkle's life and put everything under a microscope. Everything from who her friends were, family, eating habits, fashion sense (found to be quite lacking), they examined all they could to learn about the new potential rival.

As a result, everyone present knew who Rainbow Dash was at a glance. However, her status as a royal, let alone a queen, shocked all present, except one. As Twilight Sparkle approached the center of the Summit floor, Rainbow Dash proudly strutted over to sit next to Cadista with a bit of sass in her step. The cyan queen was practically drinking in the stunned atmosphere. _Heh, I bet some of them might be pissing themselves._ She actually started looking for such reactions as Twilight studied Silandrus.

Of all the other queens, Twilight saw no flash of surprise quickly covered up. No, instead she saw the grin of an old crone who loved to see others getting flustered. Not that the ancient queen tried to hide her smug grin at her rivals giving furious glances between themselves. Twilight Sparkle stood at the center of the Summit, awaiting Silandrus to officially recognize her. The old changeling left her waiting for at least a minute or so. The second part of the crowning ceremony was beyond sacred. No one was allowed to speak, not even the supplicant, until Silandrus willed it.

For her part, Twilight mostly ignored the other queens. Thankfully, Rainbow Dash kept a stoic posture, but all it took was a single whiff of her aura on the Link to know Rainbow was inches from taunting Chrysalis. _I hope she keeps herself under control, the last thing we need is her making a scene._ Twilight shifted her attention towards Silandrus, who was studying Rainbow with amusement. _Why didn't she show any surprise at RD? I thought we had been careful about hiding her queenly status._

After receiving a dozen boiling stares from the other queens, Silandrus finally allowed the proceedings to move forward. "You simply can't help but to cause a stir wherever you go, can you, Queen Twilight Sparkle." The old queen let off a dusty old laugh. "I half expected you to try and hide her for at least a little longer."

Twilight didn't need to turn around to feel Rainbow basking in her sudden infamy. _By the First Mother, I think she might be getting heated by this._ "In my defense, Queen Silandrus," she said politely, if only to ignore her sister's antics. Much to her dismay, Rainbow Dash had the uncanny ability to look like a model parade soldier, while also exuding smugness. "I abide the Summit accords, and would never hide an heir from the Summit. However, we have decided upon being co-rulers as sisters instead of her forming a separate hive later on." That lessened the look of worry from many of the queens. Even though Twilight and Rainbow Dash knew co-rulership was seen by many as a sign of weakness on Rainbow's part, they were obligated to inform the Summit. "In any event, I was within my rights to conceal the matter until now."

"A fair point," Silandrus conceded easily. If only because of how much drama it was causing the other queens. "The matter of Rainbow Dash's status can be settled later. For now," she cleared her throat to focus the rest of the royals' attention away Rainbow Dash who outwardly looked as stoic as any other hardened soldier. Yet Rainbow was not quite able to hide her snarky emotions. "I suggest we move on to the reason you've called for the Summit to gather." _Before someone tries to dive too deeply into that cyan mare's emotions and gets insulted. It'd be amusing, but it would waste too much of my time._

Several queens grumbled at not being able to voice their outrage, but the sooner Twilight finished speaking, the sooner they _could._

"I agree." Twilight kept herself from looking at Rainbow Dash while speaking to her. If you really have to make a mule of yourself here, you should at least direct most of it towards Sticky Spit.

Rainbow Dash casually slid a condescending eye at Chrysalis and her sisters. She made no overt movement, aside from sitting properly. Oh, I intend to.

Ignoring her sister's Rarity-level subtle insults, Twilight pulled out several scrolls from a satchel she had brought. "It took me a few months to get everything prepared, and I have my full report on our species' history should any of you desire it." _Not likely, but you won't see me skimp on academic thoroughness._ The disinterested look on the faces of many of the queens confirmed Twilight's musings. "For the purposes of this summit I've also brought the short version for all of you."

Twilight squared herself as she slipped fully into lecture mode, complete with red framed glasses. Not that she needed them, but they completed the look. "We as a species were created not by choice, but through an act of willful sabotage." Despite their genetic predisposition for disinterest in the past, drama was always an attention grabber. "In the events leading up the creation of the first mother, who was actually named _Feec'tul'ea,_ the thestral royal family ruled a desert empire. In an attempt to bring life to the desert sands, they worked for roughly fifty years to build a country wide arcanum array, what we now call alchemy. The Family used the ley lines as the array itself to make sure neither weather nor malcontents could disrupt their work. However, a member of the old thestral pantheon, a being named Gethar the Justicar, despised alchemy quite venomously. From what I gathered from the living thestrals I rescued, and journal entries from Rookhaven, I discovered that Gethar damaged the array in an attempt to nullify it completely."

Twilight looked up from her scroll to glance over the crowd. Although silent, the gathered royals' reactions thus far spanned a range from disinterest, to intrigue, and in a few cases, outright rage. _Polybia's probably going to raise a fit at me later._ "Because of Gethar's hatred for alchemy, he didn't know how it worked, so his sabotage ended up making the array go wild. Most citizens of Rookhaven were corrupted in both mind and body, along with all but two of the thestral pantheon."

Twilight flipped her scroll over, if only to ignore Polybia's burning gaze. Chrysalis remained overtly neutral, and waited for Twilight to finish before rendering judgment. "As you might have already guessed from my previous reports, the royal family became roughly what we are today."

One of the more lackadaisical queens could sense Twilight slipping into lecture mode and groaned loudly. "Spare us the minutia and just stick to the important bits."

Twilight's ears twitched, and saw Rainbow shooting the vocal queen a dirty look. Twilight expected such disinterest and skipped a few paragraphs. _Apparently I didn't make it short enough,_ she tsked at such disregard for knowledge. "I suppose I can for time's sake. The bottom line is that I believe Feec'tul'ea is the first mother, or at least _I_ would consider her to be.

"The thing is, yes, Tia'vil'yet was Feec'tul'ea's mother. _However,_ numerous journal entries from both individuals tells me that Tia'vil'yet was driven insane from her transformation into a changeling. Most of the other royal family was trying to adapt to their new situation where she only saw madness and evil." She suppressed a shudder at the memory. "Some of the translations were… disturbing."

Twilight shrugged her ill at ease away. "Not everypony can come back from such traumatic events. At any rate, Tia'vil'yet later laid Feec'tul'ea's egg. By the time Feec'tul'ea was an adult, Tia'vil'yet had almost entirely lost her mind and started planning to kill off the rest of the royal family. I won't bore you with the details, save to say that she used surprise to win. Barely three days after her first murder, only she and Feec'tul'ea remained. She was planning on killing her daughter and then herself, but Feec'tul'ea managed to overpower her."

"Not wanting to kill her own mother, Feec'tul'ea interred Tia'vil'yet's mind in the Chamber of Chitin to act as a guardian. It was around that time that Tia'vil'yet had gone completely mad. Desiring to give her mother at least some purpose, Feec'tul'ea stabilized her mother's mind, within the crystal, enough to focus entirely on defending what records Feec'tul'ea felt she would need later in the Chamber. In addition, she also felt that the other members of the royal family weren't exactly sane either, so she believed the events leading to our creation was too dangerous to remember."

Twilight could see some of the queens' attention was already starting to wander. _Such disregard for history is so sad._ Leaving her personal feeling aside, Twilight wrapped up her conclusion. "All told, there is no way to tell if Feec'tul'ea was the first royal to hatch, but she is our only ancestor to survive Tia'vil'yet's purge. Therefore, I believe that she qualifies as our true First Mother."

Of all the queens she expected to take questions from first, her least desired option was Chrysalis. So naturally, Chrysalis voiced the next question, now that tradition allowed as such. "I for one, will decide who I view as the First Mother on my own terms. However…" She briefly skimmed the scroll Twilight had given to every queen upon starting her lecture. "I would like to know more of this Feec'tul'ea."

"I have my full report and copies of every translation onboard my ship. My crew is unloading them onto the docks as we speak. You can see the evidence for yourself."

" _Humor_ me," Chrysalis replied with teasing contempt.

"Yes," called a second queen, one of the younger queens, Twilight recalled. "You never brought up Feec'tul'ea in your previous findings. Why do so now?"

"I didn't have the whole picture at the time," Twilight replied calmly. "I originally thought she was a minor figure until I cross referenced enough information to discover her true role. She was the one who ultimately gave rise to the rest of us, _and_ tried to erase much of our pre-changeling history. Thankfully she was too busy bringing us into prosperity to finish the job, or else I would have never found my way to Rookhaven."

"Or secured the rights to your crown," Kreesus commented with a carefully crafted grin. "So what of the artifacts we were promised?"

Much to Rainbow's mild displeasure, the topic of artifacts drew all attention away from her. _Ah well, my time to shine will come soon enough._

"We were lucky," Twilight replied with a slight smile. "Due to Rookhaven being in a time-lock, all of the artifacts I was able to recover from the palace were in one piece… more or less. The destructive force of the grand array's mana detonation was absorbed into the structure of the palace itself. A consequence of the palace being structurally reinforced by magic in the first place. I have the first shipment of artifacts already unloading and the Home Guard is now taking it in for processing. Once everything is sorted, I'm sure Captain Thoran would be more than happy to distribute them as he sees fit.

"As for the artifacts themselves, they may not look it, thanks to the time-lock, but all of them predate our existence as a species. I believe that will suffice for my payment."

Silandrus tapped her chin in contemplation. "I will have one of my escort drones go down and investigate them, and I suggest the rest of you to do the same." She looked out at the crowd. It was rare for there to be a quick consensus between the royals, and Silandrus waited for the others to nod their compliance. "I noticed you had a second vessel along with… what was it called, the _Deception_?" Twilight nodded. Through the eyes of Silandrus' drone, the vessel that the _Deception_ was escorting was twice the size of the frigate, and as ponderous looking as Fluffy. "How many deliveries can we expect?"

"All told? Four. The old imperial family had a penchant for collecting artwork." Twilight noticed a few queens took note of the implication that the warship was under her command, rather than Cadista's. _I hope mothers' spies can give her enough warning before an attack. Or at least her new flagship can be completed and launched first._

Silandrus liked what she saw and heard from her puppet drone at the docks. The relics were not at all what she expected, but most of them brought a materialistic glint to her eye. "Excellent. Well then," she shouted a bit louder, "I call for a vote. Since we can all see the scale of what Twilight Sparkle has delivered to us, and assuming we find no fault in the validity of her research." _Also assuming the lot of you bother to read it._ "I move that the matter of Twilight Sparkle's crown be closed in her favor."

To no one's surprise, and Twilight's lament, almost none of the gathered royals wanted to dive any deeper into her research. Not even Chrysalis wanted to go beyond the cliff notes. _Ugh, I swear that mare is painfully long winded in her writing. I might be forced to make an intelligent drone or two just to see if Twilight failed in her research._ She stroked her chin at the thought. _No… I'll let her have this one. This is not the battlefield I want to fight on._ Her eyes drifted over to Rainbow Dash. Now that the matter of Twilight's crown was resolved, the floor was open to any other discussion. She faced Polybia, fully expecting her to lash out, and yet the tan colored queen was nose deep in the scroll Twilight had given out. Chrysalis' slight sneer started to falter the longer it took Polybia to voice the righteous indignation that was surely coming.

Chrysalis was hardly the only one expecting a reaction out of Polybia. Twilight was observing her as well while Polybia read her notes. The more Polybia dove into the document, the more unstable the mix of hate and confusion spread over her face.

In the end, if Polybia had any objection, it was thrown to the wayside when Yeelindrus, Chrysalis' youngest sister, tossed the scroll away with complete indifference and jabbed a hoof in Rainbow Dash's direction. In hindsight, Chrysalis was rather proud of her for not speaking during the finalization of Twilight's right to her crown, lest she commit a crime against Summit Law. "Fine, you have your stupid crown, but what is _she_ all about?"

Sensing the perfect time to have some amusement, Silandrus answered for both former ponies. "Yeelindrus, surely you know of Rainbow Dash. Former Element of Loyalty." She leaned to the side of her chair with a smirk. "That cloud and lightning… what are they called again, plot mark?"

Twilight and Rainbow's expressions fell a little, with Twilight giving a tactful reply. "Cutie mark."

"Right, that," she replied dismissively, "the mark is a dead giveaway."

"And for the record," Rainbow barked hastily, only to calm a little at Twilight's silent insistence for respect. "I'm _still_ the Element of Loyalty. Even if I don't have the necklace anymore."

"I don't care about your stupid element," Yeelindrus raged. She glanced accusingly between Cadista and Twilight, neither of which gave anything away in their carefully constructed neutral expressions. Gaining nothing, Yeelindrus refocused on Rainbow. " _Why_ are you a queen?!"

A mottled green and grey queen sitting on the other side of the room stood up to be seen. "Despite Yeelindrus' tactless blustering, she voices a sound concern. It is my understanding that you have barely started building your hive, Twilight Sparkle. We," she swept a hoof at the other queens, fully inviting anyone to refute her, "have seen no evidence of you sending out love collectors. Not only that, but I find it hard to believe that Cadista could support both hives, _and_ rebirthing another equestrian into a royal."

The speaker left out the obvious question as to why Twilight would do so. The royals of the jungle were not blind to the world outside. Rainbow's partial rebirth was old news due to loose lips and prying eyes. Only her royal status came as a shock to all, save Silandrus who was enjoying every moment Twilight squirmed. For all her years under Celestia's tutelage, Twilight still found such heavy scrutiny cringe worthy.

Rainbow Dash's military bearing faltered a little under her sister's nervousness. Are you sure we can't just say it's classified?

Cadista remained outwardly emotionless, but her inner tone of voice was remorseful. We could, but the backlash of them finding out on their own terms could be disastrous. Not to mention this is not something we can hide for much longer anyway.

Nothing else for it then. Twilight took a long calming breath. "The reason you've never seen me send out any love collectors is because we don't need them." She looked up towards Silandrus with a hint of a smirk to match the old queen's own. _Let's see if the spymistress herself knows about this._ "Nearly every changeling, both royal and drone alike, who belongs to my bloodline is capable of producing love."

Ancient beings often times think they can no longer feel surprise. Not something shallow like being startled, but deep profound shock was supposedly beyond Silandrus, or so she had thought. For a race so devoted to the shadows and concealment, everyone's first thought was that she was lying. She had to be. Had Twilight said those words anywhere else, no one would have believed her.

Yet the Summit was as close to a holy place the changelings possessed. Only here within its walls were the lies and deceit forbidden.

Silandrus respected Twilight enough to know the young queen would never dare to bend such sacred laws, let alone break them. Yet despite that, she couldn't help but to lean forward in her chair and ask the question that had already been answered. "You _truly_ produce love?"

"Yes, we do," Twilight confirmed. A rise in Rainbow's humor over the hive mind drew Twilight's attention. Allowing her to know Rainbow's question before she voiced it. No, they don't need a list of your accomplishments, racing trophies, and medals.

Bah, you're no fun, Rainbow tossed back after her ego deflated a little. Just means they don't care about real talent. Only love production.

Once the initial shock wore off, the whole chamber erupted in chaos. Twilight could hear some queens accusing her of lying before the Summit. Others were demanding proof, while more suddenly found many of their schemes were worthless against her. Only two queens remained silent. Silandrus was still in the throes of shock, and was quite enjoying the novel feeling. Cadista would have been silent, but she was busy trying to pull a couple of queens from Chrysalis' camp and onto her side. As for Chrysalis herself, she was caught on one question: how?

She looked to the one person who would have the clearest answer. "Cadista!" she shouted loud enough to silence the room. "There have been hundreds if not thousands of ponies who have been converted into changelings." All eyes bounced between Chrysalis and the smug Cadista who sat there with a superior grin. This was one of the moments that gave Cadista reason to continue drawing breath. "Tell us, how did you create a changeling, let alone royal that can produce love!? I **demand** to know!"

A cruel and vile scowl, the likes of which Twilight had never seen on her mother's face before, marred Cadista's face as she addressed the object of her old hatred. "You can ask Yumia how I did it when I send you to the afterlife. Assuming you're worthy of even looking upon the Silver City that day."

"You have to tell us!"

"We deserve the truth!"

"The Summit demands it!"

Silandrus jolted out of her enjoyable stupor to take to the air and caused a mini thunderclap with her magic to silence the chamber. "No, it does not!" she roared, having missed who spoke last. She glared at each of the gathered royals, making sure not to skip the few scattered princesses either. "We each have our secrets. There are some that must be shared, such as a new heir, and there are those that do not. Or else we would have to share _all_ of our alchemical knowledge with one another."

"This is more than just creating a better drone," Jstrul, Chrysalis' middle sister challenged. "If we could all produce love, then we wouldn't have the same restrictions we have now! We could finally spread as far as the might of our armies could take us."

"Is that all you can think about?" Twilight spat with contempt. "Conquest? It's no wonder none of you could ever produce a loving royal daughter." _Well, that and genetics, I'm sure._ The comment had the desired effect. Many of Chrysalis' allies had brief looks of contemplation before quickly hiding them as Twilight continued with steel in her voice. "Have all of you truly forgotten what love actually is?" Twilight glared at the assembled queens with borderline disgust. "It is something that living beings share and _give_ to one another!"

The vast majority of the royals scoffed or silently dismissed Twilight's accusations, save Silandrus. The old spymistress rolled the young queen's words around in her head. _Is there more to that than Equestrian self-righteousness, or is she just pratilling her beliefs?_

As Twilight took a breath to continue, one of the more neutral queens huffed disdainfully at her. "If you're so high and mighty about giving, why don't you give us the secret to love production?"

Chuckles rang out from a few princesses who saw the sarcasm. Twilight simply resumed her neutral posture. "It is not an ability that I can simply give. Nor is it possible to reproduce via alchemy. However, I will say this. Retaining this ability limits what I can do to alchemically alter my drones. I've had a few clutches who lack the ability, so even _I_ do not fully know the extent as to what I can and cannot do."

A slow clap from a single pair of hooves resounded through the hot and humid room. Chrysalis stopped after the sixth one when she had everyone attention. Even the other queens retook their seats. "I must say. Bravo, Cadista, bra _vo_. Despite, or maybe in spite of your failings, you've managed to produce the single most important evolution in the history of our species, outside of the hive mind perhaps." She stared at Silandrus.

It took a moment for the old queen to understand the unvoiced request. _What? Oh,_ now _someone actually cares enough to ask for the floor properly?_ With a lethargic sigh, Silandrus heaved herself into an upright position. "The Summit recognizes Queen Chrysalis."

Twilight gave a troubled look between Chrysalis and Cadista before taking her seat to Rainbow's left. Chrysalis didn't bother walking to the center, and opted to hover above it. "I say we let them keep their little secret. Not that it will remain one for long," she added with a lethal glare towards Twilight and her family. "Now that we all know it's possible, we can start our own research anew." _At least now I know what that little project Cadista and Yumia were so focused on for so long._ "Not only that…"

Chrysalis contemplated the matter for a few seconds. Each moment saw a slow grin cleave her muzzle. "This will be an excellent test for the future of our kind, don't you all agree?" She scanned the crowd, looking for anyone who came to the same realization she did. A few caught her meaning, but the majority didn't. _I suppose I will have to be blunt._ She looked at Twilight and Rainbow Dash with fire in her eyes. "You two have changed the rules of the game. Let us see who among us are capable of adapting," she turned to a number of queens who Chrysalis deemed were one step above from failures, "and who will be left behind." Chrysalis glided back to her seat. "I have nothing further to say," she added with eerie cheer.

* * *

The rest of the Summit revolved around more questions about Twilight's bloodline and her love production. Predominantly questions crafted to try and tease out details about how to replicate it, but the other queens ultimately gained little. It was around early evening as Silandrus stewed in her chair while the other queens started pursuing the artifacts Thoran had brought up.

 _Bah, this is no longer a Summit, it's a damn flea market._ She slammed her gavel several times before everyone stopped bickering over who got what. "If we have nothing further to add to the day's Summit, I call this session to a close." She received no objections. "Very well, Captain Thoran. I suggest we move all of this to one of the large halls. It is insulting what you've turned this chamber into by bringing the artifacts up."

The drone in question dipped his head in submission. "My apologies, Chairmare." He whistled loudly and waved a hoof at his subordinates who quickly picked up the goods and started moving out. Several queens snatched choice bits as the drones left.

Cadista saw her opportunity. Twilight, Rainbow, we should take our leave.

Good idea, Twilight replied and quickly chased after her mother as she took the north exit.

Rainbow Dash frowned deeply at the whole situation as nearly every royal followed, tactfully of course, after Thoran and the artifacts. Bah, whatever. I really thought they'd be all weirded out by me. _Maybe Twilight's first show and the whole love thing stole my thunder._

With the Summit over, Rainbow let her military bearing fall away completely and sprinted off to join her kin.

She caught to them as Cadista was talking with her daughter. "Now we must be more cautious than ever before. Your drones especially, will be targeted for foalnapping so the others can learn the secret of love production. It doesn't mean they will from such actions, but they don't know that."

The group rounded a corner as Twilight replied with a worried look. "We can't barricade ourselves in Phoenix's Roost. The others would just see it as a sign of weakness and fear on our part."

Rainbow Dash spied one of Chrysalis' drones trying to conceal itself as the trio marched towards the docks. Heyya, shouldn't we talk about this over the brain link?

Without looking behind towards Rainbow, Cadista hissed reply. We just had to give away our best secret. I'd rather not make it known that we're still linked.

Oh, gotcha. "So ah, how about them Colts?"

Twilight and Cadista actually came to a dead stop to give Rainbow a bemused and sour face respectively. Rainbow nudged Twilight with her side. "Okay, fine, I know _you_ don't like sports, but come on granny. You can't tell me you don't watch hoofball through a proxy."

Twilight chuckled softly. "Come on, RD, you know she's too busy for that sort of thing." She turned to Cadista for confirmation, only to find her mother wearing a mask of slight embarrassment. "Wait…" Twilight's eyes widened at the realization. "You _do?_ "

Rainbow started snickering, only causing Cadista to give up the ghost. "Pah, okay so I do. I have to admit equestrian sports are rather entertaining. I've been thinking of making a team or two from my soldiers."

"But a… wha…" Twilight had to shake herself just to speak properly, yet she never got the chance when Rainbow interrupted her.

"Sweet! We should totally make teams of our own, Twi. One for each of us!" Something finally registered in her brain, making her enthusiasm diminish slightly. "Why only the soldiers?"

Clearing her throat to regain her sense of regal bearing, Cadista started walking again. "Two fold. First to see if it improves the quality of life for my children."

"You can bet it will, Granny."

"Grr, stop calling me that!" Cadista rolled her eyes and forced her tone back to normal. "The second as a test bed for different strains. There are many aspects a hoofball player has that would also benefit a soldier. Endurance, mental agility, toughness, the list goes on."

Worded as such, Twilight's bafflement melted away to intrigue. "Yes, yes, I see what you mean. I'm sure it would be a popular addition to the hive."

"Ha ha! Oh _yes!_ " Rainbow pumped a hoof and started flying above her kin. "We should totally send them to compete with Equestrian teams too!"

The group stepped out onto the castle's docks, which had been built by the Home Guard specifically to cater to Yumia and Cadista, only to find Polybia waiting for them.

All sense of joviality evaporated at the sight of her. Grinding her teeth at the expected challenge, Twilight stepped forward, with Rainbow staying by her side. We'll handle this, Momma.

Saying nothing, but giving her support nonetheless, Cadista allowed her daughter to stand on her own. _She's done well so far. She needs to be able to stand on her own._

Twilight scanned Polybia's neutral expression. _She's masking herself better than last time._ "I assume you've taken offense to my findings."

Heavy wind blasted past the royals as the engines of the airships started spooling up for launch. Polybia had to shout to be heard over the chopping turbines. "I don't know what to think about you, Twilight Sparkle. On one hoof, your findings are heretical to the extreme, and on the other, I cannot see you lying to the Summit. For what it's worth, I believe you hold true to the Honor of Queens."

"So you agree to disagree or something?" Rainbow queried with thinly veiled dismissal.

"You can not simply pull a new queen out of a hat, and expect anyone to accept her as the true First Mother." Polybia's control over her indignation was starting to crack.

"Maybe I wasn't clear," Twilight started with a touch of exasperation. _The crews picked a bad time to start take off procedures._ She ignored the growing backwash and cast a spell to make conversation easier to manage. "I was lucky to get Feec'tul'ea's name at all. She was extremely thorough in expunging old records."

"Honestly, I thought you'd be more pissed off to find out Tia'vil'yet wasn't the pure soul you keep making her out to be."

Polybia growled at Rainbow's flippant comment, yet it was lost in the wind. "There are no saints in the jungle, Rainbow Dash." She glanced in Cadista's direction. "Never have been, and never will be. But that does not give either of you the right to mock Tia'vil'yet, nor take away her status as First Mother!"

Fuming all the while, Twilight tried to maintain a diplomatic air. "I never said Tia'vil'yet was out and out removed from her status as First Mother of us all, only that my interpretation of the facts leads me to the conclusion that her daughter, Feec'tul'ea, better fits the role. If you read what I've given you, and you still see Tia'vil'yet as the proper First Mother, then so be it."

Polybia stamped the wooden dock with enough force to smash through the planks. "Don't you _get_ it! You've split us up! Now there will be queens honoring one or the other! You've divided us in the worst way possible, **Twilight Sparkle**." She spat her name out as if it were poison. "You have made an enemy for life."

"I only offered the facts in the most unbiased way possible. I only added my opinion in my speech, not my report."

Polybia spat on the ground as she yanked her hoof out of the floor. "So I've seen. Despite the damage you've caused this day, you _did_ deliver factual knowledge of the First Mother's life, no matter how grim it might have been. And for that gift of knowledge, I present one of my own, from one enemy to another."

Rainbow Dash shared a quizzical glance with her sister. "I'm not sure we can trust your word if you're declaring yourself as an enemy."

"I wouldn't expect an outsider like you to understand." Polybia faced Twilight and brought up one of her scrolls. "If what Twilight Sparkle's rather heavily redacted report on your transformation says is true, you didn't undergo a true rebirth. As much as I despise you, Twilight Sparkle, I will at least acknowledge you as a true changeling, but you, Rainbow Dash, are but a pony in changeling chitin. You will always be an outsider."

Twilight brushed a hoof against Rainbow's chest. "Let her speak, RD. We still stand on the grounds of the Ebony Castle. Polybia won't lie to us here."

Polybia gave a slight nod and snort of shared respect. "You should know, Twilight Sparkle, that your first foray into our jungle was hardly a secret, no matter how much your dear mother wished it to be."

Upon hearing her name, Cadista flew over, but did not interrupt just yet. Polybia eyed her carefully before continuing. "I always have a scout watching the trade caravans Cadista sends between Stripped Gear and her little outpost by the chasm. I know I'm not the only one either, because it was Silandrus who made the attempt on your life that day."

"Damn, I knew it had to be her!" In her anger, Cadista grappled a wooden crate off the dock and flung it at her airship with enough force to shatter the box. "I thought it was too convenient that none of the attacking drones were there when I arrived."

"So Silandrus tried to kill me…" Twilight mulled over the news. "Yes, she was the one in charge of information control about our race, and it sounds like something she would do. What about the big shape or beast that I can never remember properly?"

Polybia tilted her head with an amused smile. "That would probably be the Silence Behemoth she prodded over to clean up the mess her drones left behind."

Cadista and Twilight gasped at the audacity of it, while Rainbow was left in the dark. "Umm, anypony mind telling me what a Silence Thing is?"

"A Silence Behemoth," Cadista replied with fear trembling her voice. "The worst kind of monstrosity the Jungle has ever seen, even more so to us changelings."

Twilight was rubbing her forelegs as the memory resurfaced. "Those building sized monsters have the ability to numb everypony within half a kilometer around them from the hive mind." She gave her sister a troubled look. "No changeling can recover quick enough to defend themselves from it before being eaten. If it wasn't for our airships, the Silence Behemoth would be the apex predator here, not us."

"By Celestia's sunburnt plot, are you serious?!" Having been fully integrated into the hive mind for months, the mere thought of being numbed to it sent chills down Rainbow's spine. "I bet you five bits Silandrus made sure you were poisoned before sending that monster at you."

"You're more astute than I give you credit for," Polybia rolled the compliment off her tongue as if it was an insult. Rainbow Dash wasn't sure how to take it, not that Polybia gave her a chance to respond. "I doubt the Ghast Spider venom was the _only_ thing you were poisoned with. But even if that _was_ the only toxin running through your veins, The Silence Behemoth's overwhelming strength is sufficient to overpower anyone alive, Discord notwithstanding... perhaps. What I find unnerving was Silandrus being able to command one, even indirectly."

Without elaborating, Polybia cast a ring of fire around herself. "I have said my piece and have nothing more to say to you." With contempt replacing her scowl, Polybia sank into the portal.

Rainbow Dash huffed dismissively and rolled her head over to her sister. "So what do we do about Silandrus?"

"We do nothing, Rainbow Dash." Cadista flew over to land in front of the younger queens. "The last thing we need is to make an enemy of Silandrus. Just be glad she no longer requires your life, my daughter."

There was a war going on in Twilight's mind. All that her transformation had taken from her, the loss of Velvet as a loving mother, her simpler life in Ponyville, all the pain she had suffered to establish herself as a queen quarried with all she had gained. Her beloved children, the fulfillment of being queen, wrestled for control of her emotions.

"I… I think I need to sleep on this."

* * *

As Twilight brooded her way onto her airship, Chrysalis, Jstrul, and Yeelindrus picked through the pile of choice artifacts they absconded with. The trio was in one of the lower chambers, waiting for their small army of drones to fly in to carry the items away.

Chrysalis was fascinated by a massive four meter tall, and ten meter wide oil painting that depicted a panoramic Rookhaven in its pristine glory. The frame was made from a golden wood from a long extinct tree, more than sufficient to satisfy her with its glory alone. The rest of the artifacts were simply icing on the cake. _I wonder if Twilight had to teleport this beauty inside herself._

Jstrul had her own favorites, but she was only half focused on appraising it while the rest of her mind was centered on the love issue. She briefly looked at Yeelindrus who was primping herself in a silver inlaid mirror. The item had been cracked badly from the incidents at Rookhaven, but Twilight's drones had repaired it so it was impossible to tell. "Chrssy, what are we going to do about Twilight and Rainbow Dash? They could amass a limitless army if left to their own devices."

"Very true, Dear One. But attacking them now would be problematic. Every other queen will be dedicated to unlocking their secret of love production." She narrowed her gaze at one of the streets in the painting, and noticed that the artist had actually drawn in little figures. "They'll be stumbling over each other to try and snatch a drone to test on. But they will fail, all of them."

Yeelindrus overheard her and carelessly dropped the mirror. Luckily it landed on a pile of cushions. "Why? We know it's possible, we should just take a drone, rip out the secret and then breed an army of drones that can feed themselves."

"Because that won't work," Chrysalis replied at length. _Maybe I'll have to expand my personal chambers to accommodate this exquisite art._ Satisfied with her acquisition, she moved on to a grand, meter long string instrument she had never seen before. "If we could have teased love production out of alchemy before, we would have done so already. Not to mention Twilight is no fool. She knows we'll be hunting her drones now. It would be folly to try and take them on multiple levels."

Jstrul pondered the issue, realizing her elder sister's wisdom as truth. "What if we took one of her consorts?"

"Consorts?" Yeelindrus queried. "Why would they be any different than a simple drone? Especially when we can simply activate them into consorts?"

"Tsk, tsk, Young One," Chrysalis kindly scolded. "You should already know only a drone's egg mother, or that mother's direct royal daughter, can convert a drone into a consort."

"But if we kidnap one, our pheromones would be enough to keep the consort fertile." Jstrul put her prizes down to look at her sisters. "Assuming they can be taken before self-destructing."

It was common practice for a consort's body chemistry to have a potentially unstable element. All it took was a simple command from the queen, or by the drone himself for his body to necrotize itself, starting with the reproductive system.

Yeelindrus tittered behind a hoof. "That weakling, Twilight, is too soft to give such an order. Even if she wasn't, a simple charm with a follow up Link sever could easily net us a love consort."

"She's soft, that much is not in question," Jstrul commented with a contemplative hum. "But even _she_ would at least keep the destruction of the gonads part intact in the event of a consort being severed from her."

"That is my assessment as well," Chrysalis agreed. Several dozen drones burst into the room and immediately started taking the artifacts without a word. With silent direction, the queens sorted their prizes so the drones knew which hive to take them too. "Besides, it is not a matter we can risk revealing to her before securing our prize. Therefore, we'll need to try a different approach."

Yeelindrus hissed at a pair of drones who were about to take an ornate porcelain doll. They cowed away, and she snatched the miniature thestral to inspect it. "Why don't we trick them into mating with one of us? We're bound to get at least one egg out of the clutch that can produce love."

Both Jstrul and Chrysalis were taken aback by the idea. Not only because it was sickening, but by the brilliance of it. The source of such an idea didn't help much either. "Even the village idiot has flashes of wisdom," Jstrul muttered to her older sister.

Yeelindrus overheard part of the remark, but Chrysalis walked over and draped a loving hoof over her younger sister before she could speak out. "Well done, Yeelindrus. It may be disgusting to mate with another queen's consort, but considering the prize, it will be worth it."

Jstrul was far less enthusiastic. "Disgusting is right. Love production would be a game-changer, but isn't that a step too far?"

"Sacrifices must be made, Dear One." Chrysalis gently stroked Yeelindrus' cheek, showering her with affection. The youngest sister leaned into the touch. "To gain, one must be willing to pay for it."

Jstrul flushed at the attention Yeelindrus was getting. "And what of Equestria and the invasion plans?"

Much to Yeelindrus' instant dissatisfaction, Chrysalis stopped petting her and walked over to a globe. Or at least the closest analog one could obtain to a globe with the assumtion that the planet was flat. It was woefully out of date, showing only the Moonlit Empire with mountains surrounding it. "We no longer need to bother with them. As soon as we secure a breed of drones capable of love production, our kind's greatest limitation will be gone. Once that happens…" She hummed teasingly as she slowly spun the globe. On opposite sides of Rookhaven sat a glorified moon, and a simplistic sun. Chrysalis could feel the craftsman had begrudgingly added the incandescent orb only because he had to. "I say we finally claim the entirety of the Jungle for ourselves."

"What do you mean?" Yeelindrus queried with a furrowed brow and a tremble of excitement.

Ever the drama queen to rival Rarity, Chrysalis glanced about conspiratorially while ordering her drones to make sure there were no eavesdroppers. "Tia'vil'yet's reasoning for killing all of her kin was foolish, but it does give me an idea."

Chrysalis jumped up on top of a large silver colored chaise lounge. "We are obsolete, sisters. There is no getting around that."

Being called obsolete was a grave insult, but coming from their older sister made it worse. In addition to the evidence, the truth finally drove the proverbial blade into their hearts. "You don't really expect us to just lay down and die, do you?" Jstrul challenged with growing disgust. "I refuse to let those _Equestrians_ be the new face of our species!"

"Yeah, what she said! We gotta take that power from her!"

Chrysalis tsked at her middle sister while waving a condescending hoof. "Yeelindrus is exactly right. We take that ability, refine it, produce a princess with that ability, and then we enact a culling."

The younger sisters were stunned. Jstrul couldn't help but to stutter her next words. "A-a culling? W-what of our allies?"

"They must all die. Once our love producing daughters have stabilized hives of their own, we must never again lay a royal egg. This is our purpose, dear sisters. It has always been our purpose, only this time, the jump in evolution is too monumental to allow the other queens to live. Even our allies."

"What of Twilight and Rainbow Dash?" Yeelindrus queried with concern. "Neither of them is obsolete, and it will take forever and a day before our daughters could compete with them."

"A good point," Chrysalis conceded smoothly. She took to the air and started slowly orbiting her sisters. "The war to conquer Equestria will have to be put on hold. This is far too important for the future of our race, and knowing Celestia, she'll probably start downsizing her army if her fears of a changeling invasion prove unfounded for too long."

She didn't like it, but Jstrul could see it was the best course of action. "The two queens of Phoenix's Roost will probably do the same. Allies or not, those ponies would never trust an arms buildup right in the middle of their territory."

"Sooo… That means we'll be left alone to clean house here? I like it." Yeelindrus squashed the doll with her magic, only to find that the porcelain encompassed the entire doll, rather than just the face. She caused a few cracks before stopping. _What I don't like is breaking my toys!_

"Precisely right." Jstrul snatched the doll away to try and mend it with her magic. "And those two will only have the Everfree Forest, which isn't even half the size of the jungle," Jstrul replied absently as the cracks started to close. "Not to mention those two are so peace-minded they'll never think to take advantage of our daughters."

"Just so long as we raise them correctly," Chrysalis cautioned. "We'll still have to make sure Phoenix's Roost doesn't become too powerful. For now, we should focus acquiring the services of one of Twilight Sparkle's consorts. After that, Cadista needs to be dealt with before we can move on the rest of the hives."

With the last of the artifacts cleared out by the drones, the Chrysalis sisters departed the Ebony Castle. Visions of the future danced in their thoughts. The idea of ushering in the next incarnation of their species burned in their hearts, giving them a sense of purpose far stronger than ever before.

* * *

No matter how much she saw it, Arya still possessed a profound sense of wonder whenever she explored every facet of Phoenix's Roost. Sadly, it was not a sentiment shared by most of her fellow Tea'la.

The entirety of the plant pony tribe was gathering at the south gate of Phoenix's Roost. Arya and barely a dozen other Tea'la were standing within walls' boundaries, while the hundred or so others stood outside the threshold. He'la, chief farseer, and the elders stood with the majority. "You cannot convince us, sapling. The visions have come. If all stay here, we bring calamity and despair. Is better we tend to the forest."

"But what if vision wrong?" Arya challenged with a searching gaze at her kin. The handful of changeling guards on top of the walls watched on, but did not interfere. "You no can say visions always right!"

"Maybe yes, maybe no," Vel'it, eldest of the elders replied with a raspy brittle tone. "But we do not belong here." He feebly tried to wave a hoof at the hive, only to nearly tumble to the ground had an aide not caught him. "Imperials did great service to us. They save us from the cursed wood, but we are not one with that tech-no-gee. We only get in way."

"We learn!" Arya barked back. "We are Tea'la! We are strong and wise. Twilight and colorery sister help make us strong, and then we make them strong. Just like with the flowers and the bees."

"Nay, Seedling," He'la said wistfully. She cantered forward and placed an honoring hoof upon the young druid. "It is not our way. Maybe someday, but not today, and not tomorrow." She could see Arya had started to tear up and her lower lip quivered despite her efforts to stop it. "We are of the woods, but you must walk a different path than the tribe."

Arya's brow furrowed and her wings rattled in confusion. "What you mean? Am I banished?"

He'la hugged her junior, making sure her tears never reached the ground. "Nay, never. Do not trouble yourself with Gethar's flight. You are my best student, and bravest of all. The spirits spoke of these things as you help save our people from Gethar's fury."

Arya sniffled and tightened her hug on her mentor. "What would they ask of me?"

He'la separated from Arya, but kept a wooden wing under her student's face to ensure any more tears did not touch the ground. "This tech-no-gee is powerful, massive, dangerous. The forest is just as powerful, and massive, and dangerous. But imperials prove the stronger. So the spirits desire you to keep the tech-no from being too black and dirty. Help the imperials be green like the oak, and flowing like the river."

Arya looked around at those who decided to stay with the hive as well. All of them were saying their goodbyes as well. "How will I do that? I know nothing of tech-no-gee. Why they listen to me?"

"Not be easy, I know." He'la looked to the various trees that lined the streets of the hive with a warm smile. "But methinks they listen, you need only to tell them."

"Try I will." Arya sniffed to hold her tears back. "Where will all you go?"

He'la turned south, trying to see past the cleared patches of forest. "There are calm woods Queen told us of. We go there. When we find it, I send messenger to you so you can find us."

With one wing crossed in front of her, the other pointing towards the sky, Arya bowed deeply to her mentor. "Proud, I will make you. No fear in that."

"Know this, I do." He'la returned the honored gesture, prompting both to rise a moment later. "Is why the elders and I name you Chief Druid of those who stay."

Arya stood a little straighter at the praise, her branches rattled in satisfaction. "Lead well, I will."

The two groups waved their final goodbyes before He'la walked over to the front of her group and started the long trek to more peaceful woods. Arya remained at the threshold of the gate with the others, not wanting to lose sight of them. The road the changelings had been working on went northwest towards Ponyville, but not the straight westward path the Tea'la needed to go to reach White Tail Wood. As such, it was not long before He'la's group disappeared into the vegetation.

Aegis flittered down from the wall to hover next to her Arya. "Are you guys sure you couldn't take an airship to White Tail? We'd have been more than happy to take them."

The druid shook her head. "Nay, visions say they must walk this path. It is our way." She turned to look at Aegis. "Many thanks to the bright and dark princesses for letting us stay in their land."

"There's barely any of you at all. They'd have taken you in anyway."

An alert across the hive mind made Aegis look up towards the southern skies. "See ya later Stick Wings." She shot up high above the trees to find the _Deception_ and the _Column of Spring_ entering the hive's airspace. _Mother's presence on the Link is pretty chipper at the moment, I think now's the best time to ask before she gets too busy with hive business again._

Sprinting off, Aegis reached the descending warship within minutes, and smoothly slid right onto the bridge after a sibling preemptively opened the side hatch for her. "Thanks, brother."

"No problem, Captain."

The recently promoted shipmaster, Rourke, swiveled on her captain's chair. She bore the same naval hat Veselov wore before her. Unlike her predecessor, the cigar in her mouth wasn't lit. "What brings you here in such a hurry?"

"Nothing critical, but I wanted to speak with mother face to face before she swamped herself with work."

"Hmm?" Rourke rolled the cigar in her mouth. The flavor was quite enjoyable, yet that was set aside for Aegis' odd request. "She's in her quarters. No doubt getting ready to leave them."

"Right, thanks," Aegis almost left immediately, but stopped at the exit to face the shipmaster again. "You're still on for that poker game tomorrow night right?"

"Wouldn't miss it." Rourke with a smirk before spinning her chair back towards the bow. "And try not to cheat this time." Before Aegis could protest, she made a shipwide announcement, effectively dismissing her. All hooves, make ready for docking procedures.

"I never cheat, you loon!" After being thoroughly ignored, Aegis bolted for Twilight's cabin. Fortunately, it was fairly close to the bridge. For changelings, there was no knocking on one's door, so Aegis pinged Twilight and was allowed entry shortly thereafter.

The queen was in the middle of brushing her tail while she was closing a large tome. She was also passively overseeing a construction crew begin groundbreaking on a second domicile for the fifty thestrals who opted to remain with the hive. It was barely taxing her multitasking abilities, so this time ended up being a sort of break before the true work began anew. She smiled at Aegis' entry. "Good afternoon, Aegy, I was just finished talking to a far away friend of mine." She sniffed out Aegis' inner giddiness was mixed with apprehension. "I take it you want some quality time?" she added with a motherly smile.

Grinning ear to ear, Aegis raced over to glomp Twilight. Between the warmth of a mother's love and her fur, Aegis felt a few precious seconds of bliss. Twilight sighed contently. She had been so preoccupied, that Twilight had let her love reserves slip to just under healthy levels. _My egg production isn't exactly helping preserve love. Aegis' timing was quite good._

"So how was the Summit?" Aegis asked after a few minutes.

Twilight separated from her daughter with a mild grumble. "As well as could be expected, I guess. I had to give out our secret of love production to explain Rainbow Dash's royal blood. The others would have discovered why eventually. At least now we know that they know."

"And your crown?" Aegis looked at the silver crown with amethyst studs perched on Twilight's brow. She had it recolored to reflect the moon rather than the pitch black it had been before.

"All rights reserved." Twilight eyed her daughter carefully. "As often as you try to sneak in momma time with me, I get the feeling there's something else you want to talk about."

 _Damn, caught red—hoofed._ Aegis bounced away and into a low hover, and facing away from Twilight. "Well, I _have_ been thinking about something for a long time. Since around the time I hatched from my chrysalis." She slowly rotated to look at her mother. "You know how you've got these plans to have future royal daughters claim the chaos lands for their hives? That's still a go right?"

"Ah, well, yes it is. RD, Ratchet, and I were talking about that on the way back from the Summit." Twilight resumed brushing her tail. A quick ping from Rourke informed her they would be docking soon. "Why, do you have any ideas on that?"

"I – ahhh, I do, actually." Leveraging her military professionalism, Aegis kept from rubbing her forelegs nervously. _I only have one chance to pitch this right, or she'll veto it for sure._ "I've been thinking that we can't just let random chance determine who the next royal will be." She glanced between Twilight's face and her crown. "Each queen is too critically important to risk them having a bit too much crazy in them."

A dour pale fell over Twilight as she considered the problem. "That's true enough. That's why royal daughters are genetically tailored to such a degree, but the mind is less cooperative in that regard." She laughed at herself before giving her daughter a sardonic eye. "I only have to look at how different all of my children are from me. Even among those who were not altered by alchemy, such as yourself, have such a vast array of different personalities. Sure, there are common themes, but not that many."

"Exactly!" Aegis half cheered as she landed on the bed, mucking up the carefully made sheets. "So I was thinking that maybe you should rebirth somepony into a royal daughter, sort of like what Granny did."

"I don't think that's such a good idea." Twilight refusal caused Aegis' whole body to slump. "If there's one thing you should take away from Equestrian society it's the three strike rule. My rebirth was a matter of life and death. Even if Rainbow didn't undergo a rebirth per say, everyone thinks she might as well have." Twilight shook her head at Aegis. "Even if I publicly announce a… I don't know, contest or something, to find somepony who fit the right criteria, it would only ruin what rapport we've built with the public."

Aegis took a slow deep breath. _It's now or never._ Sweating bullets all the while, Aegis turned towards the window to hide her tremor. "I was thinking more along the lines of rebirthing a… drone, perhaps?"

Twilight's brush halted mid-stroke. She turned to Aegis with puzzlement on her lips. "A drone?"

"Ah well, yeah, I mean, we'd be perfect for it." Aegis hoped her sweat wasn't too noticeable as she faced her mother. "There's no risk that any of us would have hidden allegiances, like a pony might. You already know us well enough to make a judgment call. Not to mention a drone, like me for example, wouldn't have to adapt from a pony life to a changeling one."

"A drone into a royal…" Twilight mulled over the idea and finished her brush stroke so she could think more. It was a favored pastime of hers after all. "That _could_ work. First Mother knows Rainbow and I had far too much family drama to work through after our change in species. And it would eliminate the unknown element of the royal's personality to an extent."

Aegis remained quiet throughout Twilight's internal debate. Twilight's eyes may have been looking through the window, but her gaze went far beyond it. _Okay, Aegis, you seeded the idea. Let's hope it takes root._

"The only real problem I see is that such a rebirth could cause many to see such a rebirth as favoritism." _There's already enough of that going around as it is. It's not my fault some of my children never work up the nerve to come spend quality time._ The thought troubled her. _And here I thought I was approachable to everypony. I guess I'll have to make the time to visit some of my… less-social drones._ Twilight's lament didn't have much of a chance to sour the idea when Aegis spoke.

"I don't think it would, mother." Twilight arched an expectant eyebrow. Aegis couldn't stop her wings from vibrating nervously. "I've talked to a bunch of my siblings, and none of them so far even want to be a queen."

"I've noticed that as well." Twilight shrugged at the dead end idea. "Mostly catching conversations in passing."

 _Crap! If I let her keep thinking along these lines, she'll just dismiss it. She'd never force this on any of us._ "I'd like to though."

There it was. The desire had been aired to the one person who could make it happen. If Aegis had been sweating bullets before, she could have sworn watery cannon balls were rolling down her neck. The damp clingy fur wasn't helping either. Twilight became unreadable, even to Aegis. The mare was in such deep thought for the longest ten seconds of Aegis' life, that she thought she'd die from anxiety, or dehydration from sweating, whichever came first.

"I think…" Twilight said slowly before stopping again. Aegis had to suppress a groan of nervous energy, not that she could really hide it from Twilight at this close range. "That might not be a bad idea." Aegis' heart started to soar, and a massive 'yes' was forming on her lips. "However, I need to plan this carefully."

The 'yes' fell flat and morphed into a, "you mean plan the alchemy?"

"Oh that's the trivial part. Gentle Touch has already hammered out much of what I wanted in a royal daughter's genetics. No, I need to screen my hive for candidates." She caught Aegis' patented Sorrowful Frown of a Million Crushed Hopes and Dreams, and her heart went out to her. "If it makes you feel any better, yes I consider you in the running. Just remember, even if you want it more than anypony else, it's my job to make sure my future royal daughter is the best possible for our species."

Aegis' ears and smile flew straight up. It wasn't a no, it wasn't even a 'I'll think about it', it wasn't even a maybe. Aegis had a chance. No, it was a sure thing, in her mind. _I_ have _to win this. I swear, if somepony like Intel who doesn't even want it wins, I'm going to explode._ "That sounds fair, mother. Would you like me to help you screen for candidates?"

Twilight arched a knowing eyebrow and leaned forward to give her daughter the stink eye. "That sounds like a conflict of interests. You wouldn't want to sabotage others, now would you?"

"O-f course not," Aegis replied a little too quickly. Twilight's knowing eyebrow never fell. "I just want to make sure they actually _want_ to be a royal. If you're the one who asks them, they might say yes out of queen pressure." Confusion danced over Twilight. "You know, like peer pressure, only from you."

"Hmm… I guess you have a point. I'll have Gentle Touch handle it then."

 _That's the best I could have hoped for._

A slight rumble and several loud clacking sounds of metal on metal rattled through the ship. "All hooves, this is the captain. Docking procedures complete, we have forty eight hours until the next escort mission back to the Ebony Castle."

Aegis laughed at Rourke repeating the announcement over the hive mind. "Why does she even bother with the PA system?"

Twilight was up and gathering her things into a large duffel saddlebag. She didn't need to make every delivery herself, so she made ready to leave. "Because I told her to. We have both Tea'la and now thestrals trying to adapt to hive life, and there's no way to link them into the hive mind."

"You mean besides the circlet?" Aegis commented with faux innocence.

Twilight scowled so heavily at Aegis a black hole almost formed. "That causes way more trouble than its worth, and it's _staying_ in the Canterlot vault."

Aegis waved her hooves in surrender. "Just checking. Not suggesting."

Twilight narrowed her eyes at Aegis before dropping the issue. "Anyway, we have to make it a habit to accommodate those outside the Link, even if none of them are here." With her bags precision packed to perfection, Twilight cantered to the door. "Come along, if we're going to make this selection process happen, we should start immediately."

"I'm all for that!"

As the _Deception_ cooled down in its berth in front of the _Ashes of the Phoenix's_ bow, a small group of thestrals had gathered. Every last one of them wore a black bandana with a red phoenix on various parts of their body. Twilight trotted off the gangplank trying not to focus too much on the clothing, and instead noticed Rainbow Dash buzzing over from the bridge. Over here, Dash.

Ah there you are, and I see we got the typical welcoming committee. Rainbow slid into a pacing hover next to Aegis and Twilight as the group reached the first of the thestrals. Aegis noticed the lead stallion was the priest she named Clown back in Rookhaven.

Clown looked up from his bow as soon as Twilight stepped off the gangplank. His bandana was draped over his head with the fiery bird proudly displayed on top. With a carefully crafted diplomatic smile, he spoke in fluent Vespid. "Your Imperial Majesties, how may the Loyalists serve you this day?" The changelings around him balked a little in surprise.

Lemme handle this one, Twi. Rainbow stepped forward to eye Clown carefully. "That's pretty good. Since when were you guys learning our language?"

Pleased that he had spoken correctly, Clown lamented briefly that he had to slip back into Thestrian. He touched the small gem on his necklace to speak again. "While we are eternally grateful for your enchanted gems that allow us to speak to you, my people and I feel it is best to learn your tongue if we plan on staying with the rightful imperial family."

He looked to his brethren for confirmation. Every last one of them flourished a bow towards Twilight and Rainbow, causing the latter to groan. _Blaugh, not even the drones bow this much, and they're the only ones to have a reason to._

Sensing her sister was at the very short limits of her diplomatic skills, Twilight fluttered over to give the ponies a gentle smile. "We appreciate your efforts in helping to unify our two peoples. However, there's no need to greet us every time we return to the hive." Rainbow Dash was more than happy to step back and let her sister do the talking.

Clown dipped his head in repentance, while trying to keep the word 'hive' from ranking him too much. "My apologies, Your Graces, but we didn't actually come for the sole purpose of greeting you back home. But rather to request the opening of a school." He hesitated for a moment. "That is to say, one that could accommodate our foals. The education system you have in place for your young is a little… fast for us."

Twilight eyed the group of thirty ponies all crowding the docks, much to the dockworkers' dissatisfaction. All told, only fifty thestrals remained with the hive, the ten not currently in attendance were teens or younger. "Education is the highest pursuit, but I think that school would need to be for all of you. Not just the foals."

The priest was not the only pony to give her strange looks. When confusion was the only response Twilight received, Rainbow decided to throw in some blunt clarity. "Basically, you guys are in bad shape. We need to bring you up to speed if you you're going to make it here as anything but menial laborers."

Aegis could just see the mounting ill-at-ease in Clown's face. It was an expression that was shared by most of the ponies. It's not going to be easy teaching an old pony new tricks, Momma.

We all have to keep learning if we want to grow. Twilight tapped a hoof, waiting for an answer.

Eventually Clown nodded. "I feared as much. I will do all that I am able to learn your ways." He turned to address his following. "As will we all?"

"As will we all!" the imperials cried back.

Rainbow Dash snorted approvingly. "Well there you have it, Sis."

"Indeed." I suspected they just needed a few months to figure out what they wanted to do with themselves in the modern world. Twilight looked off into the clear blue sky, and breathed deep as Aegis and Rainbow Dash drew the ponies off to begin planning for the school. With their request being granted, the ponies departed with gratitude.

The mention of school brought Rainbow's mind towards Scootaloo, eliciting a happy chuckle. "Why not send a few nymphs and adults off to Cheerilee's classroom? That way the kids can learn how to make a proper school for these guys."

"That's not such a bad idea. I fear anything I try to model after myself or the university's curriculum might be too far advanced for them right now."

"I second _that_ motion." Before Twilight could glower at her sister, Rainbow sprinted off. I'll take care of this one, sis.

 _Glad she's willing to try civic duties for a change, even if it's only to get under my skin._ Leaving Rainbow to figure it out, Twilight gazed out across her hive, relishing in its constant growth. Nearly all of the drone domiciles were complete so only a scant few were still housed within the _Phoenix._ Off in the distance, the last section of a wall expansion was nearing competition. This would give the hive enough room to begin construction of its first airshipyard.

Twilight couldn't help but to giggle at herself and took her crown off to inspect it. "To think. All those years ago when I first set hoof in the jungle, and now look at me." Polybia's declaration of hostility skirted the edge of her thoughts, but they were not enough to scare away Twilight's good humor. _I have the rights to my crown. For that at least, I will forget that zealot and Silandrus for the day._

A warm yet slightly concerned grin crossed her lips as Ratchet finally disembarked the warship and was flying off. Twilight replaced her crown and buzzed over to intercept him. With a diabolical giggle, she playfully tackled him in mid air before squashing him into a tight hug. "How's my Love Bug?"

*Erk* "A bit short of breath." Twilight loosened up her grip with a sheepish smile. The same smile she had back on the shield tower all those years ago. He couldn't help but to give her a squash in return. "But otherwise fine. The crew can manage turnaround duties for the rest of the day." He nuzzled her cheek rather awkwardly given her side grip on him. "How about we go 'play' around for the rest of the day?"

After planting a longing kiss planted on his lips, Twilight purred while teasingly rubbing his chest. "I've been waiting to hear those words all week."

With a shared sultry laugh, the pair flew off to enjoy each other's company, content in the knowledge that for the time being, life was quite good in Phoenix's Roost.

end arc two


	35. Chapter 35

bonus: Shameless Sequel Hook

Between the Everfree Forest, Froggy Bottom Bog, and other dangerous wild lands, much of Equestria's wooden territory remained untouched and largely unexplored. With their evolutionary roots in prey animals, it took a brave and perhaps foolhardy pony indeed to explore such potentially dangerous areas.

The unicorn mare Spinning Compass, and her earth pony husband Trail Mix, fit such a description almost to a tee. The difference being that they at least made sure they got paid for their exploration. They were a week's hike south from Vanhoover where the trees took on a disconcerting shade of crimson as the pair trudged on in the blistering summer heat.

Compass walked behind Trail with a crude map floating in front of her with a piece of charcoal also held in her magical grip attempting to draw the landscape as she glanced about. While she carried all of the cartography equipment, Trail carried the food and a specially crafted weapon given to him from Princess Luna herself. However, it was not a weapon of pony make. It was a musket straight from the burgeoning industrial complex in Phoenix's Roost, and ever since leaving Vanhoover, it was always kept ready to fire.

The pair found a shady tree on top of a rocky hill overlooking the coast to rest underneath. The ocean gently crashed upon the cliff side below, giving the couple some enjoyable symphony of nature to relax with. "If you keep that weapon of yours any closer I might think you're cheating on me."

Trail set his weapon down to lean against the tree, and stared up at the red leaves above. "After how well it took care of that manticore? I'm surprised you don't want one of your own. We could double date," he added with an eyebrow wiggle.

"Right, _sure_ ," she shot back with an ever so subtle touch of sarcasm. She huffed in relief after sitting down to give her poor hooves a chance to relax. It wasn't long before her charcoal started scribbling away again as she started adding the present coastline onto the map.

"So why do you think the princess was so keen on us mapping out the coastline before we could finish our survey of White Tail Woods?" Trail asked between gulps of amazingly delicious water from his canteen.

"You were in the same meeting I was, she's had some reports of unidentified ships along the coast, and she wants us to check it out."

He gave her a disbelieving smirk, but Compass was too focused on her work to notice. "Uh huh. Do you really believe the whole thing with ghost ships and a new big bad evil out here like some of the castle servants were blabbering on about?"

"No, I don't." Compass pulled out a spyglass to look out over the distant waters. "But those so called 'ghost ships' could be a new sea critter. That alone is worth coming all the way out here." The massive ocean before her tugged at her romantic side, which was promptly dashed by her husband's teasing.

"Sea critter? Maybe we should just call it that, and skip the scientific name all together." Trail's smirk grew as Compass scowled at him.

Seeing that he was in mood to play with her, Compass snubbed her nose at him. "Why did I marry Gooficus Maximus?"

"Maybe because you mistook me for Studicus Supremiumus." He started flexing his rather large earth pony muscles at her. As much as Compass tried to hide it, Trail could see she was flustering at his display. "How about we do another test to see which classification I fall under, hmmm?"

 _Why can he switch me on so damned easily?_ She was about to cave in when Trail's face switched from suave mare-killer to one of confusion.

He pointed a hoof out to sea. "That doesn't look like a sea critter at all."

Following his gaze and hoof, Spinning Compass saw two shapes floating on the water. Angling her spyglass, she smiled at the sight of sailboats. They had large white sails with an unidentifiable flag flying above a rather large crow's nest. She could also see that several sailors were airborne while working on a deck with no sails, but as to what they were, it was too difficult to tell from such a distance. "We found our ghost ships. It looks like they're headed towards shore further south."

She handed the spyglass over so that Trail could take a long look. As with his wife, the sailors were too far away to identify, as was the vaguely blue flag. "I haven't heard of any pony expeditions along the Endless Sea. You think they might be griffins?"

Spinning Compass started repacking her equipment and shoveling down a premade hay sandwich. "I don't think their globe spanning expedition ever received any sponsors so I doubt it's them, and the minotaurs are _not_ explorers."

Grabbing his musket, Trail Mix had an unsettling thought. "Think they might be changelings? If Queen Twilight and Cadista's group have such crazy tech, there could be others out there."

"That's a scary thought." Compass turned her spyglass towards land and saw very distant black smoke coming from behind a large tree covered ridge. "Whoever they are, the princesses will want to know who they're dealing with."

Knowing that the mystery beings were airborne, the two ground bound ponies started snaking their way through the densest parts of the coastal trees to reach the ridge. Trail was more careful of his steps than ever before, avoiding several fallen branches along the way. "So do we go up to them and say hello?" he whispered behind him.

"We're explorers, not diplomats. We just get a figure on what they are and how many there are before we double time it back to Vanhoover. Let the princesses handle it from there." The sounds of distant chatter and the commotion common to light industries started reaching their ears before the explorers reached the summit.

At this point, the married couple were crawling on their bellies to use the barbed shrubs as cover. Compass had to keep from crying out as a few too many stickers buried themselves under her skin. _Stupid short summer coat._

Her irritation gave way to an explorer's dream upon seeing a completely new civilization. This was no small collection of houses, but a full on harbor town that was taking up residence in a natural deep water harbor built into the steep hills surrounding the docks. The architecture was entirely alien, with the wooden houses sporting flamboyant rooftops of gargoyles and other sculptures of various important figures lining the docks.

Yet all of that took a backseat to the inhabitants themselves. The first, and more readily visible were large winged felines that the ponies first mistook for griffins. Every last one of them wore tight fitting and lightly colored clothing, over their barrels and withers, but the visible heads removed all illusions that these beings were griffins. One of the beings was sun bathing on a house no less than ten meters away from the spying ponies. Using her spyglass, Compass could tell the differences in an instant. Instead of the head and forelegs of a bird, the forelegs matched their feline hind leg counterparts. The head however looked like some sort of nearly hairless monkey who had long flowing hair draped over the lounge chair it was sleeping on.

With the shirt it was wearing, it was impossible to tell where the line between cat and ape began. _Perhaps along the lines of where bird and cat meet with griffins?_ Compass gave her husband the spyglass as quietly as possible. With so many of these creatures in the skies, neither pony wanted to let a slip of the tongue give them away.

Trail studied the sleeping cat-monkey thing in detail, trying to burn it into his memory so he could draw it up later. A few minutes later, a hatch noisily opened up, disturbing the creature from its slumber. Both ponies and awakened creature witnessed a very large lion sized cat-thing step onto the roof. Where the winged one was roughly twice the size of Trail Mix, the newcomer was both larger and wingless. Its girth and stride exuded confidence. Aside from its rather ornate clothing, which would fit right in with Canterlot high society, it carried a large horn tied to its back.

"Rasua, are you going to work, or laze about all day? Your father will not abide such behavior for much longer."

While its voice was definitively masculine, the ponies couldn't understand the language. "And what can a blacksmith do without metal to shape, Thaddaeus? The ships will be in port within the hour, and only _then_ will I cease my communion with the sun." Rasua attempted to nestle back into her cushioned chair, but Thaddaeus had other plans.

 _Communion my ass._ He turned towards the direction of the ponies, only missing them because the explorers were lying prone and completely motionless. With a practiced slicing motion of his fore claw, a chunk of earth was ripped off the hill, carrying Spinning Compass along with it.

Shoving her hooves into her mouth to keep from crying out, Compass tucked her tail in close to keep it from spilling over the side. Trail Mix watched in horror as his wife and the shrub she was hiding under were brought to a standstill just a couple of meters above Rasua's head. Trail readied his musket and pulled out a long rope now that he was sure the strange beings were distracted.

Thaddaeus waited a few seconds for Rasua to respond. When she was clearly not going to budge on her own initiative, Thaddaeus jostled the clump of earth, making dirt rain down.

Rasua sputtered as clumps of dirt landed in her mouth. She sat up to take stock of the situation before glaring at the tomcat. "I will end your existence if you do that again!"

"Only if you end it down on the docks. _Someone_ has to make Ferlason send the ingots to the smith. You know he won't do it himself."

When Rasua didn't respond, Thaddaeus broke the floating clump of dirt a little more to press his point, only for Spinning Compass's weight to snap through the weakened roots of the bush and fall on top of Rasua.

Compass sputtered the dirt from her mouth while Rasua flailed to rid herself of earth and pony. "Hey, nice to meet you, sorry, gotta go!" Thaddaeus was stunned by the unicorn's appearance long enough for her to leap towards the edge of the roof. "Trail, help!"

"Grab the rope!" Gripping the other end in his jaws, Trail threw the rope over the edge. Compass leapt forward and grabbed the lifeline with her magic to bring it within range of her legs and mouth. The mare was a fast climber, but not quick enough. Thaddaeus reared up on his hindlegs and used both fore claws to make graceful sweeping gestures, causing the whole hill to rumble and begin breaking apart. The shaking dropped Trail Mix off his hooves, and nearly caused Compass to slip off the rope and plummet three stories down.

Thinking quickly, Trail fumbled to grab his nearby musket which had nearly fallen over the side. A shift in the earth bounced the weapon towards him, and Trail barely managed to wrap his hooves around it. With no real hope of hitting his target, he aimed and fired in Thaddaeus' direction. Whether it was luck, or the musket's own natural inaccuracy, Trail managed to hit Thaddaeus in the gut, ceasing his attempts to bring down the hill. Thaddaeus roared in pain and fell to the floor in a heap.

Rasua bristled at her stricken oath-brother, and pulled a dagger from under her chair and charged through the air to cut the rope. Compass tightened her grip on the rope, and kicked the hill to spin around and fired off a mana bolt. The shot slammed into Rasua's chest, and knocked the wind out of her. She would have fallen off the building, but she had enough of her wits to glide to the bottom.

Trail regained his footing and heaved Compass to the top. "We have to get out here!"

Compass was already thundering down the other side of the hill as Trail collected his firearm. "Don't you think I know that!?"

Trail was a bit slower to get started down, but he caught up with his wife within a minute in the uneven terrain. "That's some gratitude for you. Save your neck and not even a howdy do."

Thaddaeus howled in pain at the foreign injury and reached for his horn. _Thank the stars whatever that thing did, didn't get my lungs._ Beating the pain down, he took a deep breath and blared his horn as loud as possible for five seconds before giving four short notes. Within moments, a well armored flier descended to his aid. "Majordomo," the soldier took one fearful look at the gunshot wound and removed her small first aid kit from her flank. "What happened? Where is Madam Rasua?"

Grunting in pain, Thaddaeus waved at the slightly broken hill. "Forget me, Chevalier, I'll live. There are two… things, out there. Bring them back, I care not how!"

"As you order!" Leaving her first aid kit with Thaddaeus, the chevalier took to the air once more. Blasting through the trees, it didn't take her predator's eyes long to find the fleeing ponies along the sandy beach. Leaving her curiosity secondary to her duty, the chevalier charged forth with the wind at her back.

Focusing on her fore-paws, the chevalier reshaped the legs into furless arms and hands, allowing her to unsheathe the long curved sword secured across her barrel. She readied her weapon directly overhead to keep it away from her wings and roared at the unicorn who was barely trailing behind the stallion. "By the will of the Majordomo, and the Sphinx Federation, I claim your lives in retribution!"

Trail glanced backward only to see the blade slice clean through Compass, dropping her to the sands. "No!" Out of grief and rage, he turned to face his wife's killer only to have the chevalier perform a follow-up swing and end his life within a second's breadth.

Satisfied that both strikes had been lethal, the chevalier moved into a hover before grabbing a cloth to clean her blade and then sheathing it. With her blade no longer needed, her arms reformed into paws and legs. Off in the direction of town, she saw more of her winged brethren flying over. "Good, then I won't have to carry these…" She studied the corpses briefly. They looked for all the world to be prey, but she had never expected to see another intelligent species. "Things back myself."

* * *

Shortly thereafter, in the governor's manor, the chevalier and a few others of her rank brought the dead ponies and their belongings to the imposing figure of Lord Ventras. He was a wingless sphinx with flowing gold and green robes. His carefully groomed hair was done up in a chonmage. Thaddaeus laid in on a cot with a surgeon examining the musket ball she had just extracted from his wound. Rasua was massaging her chest where the kinetic magic bolt had left a sizable welt.

The manor's receiving hall was adorned with no artwork, save for statuary of various sizes. Each one depicting either an ideal sphinx, or historic figures Ventras wished to honor.

Thaddaeus snarled at the corpses. The servants had the presence of mind to bring forth several heavy rugs to keep the blood from staining the light brown wooden floor. "I thought I told you to bring them back!"

The chevalier bowed low to the majordomo, a meticulously crafted neutral expression never leaving her face. "And so I have, honorable one. You neglected to mention in what state you desired them."

"Were my innards not in tatters I would punish you myself!" Thaddaeus failed to keep a spike of agony from making him double over. His wound reopened, causing the surgeon to force him back down.

"You must not break the stitching, unless you want infection to set in."

"Calm yourself, Thaddaeus," Ventras stated wisely, if only to keep him from arguing with his doctor. "Our warrior was simply performing her duty." He gave a dismissive nod, prompting the chevaliers to salute with their right wings before departing. He spoke once the warriors departed. "You should have expected the warrior caste to strike first and leave civil grace to others more suited."

"…Yes, ma'lord." Thaddaeus hissed in pain as the doctor closed his wound.

With curiosity written all over her face, Rasua bounded forward to inspect the dead ponies. She did not shy from the gore, as it only allowed her to see some of their internal anatomy. One point of great interest was the compass on the mare. With its owner dead, the cutie mark was beginning to fade right before Rasua's eyes. She turned to Trail Mix to discover his mark of a collection of nuts was nearly gone as well. _What sort of mad sorcery is this?_ "What exactly _are_ these things, father? Could we really have found an intelligent species beyond our own?"

With a slight gesture of his paw, the four servants around the room swarmed the ponies and started laying out each of their belongings for Ventras' inspection, but largely left the corpses alone as Rasua was not done with them yet. Seeing that the surgeon was done for the moment, Ventras waved at his majordomo forward. Two servants lifted Thaddaeus' cot and carried him over so that the three sphinxes encircled the equestrians. "That, is an excellent question, my Little Huntress. For all intents and purposes, they appear to be simple prey animals."

"If you ignore these items of theirs." Rasua started picking through Compass' cartography equipment. The objects' intent were easily decipherable, but the high quality of their craftsmanship troubled her. "I think it was this one who struck me with some sort of attack, but I was too focused on its companion to see what it was."

Thaddaeus centered on the musket and reshaped a claw into a hand before picking it up. Now that he could inspect it more closely, he saw the weapon was as alien as he expected. The metal tube had been decorated in exquisite silver lined engravings that had been meticulously cared for. The wooden parts were decorated with a crescent moon in such a way that it would not detract from its utilitarian nature. In his ignorance, he didn't notice the short inscription on the butt was of Vespid and a different language of the Equestrian script on the maps. _I've seen all manner of swords and crossbows, but nothing like this._ "Well it was most certainly not with one of these." He struggled to prop himself up on three legs, so he could examine the weapon more closely. He batted away at the hovering surgeon, who grumbled but stayed nearby. "If it pleases you, ma'lord, I would like to discover the secrets of this device."

"That is the weapon which has left you in such miserable shape?"

Blushing in profound shame, Thaddaeus averted his gaze. His oath-bound sister, Rasua looked on with concern, but held her peace. "You know of my prowess in combat, ma'lord. It would take far more than a dozen arrows to bring me low. Even more so had I been wearing my armor. This weapon _must_ be studied."

"Very well." Ventras studied the other tools carefully. Each one fascinated him more than the last. "We are quite fortunate. The resupply ships are pulling into the harbor as we speak. Rasua, send a message to the flotilla commander. Tell him I will be writing a letter for the Council informing them we have made contact with an intelligent species."

The hairs on Rasua's neck stood up. "Father. This is the first intelligent life we've ever seen besides ourselves. The Council will think us mad, and the cults will call us unfit to lead this colony."

"Then send the bodies and belongings as proof." He replied as if it was the obvious choice. "We must have the council's authority to act any further with these barbarians."

"These, _barbarians_ planted a lead ball in my stomach, ma'lord," Thaddaeus warned as he waved his new musket. "I have seen much in my years, as you full well know, and not even our best forge-smiths or chemists could concoct such a device. Even prey will turn and fight if you give them enough reason to. And with weapons like these…"

Ventras held a paw up for silence. "We have dangerous prey back on the home continent. Here will be no different, except perhaps…" Ventras started rubbing his thin beard in contemplation. "Well, we shall see what the Council decides. For now, if anyone sees another one of these things, capture it alive at all costs."

"As you say, father."

As Rasua left to obey her orders, Ventras placed a paw over the musket before Thaddaeus could put it down. "Hold onto that. I want to know its secrets."

"As wise a hunter as you are ruler. By your will, ma'lord." Bowing as much as he was able, Thaddaeus barked to the servants to carry him to his chambers. Thoughts of a civilization capable of constructing such an implement of the hunt darkened his thoughts.


	36. Chapter 36

intermission

Ahh, guard duty. I could have been saddled with worse positions, but with the _Deception_ flying over friendly airspace and mother communing with the hive mind, it can get rather dull. At least the bridge allowed a great view of everything below. An ecstatic warble over the hive mind told everypony onboard that Aunty was down in her chambers going about her queenly duties with a consort. An act that was little more than a blip on everypony's routine.

Gah! Just thinking of eggs makes me want to hurry up and get rebirthed already!

I shook my head to try and focus on the present, namingly the center of my world, our Queen-Mother. For the moment, she's meditating on her throne beside me, filling our hearts and minds with drive and determination to empower the hive. That's one thing I'm going to miss when I'm a royal. Momma and Aunty's Link Meditations make me feel like I can take the jungle hives by storm, yet they say their meditation doesn't affect each other.

Sadly though… there's little chance I can act on that empowerment when twiddling my hooves guarding her. The only thing I get out of Momma's meditation is less of a chance to fall asleep on the job. Since there are only changelings onboard, and the thought of any of my siblings bringing harm to either Queen-Mother is a notion only outsiders think is possible. Makes me wonder how other races can stand having non-family guard their leaders. Ah well, my job's still important regardless.

Anyway, watching the bridge crew go about their own duties is mildly interesting. Watching them control this marvelous ship is a thing of beauty. Speaking of beauty, Captain Rourke's plot looks damn good today. After that roller coaster we had last week, I bet she wants round two. I just might take her up on it. Her love tastes like a mix between strawberries and bananas of all things. I _love_ strawberries.

Hey, Aegis, catch the view of Minotaur Central.

I manage to drag my eyes from Captain Eye Candy to look at Ferrum, and then follow his pointed hoof. I could feel the _Deception_ starting its descent as it pierced through the thin cloud layer. The city that spread out before us was decent looking enough. Plenty of buildings, if on the short side, but considering the city was built on a river delta, I can see why they'd want to keep everything below three stories. Easier to rebuild and what not.

I guess it looks cool. But it's no Phoenix's Roost or Canterlot.

Bloody hell I can't stand rural areas, and by the looks of all that open land between the city blocks, this is just going to be such a drag. I take a deep breath of air. The coy scent of wood, steel, steam, and oil sends a thrill up my spine. I don't care if Granny engineered Momma, and us non altered drones by extension, to love technology. But I sorta wish more races out there shared that love. Or _any_ other races for that matter.

Ferrum interrupted my survey of the city below. So, are you participating in the celebratory tournament after Mother gets done talking to Chief Bull?

I yawn at the early morning sun and idly buzz my wings to keep the blood flowing. I sneak a peek at mom, but she still hasn't broken her meditation yet. Can't, sadly. As much as I want to keep my martial skills sharp, Momma wants me to listen in on the negotiations. While Momma may have _finally_ chosen me to have a royal rebirth... I can't help but to add a little flourish at rubbing it in, it just feels so good. I still have to make sure she doesn't get any second thoughts. So I'm not going to argue with her.

He shrugged at me with an uncaring look. It's a shame really, I added after a few minutes of silence. These minotaurs love feats of strength. I'd burn my way through the competition, and get more fanfare than I can shake a stick at. Not to mention all the tasty roses the crowd would be throwing my way. The thought of a roaring crowd singing my accolades made me giggle madly for a bit. Who knows, maybe my resounding victory would give our hive a better deal in the trade agreement. I grinned at the prospect of providing such a boon to the hive. It might not be such a bad idea to offer the idea to Mother after all.

You know you can't use your flamethrower down there, right?

I felt my ears fold against my skull as Ferrum's comment burst my oh so sweet bubble. What? He looked at me as if I'm crazy. It's not my fault he can't understand my genius. Why not?

He just sorta shook his head about the time Momma was waking up. Traditional weapons only, remember? None of our tech fits the bill.

I only half heard him as I freaked at Momma stirring, and rushed to make sure my 'princess-to-be' silver necklace was straight and shiny before she looked at me. "Good, we're almost there," she gazed towards the windows with a slight eager smile before looking my way. "I trust you'll put that diplomatic training to good use down there."

That's one thing I can't say has been among my favorite parts of my training regimen. "I'll behave, my queen." I barely won momma's favor for the rebirth, and I think that showed on my face because she gently caressed me over the link. I couldn't help but give a broad smile as my heart went aflutter from the intoxicating grape flavor of her love.

"You'll do fine, Aegis. You know I wouldn't have selected you to be my heir if I had any doubt you were the best choice." At least of those of us drones who actually _wanted_ to be a princess.

Even so, I couldn't help but to brighten at Mom's reassurances and I snuck in a brief nuzzle on her foreleg. She tittered as she used that same foreleg to raise my head up so she could give me her signature motherly kiss on my forehead. If I could have, I would give up my bid for a royal rebirth to be able to bask in mother's love for a full day.

Sadly, Momma-Twilight had to give way to Queen-Twilight all too quickly, and she leaned back to sit properly on her throne to talk business. "Minotaurs are a very aggressive people, you won't have to fake any sort of politeness like you would back in Equestria."

"Oh, right, of course." I did my best to try and hide the fact that I totally forgot to read about minotaur diplomacy. Momma looked like she sniffed me out, but turned towards Rourke before saying anything else. Great, so she's going to use my ignorance as a test/lesson. Joy.

Ferrum's annoying laughter over the Link was painfully obvious before his voice was. For all that spouting about wanting to be queen, you keep forgetting half of your royal training.

The ship rattled from the welcoming salvo thundered from our deck guns. The shells splashed somewhere out at sea. Hey, don't blame me. I've been swamped with so much to prepare for, _and_ continue my duties as Queens' Guard Captain. I was transcribing my memories onto the crystal like I'm supposed to do every morning. You know I have to do that before I can enter my chrysalis, or else it'll take forever to recover from the amnesia. It was a comforting thought knowing that it would be a temporary memory loss. Even so, I don't know if I could go through with it if the memory loss was permanent... unless Momma asked it of me of course.

I barely caught Ferrum rolling his eyes at me before gazing back at the city that was now dominating our view. Yeah, whatever. I still don't get your fascination with wanting to be a royal. We drones have it so much better… Well, in ours and Granny's hives at least.

I didn't bother responding. I've tried to explain why I want this so damned bad, but nopony understands, except for Mom and Aunty. Every time I see either one of them I can just _feel_ how happy they are. They're the core of our hive. The center of both my, and every single one of my siblings' world and reason to live. Maybe my brothers and sisters are truly quite happy with leaving things as they are. But I'm not.

I don't know why I'm different. Why I want to be queen so badly. Maybe I want to be the center of a hive, or it could be that I want to feel the love of thousands of children. Maybe it's a dozen different smaller desires. All I know, is that I want that life more than anything… except for a day with Mother-Twilight.

* * *

Crete is a very strange place, and I can't quite put my hoof on why. The houses and shops look well enough. The docks over the water where our shuttle set down were fairly decent. The architecture is all fine and dandy, and on par with Ponyville as far as I can tell. Looking at it all, the hustle and bustle from on top of Mom and Aunty's carriage, I couldn't help but feel like the place was missing something, yet I couldn't tell what. But I can tell this much straight up. Holy **piss** does this place reek. I thought my nose hairs were going to melt off.

I have to pinch my nose and try to distract myself with the rest of the city itself as we make our way to the palace. The skies were practically empty save for a few white puffy clouds, there was no sound of industry except for the single family blacksmiths we rode past. Maybe it's just the empty skies. No drones, pegasi, or cloud homes make it look so unused.

The palace though, woo wee! I grabbed my spyglass to see a maze of at least thirty gleaming steel spires that stretched up to the skies, with the tallest one reaching at least twenty five stories tall. All of it was interconnected with exterior stairs crawling up the sides and covered brick bridges. I still can't get over the fact that the whole building is made of metal. I thought only we could do that.

Armored minotaurs practically blanketed the place with archers and ballistae bristling everywhere as if they were expecting us to attack, or it could have been a show of strength out of respect.

I hope it's the latter.

Rich tapestries hung down all over the different spires, boasting a stylized ivory bull head with a claymore angled behind it. The icon was set on top of a beautiful navy blue background. I gotta say, for a species who don't have telekinesis, these guys make do far better than I would have thought.

Our carriage was rocked by something on the street. I turned my eyes down to find it just some harmless bricks. We may have been here as guests, but you never know who might have an grudge against our kind. Plus it's a really great excuse to avoid being stuffed in a cramped carriage when there were so many sights to see.

I spotted several minotaur warehouse workers lugging large stone blocks and stacks of bricks on their shoulders. The fact that they were carrying stones larger than my head was impressive. Not to mention that they were doing it on _two_ legs, which is kinda freaky if you think about it. Sure a pony or ling can balance on two legs for a little bit, but carrying anything like that is out of the question. Even we would need carts to carry that much for any length of time. I wondered how these guys would fare in combat later.

We reached the entrance to the palace quickly enough. There was surprisingly not a single barricade or guard to be seen between the city and the front doors of the castle. That is, unless you forgot to count the two brick walls of muscle that cleverly disguised themselves as minotaurs at the massive double doors to the palace proper. Fortunately, the stench of the city didn't quite reach the palace courtyard so I finally released my snout.

Two bulls waited for us as our carriage circles around a massive warhammer wielding statue of the current ruler. The first minotaur, and taller of the pair, was obviously the emperor, matching his statue's sheer presence. The crown, flowing gold flaked cape, and two meter tall warhammer erased any doubt that he was the big cheese around here. But damn that weapon was huge, I don't think I could wield that thing, even with magic. I'd bet Momma could though.

The shorter minotaur bull was only a head shorter than the first. His royal get-up wasn't as fancy, made of silver instead of gold. His weapons of choice, a pair of maces that looked like he forgot to clean the blood off them. Something told me these guys didn't care much for swords.

Our carriage came to a stop and Intel jumped down from the roof to open the door for mom and Aunty Rainbow. As soon as they stepped off I joined them on the ground taking Momma's left side while RD took up the right.

"So, the masters of Equestria's pet city state come groveling before us," the elder bull barked to his son in a baritone voice that was almost painfully deep. Both minotaurs let out a belly laugh at our expense.

What the hell are these guys on about? Momma and Aunty bristled at the comment, and I slowly moved to grab onto Burny, whom I'd lovingly strapped to my back.

"We should just kill them here and now, and take their ship, Father."

Aunty shoved her muzzle into the king's face. "Try it, buddy. I've been wanting to test out some new Arcane Wing moves on someone, and you look _real_ tempting."

To his credit, the king leaned forward a bit and leered at Rainbow Dash, no doubt from the heavy smell of shampoo wafting off of her. With one hand, he pulled that mountain of a weapon onto his shoulder. His son readied his own weapons and fell into a loose stance while Momma's horn took on a slight but lethal glow. The king glanced at Rainbow's gossamer wings with mockery in his eyes. "With those paltry things, _Wonderbolt?_ No amount of magic would ever make those feeble things capable weapons."

"I don't need feathered wings to trounce you and your phallic hammer back across the border." Aunty's wings shimmered with an angry sheen of mana. I didn't even need magical senses to tell that was death warmed over.

The younger royal bull snorted loudly and dug his hooves into the dirt, yet a short harsh glance from his father halted him from attacking. King Bull looked back at Rainbow while bearing his teeth and tightening the grip on his hammer. "I _might_ be worried if you weren't weighed down by all that fat."

That's not fat, those are eggs. At this point, I was totally lost, I didn't have a clue at what was going on, but it looked like an intimidation contest to me. So I pulled Burny out and leveled it at the side of their stony castle. "Listen here, Walking Sirloin," all eyes focused on me, "You back off or I'll cook your asses and serve you up with some barbecue sauce!"

With a loving touch that put a feral smile on my face, I pulled the trigger on Burny and carved a stream of fire between me and the wall next to the door. I freaked a bit when I realized there was a guard standing between Burny and the wall, but Cow Mountain sidestepped the ribbon of fire before he was roasted.

Everyone stared down at me with a look that could melt a Clockwerk where it stood, but didn't say a word. Sweat started rolling down my neck as King Bull studied me for a few seconds. In a blur of movement, his hammer slammed down upon the earth where the burning oil had started to char the grass around our hooves. He looked perplexed for a moment before pulled the faintly glowing hammerhead up to his eyes in a motion that forced Rainbow away from him.

The burning oil clung to his runed hammerhead, coating the weapon in a small fire. The glow of his runed hammer head faded, but the flames remained. **"Ha!** Magicless fire! So you changelings are cut from a different rug than the prancing princesses after all." He gave off a warm hearted chuckle, prompting his son to resume a non-aggressive stance and put his weapons down. He clapped Aunty on the withers, laughing all the while. Rainbow joined in at the same time and slugged him in the shoulder.

"If all of your warriors are as respectable as her," the king bull jabbed a finger at me as I tried to still look tough, "then I see a long future between us." He slammed the head of his weapon into the ground to rub out and suppress the rest of the fire as he spoke in a curt yet warm tone. "I am Emperor Iron Fist the Eighth, and this is my heir, Crown Prince Cho'Gal. His mother named him," he added with mild disdain. Cho'Gal glared at him with more hate than I think Velvet gave mother during the trial. Something I didn't think possible.

Momma took the helm as I holstered Burny. "I am Queen Twilight Sparkle, here with my sister and co-ruler Queen Rainbow Dash." Aunty snorted aggressively, but her aura on the hive mind told me she was loving every second of this. "And my heir, Guard Captain Aegis Altair."

Iron Fist regarded me with what I could only assume was intrigue laced with confusion. These minotaurs were almost completely dead to my empathic senses, which always puts me on edge. "Is that right? I assumed all you royal bugs had cat eyes, yet she wears those of your common spawn."

I was going to let Momma speak, but she mentally prodded me to do so. "I've been selected to become a royal, but I haven't undergone my rebirth yet."

"I see." With casual grace, Iron Fist lifted his hammer back on his shoulder now that the fire was out and turned to strut up to the palace. Cho'Gal joined him with Momma leading us right behind. "Well come on then, if you want to talk trade, then join me in the Colosseum. The opening events are about to begin."

I thought that the tournament was supposed to be in celebration of our trade agreement. Why are they hosting it early?

Aunty and Mother shared a quick look before Aunty replied casually. The cows don't like conference tables or spending five years writing up a one page treaty. They know we're here to offer a trade agreement, and that we're tight allies with Equestria.

We only need to draw up the specifies, Mother finished smoothly. It felt like Aunty had expected Mother to cut in like that, and stopped talking the moment Mother started. I want you to listen closely. While the minotaurs' style on diplomacy is usually cut and dry compared to Canterlot, it is still a valuable lesson.

We continued down the narrow but tall arches throughout the palace. The sheer size of everything was astounding. The hive mind told me the minotaurs built it all without aid from pony magic. Apparently, we were walking straight to the opposite side of the castle. Iron Fist grabbed a haunch of meat off a servant's cart and began some small talk about the power of his armies and some glories he won in battle or something. Personally I couldn't get over the fact that these minotaurs built this… I'd say somepony took a bunch of spears, shoved them into the ground face up, and then looked at a contractor and said "build that".

We kept walking for about fifteen minutes or so, going well past the palace and into the adjoining Colosseum. This place was not as impressive. Aside from one story tall outer walls, everything else was quarried out of the ground.

Eventually, our group finally reached the king's personal balcony overlooking the Colosseum. Now, this place may have been nothing more than a glorified hole in the ground, but damn if it isn't a big one. I looked around to see several thousand seats stretching out all around us with our ring-side view of the blood-soaked sands of the stage floor. A leather awning shielded us from the blazing sun above, not that we needed it right now thanks to the castle's spires draping their shadows over the building. The stage floor itself was much longer than it was wide. I'm guessing that's for racing, but right now there was a huge battle about to take place.

I had to fly above the railing of the balcony to see that there were twenty minotaurs lined up right below us waiting for a mixed group of pony gladiators to run out of the arena's side entrances to take up a position opposite of them. I could see this being a good fight if it was just earth ponies and pegasi, but a third of them were unicorns. How in the world were those cows going to go up against pony magic?

King Bull slammed his hammer down next to a bare boned throne. Literally, it was made of bones and tusks tied together to look like a chair. Cho'Gal leaned against the railing, forgoing a chair at all. The rest of us were given soft cushion lounge chairs. Something akin to what you'd find in a spa is the exact opposite of what I ever expected to ever see around here.

Since I was the lowest rank there, I waited for momma and Aunty to take their seats, gracing the emperor with appreciative remarks. "I have to say," Mother purred teasingly as she settled into the soft pillows. "I half expected you give us seats like your own."

Iron Fist laughed lightly. "I would normally," he briefly studied my queens' bellies, "but giving such seats to pregnant females is insulting." He pointed at Rainbow Dash in particular. "You may not spawn your young like the rest of us, but the analogy is close enough to matter in my book."

I could tell Aunty was mildly annoyed, more so at her predicament. Her eggs were probably ready to be laid, but she couldn't do that until we were back on the ship. Yet she still managed to give a grateful nod.

"You are our honored guests, your majesties," Cho'Gal replied evenly. "As we honor you, we _expect_ it to be reciprocated."

Iron Fist followed his son's lead as he stood up. "Well said, Cho'Gal." He swept a hand over the proceedings below. "Join me, my honored guests, in starting the reenactment of the Battle of the Rolling Plains." He raised his Warhammer high into the air and yelled a bloodcurdling howl. I almost jump out of my skin when Prince Bull and my queens joined in the shouting. Wait, Prince Bull… Princabull! My short giggling was lost in the noise, and it was only Aunty flicking me with her tail in a chastising manner that derailed my thoughts.

That's when I realize _everyone_ was screaming except me, even the people in the stands. Not knowing what else to do, I started howling too at the top of my lungs for what felt like a minute. The combined force of the audience filled the massive arena with a hoof rattling roar.

My throat was getting sore, and I gotta say, I was feeling rather stupid with this random shouting. King Bull finally let up a minute later and sat back down, with the rest of us soon after. I guess that was the signal to start because the two groups in the arena started chopping away at each other with swords, maces, and spells galore. I didn't get the fixation these guys have on killing, but even I can't escape the thrill of combat.

I missed Mother and Aunty opening up negotiations, and only looked back at them when Iron Fist's rumbling voice caught my ear. "So… you want mineral rights from my mines in the Dal'era region." He glanced between my queens, no doubt gauging just how serious we were. I think despite how honest our hive had been with Equestria, our race's reputation of duplicity preceded us.

Even with that history hanging over our collective heads, he continued speaking without any change in demeanor as a server came over with a whole platter of food for us. "I assume you are aware that my empire has only recently quelled the latest usurping warlord." King Bull laughed darkly between bites. The disgust he had for his former warlord was as plain as day, empathic senses or not. My queens kept on gnawing on their food, waiting for him to finish. "My coffers are practically empty at this point. The last war was costly in both coin and warriors. The gold veins in those hills are the richest we've seen in four generations, and I _need_ that gold." He took a moment to take a large bite out of some roasted leg. "That being said, I find it hard to believe you'd come to me to buy the most expansive gold mines in existence right now, because I will tell you now." His stern tone gave me slight shivers. "They will not come cheap, and I would need payment all upfront."

Aunty started fidgeting with one of her right foreleg's holes, while looking contemplative. She always gets like that when mother's talking to her during a formal setting over the hive mind. Eventually, Aunty's attention shifted back to King Bull. "We are not interested in the gold at all, but rather the other minerals and rare earths that we discovered after you graciously allowed our drones in to survey. We have a small list of goods we're in need of. The biggest thing we're asking for is Quadrinix that often forms around and above gold veins. I believe you throw that stuff out with the tailings." Aunty levitated a small scroll over so the king could take it.

Where had I heard of Quadrinix before? I was about to get the hive mind to answer for me when the royal bulls scoffed at the request.

"Quadrinix?" Princabull joined in his father's confusion as he leaned in to read the scroll along with the emperor. "You mean those weird red rocks that look like someone took a bunch of balls and attached them all together with sticks? That stuff is too brittle for construction or smithing when broken from its natural form. You'd be better off using shale."

Oh now I remember! That's the stuff that's supposed to be the new alloying material that our metallurgists freaked out about last week. Not to mention Momma said it would allow a single egg to safely undergo multiple alchemical procedures. It would allow us to use more experimental strains with less risk if, and when, deformities start to form.

"I find their rather peculiar molecular shape rather striking," Mother replied with an artistic hum. "The material is necessary for the advancement of the arts, and my scientists have found it could be an excellent addition to alchemy."

Momma told me to never look too desperate for stuff during diplomacy, so I knew not to speak up when she left off the other uses we'd found for it.

The king said nothing for several bites. His face slow slid into a rather disturbing look at my queens. I couldn't tell if he wanted to duel them, study them, or rut them. Damn it, I never noticed how much I relied on my empathic senses to know what somepony's feeling.

"I've heard rumors of your alchemy," he said at last, his expression shifting to neutral. "Some magic that you queens alone possess to alter your subjects." He slammed his empty mug on the side of his throne, which summoned a server to refill it. "I could care less about such manipulative magic, since you only use it on yourselves." He lazily looked between my queens before refocusing on the arena below. "Since what you ultimately do with this list of ore you're requesting is of no concern of mine, I see no reason for me to refuse you, providing proper incentive. This list of yours is quite long, after all."

"We are prepared to offer you an honorable exchange," Mother commented diplomatically, "that will be well worth consideration, I assure you."

Iron Fist grunted in amusement. "I still can't believe you're asking for such useless materials. You're essentially asking us to give you our trash, is that fair to say?" I overhear King Bull mention lazily. Aunty shrugged slightly while Momma nodded.

One mare's trash is another mare's treasure after all.

"Very well, but you'll have to pay for shipping between the mines and to Equestrian border. _You_ may be one half of the pony-changeling alliance with Equestria, but we cannot move so freely within the princesses' borders. So unless you're carrying one of the royal sister's seals that we can..."

I figured that much myself. As far as I know, our freighters were all tied up with Equestrian shipping or going all the way out to Stripped Gear. There's not even a railroad that crosses into the Empire.

"We are more than capable of handling the transfer after it reaches the bordertown of Trottingham." Momma replied evenly. "As for our side of the bargain, we're offering up our expertise as civic engineers." Momma spoke with a calm confidence I've only seen repeated in Celestia and sometimes with Luna. She's so controlled I can't even get a good reading on her aura.

"You already got a water system in place around here," Aunty added with mildly reckless enthusiasm before the cows could speak out. "We also heard how much you liked working toilets in your last visit to Canterlot, so we can offer up a hundred engineers to give your _entire_ capital a working sewer system. We are also prepared to extend this service to other cities if the flow of resources continues after we're through with the capital."

King Bull tried to look unimpressed by the offer, but even I could see he was intrigued. No doubt Momma caught on to that. "It may not be as awe inspiring as a new warmachine or monument to your glory, _but_ with the sewers in place, there will be fewer epidemics around here. And that means more healthy warriors to keep your warlords in line."

Cho'Gal spat at the offer when his father failed to voice any objections quickly enough. I didn't need empathic senses to tell he was a little miffed. "A hundred? Do not take us for fools, changelings," he growled with a dangerous tone. "Our city is vast, our people numerous. You should have seen as much from your airship. A measly one hundred builders is an insult."

Bah, it would take almost our whole hive to do it all ourselves. Lemme see what my two bits can buy. "I think you misunderstand us, your Graces," Mother and Aunty looked at me questioningly, but they don't move to stop me. The royal bulls look like they're on the verge of throwing the deal over the railing and down to the gladiator's tender mercy below. Oh boy this isn't good. If I screwed this up, I could kiss my rebirth goodbye. I'm just glad my bladder was empty right now. Keep it together, Aegis. It's only our hive's prosperity and your future as a queen on the line here. Oh glob, I can feel their eyes boring into me. "Our hive simply doesn't have the lingpower to do it all ourselves. Not to mention that if we did all the work, it would ultimately be detrimental to you." King Bull's glare softened into contemplation a little at that tidbit. "Our plan is to supervise and train a number of your laborers during construction. That way, when the work is complete, you can maintain the sewers yourselves with no further assistance from us."

It was a gamble. I don't actually know if we were planning to train anypony, but when neither Queen-Mother berated me over the Link, I guess my hunch was correct. King Bull sat there and stewed over it for a long while. Even Princabull calmed down to think about it.

The collective hive mind said these guys don't care much for builders, not that you could tell from the giant freaking castle. But they hate disease, more so than most people. I think it's more like a phobia. No warrior's death for you, you caught Dysentery, much mad, so sad.

"We happen to have an abundance of slaves presently," Iron Fist commented dryly. "Captives from that upstart warlord, Dreadful Star." He suddenly shouted a satisfied warcry at a heifer in the arena besting a pair of unicorns by using her shield to deflect a spell back at the caster. The first unicorn was slammed into the side of the second.

At this point, the continuing deliberations fell into minute details. Both Momma and Aunty brushed my mind with praise and a sense that they could handle it from here. I tried to listen in, but with the polite dismissal my attention quickly slipped towards the arena below. I looked out at the fighting to see the numbers weren't what they should be. I counted out that ten of the minotaurs were still standing while only two unicorns and three pegasi remained in the fight. One of the unicorns was so close to our balcony, I could hear his ragged breathing as one of the bulls charged head on with his mirrored tower shield raised.

With all of the other cows on the far side of the arena, I fully expected the unicorn to simply lift the charging bull in the air and toss him. The unicorn's magic ripped columns of rock and dirt from the ground itself, trying to block or knock the minotaur off balance.

"Come on! Just lift him!" I yelled at the stupid sap. He ignored me as the bull careened through one earthen pillar, and expertly jinked right to avoid a second one, all without slowing down one bit. Finally the idiot launched a fireball at the freight train headed his way, but the spell just bounced, I kid you not, it freaking _bounced_ off the shield like it was some damn rubber ball the nymphs play with. Is that why he didn't try lifting the bull into the air?

I shook the thoughts away as the bull finally closed the distance and brought his meter long sword in a horizontal sweep. The unicorn shouted in defiance and pulled a bloody zweihander out from the dust. My heart was trying to beat its way out of my chest as the unicorn caught the swing head on with his blade.

I caught Iron Fist leaning forward in his throne to watch too. The unicorn looked like he had wanted to deflect the strike but acted too slow and instead was locked in place trying to take the full brunt of the bull's strength. For what seemed like a minute, both guys tried to overpower the other. The raw power I could sense that the unicorn was pushing with his mana was something I thought only Mother could match.

The blades shifted so the tips were angled down to the ground and the hilts were up in the air. With the shift, the unicorn slowly moved backwards, presumably so he could break the sword-lock to renew the offensive, but the bull threw his shield at the unicorn before he could get too far. The almost meter long metal shield nearly clipped the unicorn's horn. When that failed, the bull grabbed the hilt of the pony's blade and ripped it out of his magic.

Before the stallion, or even I could comprehend what just happened, the minotaur closed in and cleaved both blades at the pony's neck. Morbid fascination locked my eyes in place as the tips of the blades carved into the dirt with the swords stopping just short of giving the pony a bit too much off the top. Both combatants looked up at us, and I only realized they were actually looking at King Bull a second later.

Iron Fist grunted approvingly and gave a thumbs down. In one smooth motion, the bull pulled his blades away, leaving the pony unharmed. I didn't think the big guy cared enough. The victor ran off to join his fellows in fighting the rest of the ponies while the unicorn walked out of the arena through one of the side exits that opened for him.

"I'd expect nothing less from my personal Guard." I turn to see King Bull leering at Rainbow. She did an admirable job looking indifferent. "They are the best warriors you have ever seen, no?"

Aunty discarded a collection of ribs and practically squee'd with delight at the platter of bacon that had been brought in by the servants especially for her. She promptly absconded with the whole thing and started going at it like she hadn't eaten for days. Eggs cost calories after all. "I guess. Everypo – one mows that moft," she finally remembered to swallow her food, "unicorns can't pat their head and rub their belly at the same time. Outmaneuvering a unicorn is far easier than using brute force."

I suppose that's true except for dexterity savants like Miss Rarity, but she doesn't have anywhere near the amount of raw magic power our hive does. Which… actually, is still weaker than the average unicorn, sans our queens and magus strains at least.

I could see that the battle was winding down as the last of the ponies surrendered, but not before dropping five more minotaurs to the dirt. Thankfully, only two of the gladiators were being taken off the field on stretchers. The crowd around me was whooping and hollering like they had a bit too much salt. Not that I would know what that feels like…

My ear twitched back as Cho'Gal spoke after guzzling half a tankard of red ale. "That's the problem with you spell slingers. You can either be weak and agile or clumsy and strong. Only earth ponies show any real challenge, because they understand real _strength_ ," the creep actually flexed at Aunty. Sexy rippling muscle aside, the guy had a point lost somewhere in all that testosterone.

Both Aunty and Twilight replied, but I didn't really hear it. I sat back into my chair and thought about the earth ponies who had been fighting. A bunch of them were able to match the minotaurs' hoofwork and strength, but I gotta say, having only their mouths to contend against two hands just wasn't fair. Sure I bet even a unicorn could outrun these two legged cows all day long, but up close and personal?

I spied some choice bits of beef, of all things, by the buffet table that a servant had rolled in and took a piece to keep my stomach from disturbing me. I find it hard to believe that these minotaurs would actually serve _beef,_ but I wasn't about to complain since they also had some steak sauces on the table too. Revenge is a dish best served with A1.

I tried to drown out some of the fanfare out on the arena floor as they cleaned the place up for a race. Focus, Aegis, focus. Okay, where was I? Right, the fight. So, I gotta say up front, I'm actually pretty shocked how good these cows were while fighting on two legs. I mean, I know some pegasi and even a few of my siblings can do that for a little bit, but their balance rested mostly on their wings, and we changelings can only fight with a rifle while doing that. Even then the kickback is crazy. There's just no way for our wings to compensate for a powder charge that's never the same.

And you can straight up forget trying to land any hard punches while buzzing around unless you're charging in. Last I checked, Granny's spies saw ol' Sticky Spit making a mass collection of void crystals, so we can expect them to counter our mages. I doubt she's the only queen going through an arms race. The whole jungle is one big powder keg, and ever since Momma revealed we can produce love, the fuse was lit.

So.

What does any good changeling do in the face of a changing world? We adapt, we throw the other queens a curve ball they won't see coming. I just wasn't sure how to do that… until now.

Sure we can build better tech, but the other queens would have to be brain dead to ignore our best strength. We needed something new, and I think these talking steaks just gave me the answer. We do what we've always done. Observe outsides species, and change ourselves with any adaptation we see as useful. The only question now was how to convince Momma to go along with this particular plan.

Speaking of Mommy Dearest, she pinged me to drag me back to the present just in time to witness her vigorously shaking King Bull's hand. "Then it's a deal, Queen Twilight Sparkle. I'll have the first shipment of ore and rare earths in Trottingham by the end of the week."

"Excellent, I'll inform my engineers to report to the castle immediately." Mother's aura brightened considerably. No doubt at the prospect of leaving the colosseum before any more blood sports started up.

As I expected. I knew Momma could find the right buttons to push to get what the hive needed, and Aunty was spot on with satisfying their need to speak warrior-to-warrior. As for me, it couldn't be too hard to convince Momma to go along with my idea. Every new generation of queen has to be one step up in evolution, right?


	37. Chapter 37

arc three: Culling of the hives

Reconstitution

Deep within a chittering hive of the Cresnox Jungle, chitin shelled changelings writhed in anticipation. Today was a day of truth. Deep in the bowels of their hive, a vast cavern housed over a thousand prisoners from Equestria alone. Every last one of them in that dim lit prison was encased in a green pod keeping them in a blissful dream.

Drones crawled all over the pods, making sure their chief sources of love remained alive and bountiful. Unwanted and forgotten by their own governments, the criminals satiated the boundless hunger of a trio of princess changelings situated in the center of the circular cave. Numerous love crystals, both full and drained laid scattered around the princesses while Queen Chrysalis herself silently studied her latest brood.

The princesses only partially resembled their mother. Chrysalis' signature black chitin covered the young changelings' neck, the upper forelegs, and the front half of their barrel. Chitin also covered the top of their hip, but the hind legs, lower forelegs, flanks, and face were all covered in light purple furry skin. Their translucent gossamer wings had a hint of blue to them, save for the leading edges baring stark crimson colors. Their deep emerald reptilian eyes were wide with a child's curiosity. Most of their manes and tails were colored dark purple, and had stripes of cerulean along the left-center.

All three of them looked up at their mother with wonder and a hint of fear. Sensing as much, Chrysalis knelt down to give them a caring hug. "There, there my little ones. You are always safe with momma."

Mimicking her love collectors was getting easier, and Chrysalis felt genuine warmth for the three little nymphs wrapped around her forelegs. She looked down at the nymph in the center. The little one's aura glowed in a way that was still novel to Chrysalis, an aura that emanated love. The rich syrupy flavor of intended love was unmistakable.

The nymph on the left gave her mother love as well, but Chrysalis' mood soured when the nymph on the right failed to produce love. The children noticed their mother's falling mood. Those that could produce love clung tightly to their mother, whimpering all the while. The love they were producing turned bitter with the flavor of fear. The third nymph couldn't understand why her mother was angry with her, and started whimpering for forgiveness.

 _Destroying this failure might be a mistake. I'll have to find another use for her._ Doing her best to look reassuring, Chrysalis stroked the third nymph's mane, calming all three of them in the process.

Buzzing wings brought Chrysalis' gaze up to two of her sisters' drones. Both of which were already puppets of their queens. "Yeelindrus, Jstrul, how fares your progeny?" While Jstrul's puppet was mostly calm, Yeelindrus' was seething.

"I've followed your first plan so far," Jstrul's puppet replied with mixed resentment. "All three are still producing love. I try to keep them together so they can feed each other. Thus far, they are responding well to instruction."

Chrysalis looked to her youngest sister's puppet with the obvious question on her lips. Yeelindrus grumbled, having never been able to hide her emotions through her puppet. Chrysalis' hardening look brought enough fear to break through the anger. "I have failed. Chiccadi doesn't produce love anymore. All three of my royal children are _worthless!"_ she hissed with barely contained malice. "I should just kill the useless love sinks."

"Must you always fail at everything," Jstrul sneered. Yeelindrus' puppet bolted forward to kill the other drone, but was stopped short by Chrysalis' telekinesis. "Not in front of the nymphs, dear sisters." The nymphs cowered around their mother. "This confirms my theory; both Twilight's blood and an overly caring upbringing are necessary. We cannot raise them like mother did us, if we want them to keep producing love."

Chrysalis levitated a few teething toys over and let the nymphs distract themselves. With their mother seemingly placated, the love they produced surged upward as they stayed close to Chrysalis for warmth and protection. The surge did not go unnoticed by Chrysalis.

"Yet mother's ways are what allowed us to thrive as queens," Jstrul stated defiantly while stamping a hoof on the ground. "This soft approach may allow them to produce love, but they will be failures as adults."

"She's right about that," Yeelindrus commented begrudgingly. "We are only alive today because mother's cruelty was necessary to survive the jungles, and I hate her for that."

"Which is why I allowed you to be the one to slit her throat," Chrysalis replied evenly so her own hatred would go unnoticed by the nymphs.

"So what do we do?" Jstrul half demanded of her elder sister. "Sneak back into the Everfree Forest to hypnotize one of Twilight's consorts again?"

Chrysalis summoned several caretakers to take the nymphs back to their chambers. "No, we don't have the time anymore. We must enact phase one now while the other queens think we are still marshalling our forces. We have been fortunate to hide our royal daughters thus far, but they will soon be old enough to send ripples through our respective hive minds."

Jstrul bowed to her older sister. "I will make preparations immediately."

"As will I, dear sister."

"One thing before I go," Jstrul said before she let go of her puppet. "What of Phoenix's Roost? You have yet to tell us what must be done with those two."

"Yes, we'll have enough trouble getting rid of the competition in the jungle as it is, the last thing we'll need are Equestrians sticking their snouts were they don't belong."

Chrysalis chuckled darkly at her sisters' concerns. "Never mind the hybrids. I will make sure they have no reason to interfere. We can deal with them once the jungle is ours."

* * *

Roughly a thousand miles north, pillars of smoke rose from the center of a huge swath of clear cut forest. Surrounding the concentrated mass of buildings in the center were sweeping fields of fallow farmlands that were now blanketed in several feet of snow. Even with a cadre of drones using earth pony magic, none of them had mastered the art of a winter growing season. Their only source of food outside of trade, were two greenhouse airships, and they could never produce enough.

Winter was in full swing in Equestria, and the Everfree forest, it seemed, wanted to outdo the pony driven storm systems by dumping four times as much snow than any weather team would ever permit. Rainbow Dash often commented how the Forest's wild nature was taunting both pony and changeling alike with harsher untameable weather.

Amidst the soot and snow covered hive, Twilight Sparkle was starting to suffer a migraine over the figures she, Gentle Touch, and half a dozen other accountants were going over. Of all the changeling hives in existence, only two ever had need for currency, and the all mighty bit was always in short supply in Phoenix's Roost.

Within a cramped room in her palace, Twilight Sparkle wiped her brow of sweat to keep the ledger she was crouched over dry. A wall vent pumped hot air into the squarish room, giving the five bean-counting changelings a comparatively rare comfort. Aside from the gentle sound of scribbling quills, and the droning vent, abacuses ticked constantly.

Twilight Sparkle didn't like what she saw in the numbers, but she was never one to shy away from hard evidence. "We'll have to cut the PR campaign entirely. There's no way we can afford it anymore." _Not if RD and I wish to keep our egg production at full._

Gentle Touch sighed in agreement, but one of the younger accountants looked up from his work and spoke with a cautionary tone. "Are you sure that is wise, my queen? Our original estimates said it would take another five years or so before we achieve the same level of acceptance as griffins or donkeys have in the eyes of the typical pony. Cutting it off now could prolong that effort by a decade."

"We'll just have to keep our progress going with normal interactions from here on," Gentle Touch replied diplomatically. She had been the one to originally suggest cutting the program, and she gave an internal sigh of relief that her queen had finally came around.

"If we're going along those lines, my queen," piped up another accountant, "we might want to reevaluate Princess Luna's proposal to arm the Night Guard with the rifles she requested."

"For the last time, Ticket Counter…" Twilight pinched her muzzle as a migraine started hammering from inside her skull. "…We may not have much choice, will we?" The fear of her rifles and cannons ending up in the hands of armies across the continent had stayed her hoof at selling weapons up until now, but the hive's future was at stake. _I don't want us start mooching off of Equestria by asking for hoof-outs._

This was the first time Twilight had shown hesitation on this matter, giving Ticket Counter the courage he needed. Even then, he knew to be careful. "We keep it restricted to the Equestrian military only. We _are_ allied with them after all."

Twilight had one of the other accountants adjust his overall estimates. "It would go a long way, but Luna's request was fairly small. It won't be enough."

Having his championed proposal accepted, Ticket wisely resumed his seat. He left it to others to come forward, and he didn't have to wait long. The youngest accountant, a mare by the name of Dividends, started speaking while rechecking her findings on a scroll. "Then what about stopping egg production entirely." Twilight felt a chill at the suggestion. "Our biggest expenditure by far is food and nursery maintenance."

"We can't afford to stop now," Twilight replied with forced emotionlessness. She couldn't afford to let emotions drive this decision. "We need as many drones as possible for supporting Stripped Gear when the other queens go to war."

"With all due respect, my queen," Dividends pressed with more than a little worry at giving the proposal. It was common knowledge among the hive that both queens relished laying eggs every day. "We also need war materials to support grandmother even more so than we need soldiers at this point. Not to mention that in all likelihood, any eggs you or Aunty lay from here on will contribute nothing to the war by the time they're adults."

Twilight sighed wearily. Her queenly instincts to lay eggs had been sated for three years straight. The idea of lessening her laying rate shook her badly. Leveraging her experience, Twilight silenced that ill-at-ease from projecting too far over the Link. "Okay, cutting back on egg production _would_ allow us to ease up on several other restrictions." _We could afford repurposing factory two back to war production which would allow us to manufacture the supplies Rainbow's been too embarrassed to ask for._ "But we still have to think long term. I'll talk to Rainbow about curbing production down to one fourth."

Gentle Touch listened to the group hurry to reallocate the various budgets. She joined in the activity as well. It wasn't long before an idea to occur to her. She looked up to Twilight who was visibly less tense, and was actually chuckling a little. _Seems like her quick discussion with Rainbow Dash went well. But if we're going to start selling more than just manufactured civic goods to Equestria…_ "Curbing egg production is a great start, my queen," Twilight and a few others turned to listen. As Twilight's chief advisor, Gentle's words carried almost as much weight as either queen. "But I must press the need to seriously consider the implications of accepting Luna's request. We may only be equipping and supplying her Night Guard at the moment, should Equestria be brought into a… peacekeeping action, we may have to shift more of our industrial base to war production. Ever since the dragon matriarch's assassination, seemingly by a group of ponies, our alliance has been on high alert. If—"

"Spike will never let a war break out," Twilight cut in with stern belief. "Put more faith in my little brother than that." A pang of pride and longingness traced her thoughts.

 _I knew she'd react this way, but I had to voice it._ Gentle Touch raised her hooves in defeat and sat back down.

Twilight's eyes recentered on the ledger, but her mind was on her scaly brother in Canterlot. _If he hadn't stayed with the last Great Dragon migration while I was searching for Rookhaven, he'd never have had enough clout with the rest of the dragonkin to act as an ambassador. I_ know _Chrysalis was behind the assassination, but there's no damn proof. Awfully convenient timing when mother's spies tell me things are about to blow up in the jungle. I just wish her pride and posturing didn't keep her from emigrating up here, or at least into the southern Chaos Lands._

The room settled back into relative silence. The overarching adjustments to the budget may have been decided upon, but the minute details still needed work. Before Twilight could dive too deeply into the wonderously exciting world of budget balancing, a strong pulse resonated throughout the hive mind. Having heard it once before, Twilight instantly knew what it was. _Aegis is waking, at last._

* * *

All along the northwestern fields, two hundred changelings marched in step with their rifles strapped to their sides. A group of five drill sergeants made sure the mixed group of lavender and light blue drones moved in tight formation.

Trying her best to ignore the bone-bitingly frigid winds, Rainbow Dash observed the first company of riflelings that had an even mix between Twilight's and Rainbow's drones. Strapped across her back and in-between her buzzing wings, Rainbow Dash bore the weight of a particular flamethrower. Its name was engraved above the trigger guard: 'Burny'.

While Rainbow had prepared and polished the weapon for the main event expected to occur before sundown, her primary focus was on the stone faced riflelings below. A group of thirty were alternating between marching on the ground in tight shoulder to shoulder formation and flying in a loose rectangle. The platoon she was focusing on at the moment had smoothly transitioned from a sprint around the inner hive to marching on the ground. _They're finally starting to shape up._ The small grin she had faltered when a number of her children fumbled in rearing up into firing stance along a line formation. _Slowly, at least._ At the order to open fire, the front rank's wings buzzed in a short burst of heavy force to counteract the expected recoil. The wind pushed the back rank's rifles up, and some of them off their hooves entirely. _They keep getting messed up by the soldier in front of them. I keep forgetting you can't just brain dump my skill with handling turbulence into them. I'm going to have to find a way to correct that. There's got to be a better way than to just 'guess' how much wingpower to use._

Shouting from the sergeants got everyone to get back in line within seconds to repeat the exercise. At the NCOs' order, the soldiers' first rank fired out into the open field, yet all anyone got was a resounding series of 'clicks'. The back row recovered slightly faster from the first rank's backwash. Another single word order commanded the first rank to kneel and begin using their telekinesis to mimic reloading, while the rank behind them dry fired as well.

Rainbow Dash couldn't help but to drag a hoof over her face out of exasperation. _Why did I have to pressure Twi so much to upgrade the army's standard firearm to rifles? What good is a better weapon if we can't even afford the powder and ball to train anypony to use them?!_ The poor state of the training program brought Rainbow's insistence on retrofitting the _Deception_ to the forefront of her mind. It was only recently that Rainbow came to realize just how expensive upgrading a warship actually was. _Every day it sits in dry dock is another shipment it can't make. At least the ship will be ready to launch in a week or so. Maybe I should just tell Sis that I'll stop egg production so we can begin cutting food costs._

As with Twilight a few minutes later, Rainbow Dash felt her gut twist at the idea of lower her egg rate, let alone stopping it all together. It had become too much a part of her daily life, the thought of diminishing the growth of her children made her feel cold inside. "Stupid Summit. I knew the love reveal was big, but… We should be pouring our money into growing the hive, a thriving community, not a damned army!"

Fast movement off to the right caught Rainbow's eye, and lifted her spirits a little. Flying in a chevron formation, three squadrons of Rainbow's children engaged each other in a dogfight with two squads of purple drones hovering below to catch anyone who fell. Rainbow could feel the excitement, competitiveness, and snarkiness of her fliers, with a dash of fear added in. _A fear of losing. I know that feeling_ all _too well._ Rainbow Dash let a proud grin cross her muzzle at the stunts her drones were pulling. Even if these drones were from unaltered clutches during Rainbow's proto-queen stage, some of them were already proving stronger fliers than others.

Had she been her old self, Rainbow would have trumped it up to old fashioned drive to win, but Queen Rainbow Dash had to think more deeply on it. The longer she watched her prized fliers, the more curious she became. _If they're clones of me, then why are some better than others? Diet? More exercise? Is it possible that maybe they aren't one hundred percent clones after all?_

A pulse across the hive mind brought a huge, fang-filled toothy grin to her face. "Looks like Aegis is finally done baking." Rainbow's horn glowed brightly before she winked out existence, and reappeared near the Cave of Harmony. While black and grey pillars of smoke were starting to be a permanent fixture in the skies above, the ground and soil was meticulously cared for and cleansed by the Tea'la.

In fact, five Tea'la were in plant form around the entrance to the cave, both on the floor, and the top of the cave along the wall. They were held fast by their roots going deep. Their pollen absent during these frigid months. The Tea'la remained as guardians around the Tree, protecting both it and the changelings young from anything that may harm either.

Rainbow Dash nearly ran into Arya who was about to settle into plant form herself in one particularly inviting beam of sunlight she had just cleared of snow. "Oh, Ruler Rainbow!" She ran over, bringing the prismatic queen to an impatient halt. "Have you told sister about idea?"

Rainbow Dash could sense her sister was already down in the nursery. Aegis was moments from waking. It took monumental effort to avoid making excuses to brush the Tea'la off. "Arya, we've always made sure the soil anywhere near the Tree has been pollution free, and the new factories will not jeopardize that." Arya raised a hoof and made to speak as Rainbow tried to leave, but Rainbow cut her off. "No, we still don't have a budget to build a shield dome to capture the air pollution. You'll have to do without it for a few more years or so. We're not going to be able to put enough focus into civilian needs until the shit storm down in the jungle either blows over or after it explodes. We'll be glad to build the air scrubbers once it's all over. Now, bye see ya later!"

Arya huffed as Rainbow sped off into the underground nursery. "So much fear of battle. I'd think she need bed mate, but she get one every day." With nothing else to do at the moment, Arya cantered back over to the sunbeam and began to root herself. "When does fear end, and living begin?"

Rainbow left a prismatic contrail behind her on her path to the nursery. She blitzed past several drones before her wings kicked up a small tornado to come to a stop at the closed door to the nursery. Once the wind died down, she slammed a hoof on the wall panel to open the door. The massive chamber beyond still gave Rainbow pause, even after nearly four years of being a queen.

Inside were over three and a half thousand chrysalises, with an even split between lavender and blue pods. They were all attached in huge rows stretching two hundred chrysalises each. Massive reinforced concrete pillars bent the rows in a slight concave and supported the arched roof above. Catwalks, feed tubes, and steam pipes crisscrossed everywhere in an OCD level of organization and neatness.

 _With Twi's drones running the show down here, I'm shocked they don't have all of my kids on one side, and her kids on the other._

Casting the thought aside, Rainbow flew up and into one of the holes in the dense rows of pods left for safe flight. She sailed past thirty columns and took a sharp right to arrive at the hatching and cocooning center. Even with Aegis emerging from her chrysalis, other caretakers had to make sure the day's twenty four nymphs were safely enclosed in their chrysalises before moving them to vacant spots later.

A small crowd had gather around the hatching area. Rainbow Dash saw her sister was already present, along with Aegis' clutchmates. "Noo, I'm late! I'm _late,_ **cuuuurrrsssses!** " By the time Rainbow finally landed with a heavy thud, Aegis was already trying to stand on shaky hooves while Intel and Ferrum helped her stand. The new princess looked exactly as she used to, save for possessing royal eyes and being a centimeter or two shorter than when she entered the cocoon. Aegis looked around at the gathered changelings right as Rainbow Dash flew over to hover beside her. "Hey kiddo, how was your nap?"

"Umm, very good, my queen," Aegis replied with more than a little trepidation in her tone. "I guess."

"Here, my daughter," Twilight levitated a head-sized pale teal crystal shaped like the center starburst of Twilight's cutie mark. Aegis' confusion was painfully evident on both her face and emotional aura. "Before you entered your metaphormosis, you transcribed your memories into crystals like this." Aegis took the crystal into her magic as Twilight surrendered it. At a silent command from Rainbow, everyone else gave the new princess some room.

"My memories are in that thing? Is that why I can't remember anything before today?" Aegis' wings buzzed at the irritating purple fluid covering her completely.

Rainbow Dash made sure to hide Burny behind her back for the moment and stepped forward to speak reassuringly. "Not exactly." She gently tapped Aegis' head. "They never left, they're just hiding. Before entering your pod, you said to use this one first."

"Umm, okay." Aegis rotated the crystal in her magic to study it. Truth be told, she had no idea how to use it. A knowing glance from Twilight towards her sister gave Rainbow Dash the go ahead to gift Aegis the simple knowledge required.

Aegis glanced at Rainbow as the knowledge passed between them, but silent encouragement from both queens gave her every reason to trust them. The highly familiar two lavender drones behind her also nodded towards the crystal. She looked back at the gem with a mental shrug. _Well, it's not like I have anything else to do, except shower._

The crystal glowed with faint purple light as Aegis linked her mind with it. She gasped and her eyes widened as memories flooded into her: her last day as a drone, her dreams, along with her most important memories of Twilight, Rainbow, and her clutchmates. Various other crucial bits and pieces that Drone Aegis felt were critical to reestablish her personality as quickly as possible.

It took a minute to fully dive into the contents of the crystal and the moment her magic left the device, Aegis fainted to the deck. Intel and Ferrum were quick to pick her back up as Twilight used her magic to scan the princess' snout for injury. "I feared as much. Such a sharp intake of important memories would require a short reboot."

Ferrum hefted his sticky royal sister onto his back. "How long will she be out? Not another six months I hope."

Rainbow Dash let off a snarky chuckle. "Hardly. She'll be out of it long enough for us to clean her up in the showers. She should be up around the time we finish drying her off."

In short order, the two queens and two drones got Aegis washed up and dry. Yet Aegis slept through that as well. So she was brought up to her new quarters, adjacent to Twilight and Rainbow's own in the reformed heart of the _Ashes of the Phoenix_ : Phoenix Castle. The venerable colony ship had been broken down into pieces, save for this section. Deck plating had been reformed to convert the section to a rather plain, rectangular castle, bereft of any real exterior artwork. Rarity's plans for decorating the exterior had, sadly, never been fit into the budget.

Aegis awoke on a queen sized bed an hour later. Intel was sitting at the foot of the bed while reading a book. Ferrum was passing the time oiling Riposte's blade. Rainbow Dash and Twilight were meditating on floor cushions. The prismatic queen had taken the flamethrower off and laid it down in front of her.

"Burny!" All eyes shot towards the blur of purple that bolted forward and scooped the weapon up. Aegis hugged the flamethrower tightly, nuzzling and kissing Burny all over. "I missed you so much!"

Twilight Sparkle huffed in exasperation. _Great, I've got a pyromaniac for a royal daughter. I had half hoped she'd forget that, but at least she's happy._

A supremely sour expression marred Ferrum's features as he turned to Intel. "I can't believe of everypony here, she goes for the flamer first."

Missing her brother's comment, Aegis looked up to her queens. "Momma, Aunty! I'd say I missed you, but it only feels like I went into the cocoon yesterday."

Snickering all the while, Twilight wrapped her first hatchling up in a bear hug. The purple queen relished Aegis' return to the waking world. "Well we certainly missed you."

Aegis yelped as a cyan hoof ruffed up her mane. "I figured you'd want your hot coltfriend to be the first thing you see."

Rainbow Dash joined in the hug with Intel and Ferrum joining the love buffet shortly thereafter. Aegis' massive thirst for love was quickly slaked within seconds, but the five changelings remained in the loving embrace for over a minute before it broke. Now free of the tangle of limbs, Aegis turned to her siblings, with her eyes centering on Intel.

"By, the First Mother, you finally switched back to mare!" Intel rubbed the back of her head in mild embarrassment at Aegis' enthusiasm. "When did that happen?"

"About two weeks before you went in the pod yourself. Apparently you still don't remember that."

"Oh," Aegis chuckled nervously. "I'm sure I left it in one of my other memory crystals. Can you tell me why you went back to your old self?"

Intel's ears flicked a bit in thought. "Well with you leaving the Jevruun Vrunningee, and my promotion to your old position, I went over our best troops to bring our squad back up to full strength since Riposte's… retirement." Although the pain of their beloved brother's death had been blunted to near imperceivable levels by time and the Days of Mourning, Intel still felt reverence to the fallen was called for. "Counterspell will be taking over magical support, and Thunderfury has taken up the last spot. And since I fully champion asymmetrical arms doctrine, it didn't make sense to have all four of us as stallions, so I switched, simple as that."

Aegis' ears wilted slightly at the reasoning. "And here I hoped you did it for more than practicality." Intel tilted her head briefly with a lopsided grin. Aegis hummed in contemplation. She would have turned to catch up with Ferrum, but enough of her old captain's mindset was present that it forced her to look into the replacements. "Thunderfury? I don't remember him."

"He's one of my first hatchlings," Rainbow Dash stated with fathomless pride. "He may not have had much of a chance to show it in real combat, but he's fine addition to your old squad."

Ferrum chuckled lightly. "He's coarse and unrefined, but he's got your speed in spades, Aunty."

* * *

The group chatted the afternoon away and through lunch, before the needs of the hive required the attention of the queens. Before either queen could leave, Ferrum and Intel made for the door, but Aegis called out to the latter. "So, sis, now that you're a mare again, does that mean you took your full name back?"

Intel hung by the door with a smile on her face. "I admit, Intel 'La Gence didn't sound like a stallion's name. But since that's no longer a problem, then yes I will." She smirked at Aegis' obvious approval before turning to the queenly pair. "My queens."

As Intel 'la Gence departed, both Twilight and Rainbow's mood shifted to queen mode. Aegis climbed off the bed to stand before her queens in an equally serious manner. She may have only accessed a few crystals, but she could easily tell when it was time for business.

"Now, Aegis," Twilight began with a flat stern tone. "I suppose it should be obvious, but I feel it needs to be stated to punctuate the fact. Your life as a drone and bodyguard is over."

Rainbow Dash smoothly started talking as Twilight fell quiet. "You've got two jobs to do before you mature into a proto-queen."

"First," Twilight continued, "you have to expand your fields of expertise. As you are undoubtedly aware, you are removed from all normal duties. I'll be training you personally on matters of magic and civic rule."

"And while you may not think it once you finish recovering the rest of your memories," Rainbow Dash cut with perfect timing. "You are in need of at least a cursory understanding of large scale military tactics. Not only for the day you form your own hive, but also for our current military forces. When the war breaks out in the jungle, and we expect that it will happen sooner rather than later, you'll be my direct lieutenant."

Each task laid before her only stoked Aegis' determination even further. She stood tall with her wings raised and her head held high. _This is what I fought for. They're not saying anything I didn't already expect. Mother has put so much trust and faith in me to grant me royal blood. I promise you this, my queens, I will not fail you._ Aegis made sure to keep her eyes fixed on which ever queen was speaking at the time. "And what is my second task?"

Rainbow gave her sister a 'this is all yours' look and remained quiet. Twilight's expression turned a touch harder. "I don't know if you can tell, as you really haven't had a chance to walk around. Your rebirth was a complete success. From my last scans of your chrysalis, I was able to grant you most of the alterations you wanted. I assume the form you wanted was in your first memory crystal."

"Oh yeah." Aegis searched herself, and felt the new muscle memory Twilight had implanted in her. Pushing off with her forelegs, Aegis merely thought to stand on her hind legs. The muscles and bones in her legs felt stronger and thicker. She had only been barely aware of the difference until now. Even though she felt uneasy with her new posture, she could already tell her reshaped legs and backbone could handle an upright posture quite comfortably. Aegis had a stupid grin on her face at looking upon the room at such a high standing vantage point, for about half a second.

Aegis was unable to compensate for a sudden shift in her balance, and face planted the ground before anyone could catch her. "Ooow!"

Rainbow Dash snickered as the new princess rubbed her head with her hooves. Rainbow used her magic to help the ailing changeling sit up on her haunches. "I know flying and walking on four legs is easy, but we have no innate reference for bipedal movement, so you're going to have to learn that on your own."

"Owwie… Well that can't be too bad."

"I hope so," Twilight used her magic to help her daughter back onto four hooves. She could see Aegis' whole skeleton returning to its normal form within seconds. "Unfortunately, minotaurs don't exactly believe in physical therapy, so we were out of luck on that end."

"Just makes life more interesting this way," Aegis assured while trying to hide her mild ill-at-ease under several layers of excitement. "But I noticed my front hooves didn't change at all. Wasn't I supposed to get hands and fingers like a minotaur?"

Twilight groaned out of disappointment. "There was only so much I could do in good conscience. The goal I had in mind was to grant you both quad and bipedal locomotion, but without any noticeable difference between you and any other changeling while you're on four legs. Reworking both your skeletal structure and musculature to support both four and two legged movement was far more difficult and complicated than I originally imagined." Twilight's sour expression melted into a short lived grin as she bent down to inspect her daughter's legs. It brought her no small amount of pride to see Aegis had shaped up so well. "I got the idea for toes from Spike. Despite his age, he's shown some remarkable hoof - er well, _foot_ work at times that I've never see out of a minotaur." Her expression fell. "Sadly after multiple tests with a robotic mock up, toes were proving to be quite troublesome while you're on four legs. So I had to leave your hooves as they are. In addition, I couldn't give you cloven hooves, like a minotaur, without sacrificing your wall walking abilities."

Twilight's horn glowed softly as she cast a spell to ease her daughter's pained snout, and stood back up. "As for the front hooves, hands and fingers are criminally impossible to accomplish with alchemy. Between adjusting your musculature to reshaping your skeleton, the alchemy between those and forming hands causes far too many incompatibilities to accomplish." Aegis looked on with wilted ears as Twilight watched her with sad eyes. "It was either bipedal locomotion, or hands and feet. I felt the former was more important than the latter. I might be able to figure it out eventually, but by the time I did, you'd have died of old age."

"You should have seen her," Rainbow commented with subtle praise. "Sis had half the caretakers and twenty scientists tied up for two years giving you what you have. From what I remember, Granny Cadista and Yumia usually worked alone on alchemical research, but time is of the essence."

"Crazy." Even with her spotty memory, Aegis knew her siblings were brilliant scientists. She knew her changes were far outside the norm, but had assumed it was simple for her mother to accomplish. "Well, I guess I have something to shoot for the day I can make a royal daughter of my own someday."

As Aegis studied her legs, Twilight and Rainbow glanced at each other. It's sort of scary, don't you think Twi? Of how many changelings we'll give rise to? Not just from us directly, but of all the royal daughters we'll have over the course of our lives?

It is. Which is why we have to raise every royal daughter the best way possible. We may not be Equestrians any longer, but we must make sure its ideals live on.

Aegis was broken out of her study when point Rainbow Dash piped up. "There's only one problem with the alterations my sister's implemented." Aegis' face scrunched and her wings quivered out of sudden worry.

Twilight Sparkle hated to say it, but she had learned long ago to own her failures. "After Cadista came over to check my work on you…" Twilight swallowed a lump in her throat. "She discovered your genetic code is so different from the rest of us, that you are unable to access any known alchemical strains for your future brood."

Aegis' face fell and her lip quivered bit. "Y-you mean my strain is a failure? How can I be a proper queen, let alone have functioning hive, if I can't access different strains?!"

Twilight didn't bother trying to spread Aegis' mounting despair across the hive mind to blunt the impact. _We royals have to shoulder our decisions and their consequences._ "It will be difficult, but the other races of the world get along just fine with only one general form, the minotaurs, griffins, and zebras to name a few."

"But it's not our way," Aegis insisted with barely contained panic. "I'd be a laughing stock!"

" _Our_ way is to _adapt,_ as well as to evolve," Rainbow Dash reminded her with an edge of steel. Aegis looked up at her aunt with reddening eyes. "The extent of your alterations is deep, but you are not alchemically inert. You may not be able to use any existing templates, but this is hardly unheard of among our people. Granny Caddy said there have been several cases where a successful queen had been advanced too far for currently known alchemy."

"Such as when Mother and Yumia shed their chitin in lieu of endoskeletons. Like them, you'll have to completely rewrite alchemy from scratch to work with your particular strain." Twilight tried to sound reassuring, yet it was having only limited success with Aegis. _Maybe a joke will work?_ "Just be glad your expected lifespan gained a zero."

It wasn't the end of the world, but it was close. Aegis sat on her haunches with her vision fixed on her back legs, the source of her miserable state. "I take it there's no chance I can be reborn into a more malleable strain?"

"It's entirely possible," Twilight admitted evenly. _Just prohibitively expensive in reagents._ She draped a caring hoof along her daughter's back. "You championed this evolutionary direction for two months before I caved in. I'm sure you will regain that stance once you finish restoring your memories. As such, Rainbow and I feel it would be a disservice to you, to not give you a chance to make this work."

Aegis nodded slightly as Rainbow interjected. "And by work, we mean for your entire hive. It would be one thing to have a bunch of drones with two legs, but for this to be the baseline template for an entire hive…" Rainbow Dash sucked in air between clinched teeth. "Meh, you, my little Aegy, have proven to be inventive if nothing else. If anypony can prove your template can work as a baseline, it'd be you."

Aegis' brow furrowed as her mother stepped back to resume fully regal posture. "Then it looks like I have work to do. How long do I have to prove this can work for a queen?"

"Five, maybe six years," Twilight answered with a definitive tone. "Even before finding out about the alchemy issue, you agreed to undergo a second rebirth into a less… radical evolution, should your alterations prove untenable."

"Huh," Aegis searched her scant few memories. "That's longer than you two had."

Both queens laughed at their own expense. Rainbow Dash wiped a tear away, still giggling. "You didn't honestly think we'd push you into a one month trial period did you? 'Cause you've always been a ling, it was possible to make sure you had a more natural royal maturation pace. Not to mention we would rather have you become a queen during a time of peace."

"Ah… well, that sounds perfectly reasonable. Still, considering the track record you two have, I wanted to double check," Aegis replied with a sheepish grin. Rainbow rolled her eyes. "But that sounds more than fair to me." She looked down at her forelegs. "I guess I can try to find something else to make up for the lack of fingers and toes."

"I have every confidence you will, my daughter. I set aside a very reasonable budget for you to do just that."

"Try not to go over it," Rainbow added teasingly. Yet Aegis could tell she was very worried. As to what, she couldn't tell.

Twilight hummed in agreement. "For now though, the two of us have matters of state to tend to which can't wait any longer, and you need time to learn how to walk again."

"Yeah, don't trip up!" Rainbow snarked playfully as she started gathering mana on her horn. "I'll send Resta up here to assist you." Without further ado, both queens' horns lit up and they teleported out of the room.

"Can do," Aegis said with sarcasm to match her Aunt. She looked down at her back legs with a scowl. "You two cost a ton more than I ever thought you would." Wrapping her forelegs around the bed, Aegis forced herself to stand back up on two legs. "So I need to make sure it was worth it." Now that Aegis was back on two legs, she took a minute to notice her legs were in the same shape of the minotaurs they were based on.

"Quality work." She could feel the untrained muscle was strong and could move quite smoothly, should she learn how to walk properly. "Even when I figure all this out," she looked at her left fore hoof, "there's no point to it if I can't make hands out of you."

Aegis kept one hoof on the side of the bed and looked around her room. A workbench caught her attention. "If momma couldn't figure out an alchemical way do that, then maybe I can get an engineer to find a mechanical answer."

A few minutes and three faceplants later, Aegis wobbled on two legs with only one hoof on the bed. Inch by agonizing inch, she slowly let go of the bed. Aegis had stood on two legs before, but only with her tail and buzzing wings to keep her steady. She couldn't exactly get rid of her tail, but she kept her wings firmly planted against her barrel to keep from cheating.

By now, her forelegs were outwardly extended, moving back and forth along with her tail to keep upright. "Well, I think mother's improved muscle memory seems to be working." Her balance shifted, causing her to flail wildly to keep from falling. "Maybe not as good as I had hoped."

A knock on the door and a ping over the hive mind distracted her just enough to keel over completely. Aegis firmly planted her snout into the carpeted floor. "Ah the floor, how are you my old friend?" Come on in.

Resta poked her head in and heard the pained princess moaning on the floor, unmoving. "Have I come at a bad time, sister?"

"Noooo…" Aegis peeled her bruised nose off the floor and grabbed the bed again to stand back up. "But if this keeps up, I might need you to bandage me up."

Resta fully entered the room to stand by her royal sister's side. "Then it's a good thing our aunt informed me to bring a first aid kit. Her faith in this little venture is well known." Aegis was back up and trying to find her balance again. "I guess I'll just stay here and babysit you and catch you if you try to fall again."

"Trust me doc, I'm not tryyy!" Aegis's miserable snout was inches from a painful revisit to the floor, but Resta's magic brought her back up. "Heh, thanks."

"Of course, my princess."

Aegis thought there might have been a ghost of sarcasm in the medic's tone. She tried to sniff it out, but Resta concealed it well, if it was ever there to begin with. The rest of the day and the following weeks would be quite difficult indeed.

* * *

In Canterlot Castle, Luna was in her chambers burning the midday oil when a thestral messenger slipped in and bowed before her scroll covered desk. "Princess Luna, I bear a message from the explorer hired for the western coasts. The seal is marked for your eyes only."

Luna's tired eyes narrowed at the news. "Very well, hoof it over."

The Night Guard removed the scroll from his folded wing with his teeth before Luna wrapped it in her telekinesis. She promptly broke the seal and started reading. Her eyes widened at their contents, but soon settled in for playful curiosity. "Sergeant, have somepony go fetch Rolled Scroll and my sister. It seems there is a new wrinkle in the fabric of our world."


	38. Chapter 38

A Mechanical Solution to an Alchemical Problem

Princess Luna loomed in her darkened abode within Canterlot Castle. Her personal study had just barely enough candlelight to allow her to read comfortably with her heightened night vision. Overburdened bookshelves lined two of the walls while the third held the focus of her attention; a massive and detailed map of the known world. Her desk occupied the wall near the door out of an old paranoid habit of never having her back to the door for any real length of time.

Celestia was seated at a small round table sipping tea, with Luna's untouched cup resting nearby. Luna was pouring over the charts and letters her field agent had sent her barely an hour ago as Celestia observed the grand map from a distance. "You know sister, I would be glad to assist you in updating the maps if you brightened the room enough for me to see my hoof in front of my face."

"The dark helps me think," Luna mused quietly. _But I could use some help to speed things along._ With a brief flash of her horn, several oil lanterns floated out from one of the bookshelves and arrayed themselves to hang from empty hooks on the ceiling. Luna smirked playfully at her distracted sister and flicked the lantern on all at once, blasting the room into midday brightness.

"Much better, thank you." Celestia drank the last of her tea with Luna pouting slightly at not getting any sort of reaction out of her supposed to be blinded sister. "I have to say, this plan of yours is quite ingenious, if a bit dangerous. I only wish we could be sure that the contingency plan won't backfire on us."

Luna's reply was caught short by a knock on the door, followed by a thestral guard's head poking inside. "Ambassadors Rolled Scroll and Blue Flare are waiting outside."

Luna eagerly turned away from the map at the news of the arrival of her two favorite ambassadors. "Excellent, send them in."

With a nod, the guard retreated and swung the door open wide to reveal the oddest pair of diplomats Equestria had seen in living memory. Rolled Scroll was a known sight among the royal courts, and his appearance was the principal reason why. He was effeminate to the point of being able to pass off as a mare, and did so quite often. While his manner of dress was always tactful, it wasn't exactly welcome among the staunchly traditionalist nobility. A fact Twilight found most amusing, as such she gave her son carte blanche to dress as he wished. Only the industrial and technological power of Phoenix's Roost gave his words the heavy weight they carried among the nobility.

Blue Flare by contrast was a strong and tall mare that carried a profound sense of beauty with her. She leveraged her mother-given rainbow mane to great effect to accent the bright colors of her flowing gown dress. Flare carried herself with almost artificially perfected grace.

While the mannerisms of the two changelings, who always acted together, might confuse all but the wisest and most knowledgeable of the Royal Sister's courtiers, Celestia understood them within two days of Flare's introduction. _The first to represent the drones, and the other their queens, a mystery Twilight left for others to discover._ She nodded her head in respect. "Thank you for coming, ambassadors."

"A pleasure as always, your highness," Flare purred with a wink to her lavender counterpart and a curtsy.

"How might the hive be of service?" Scroll continued with his falsetto voice and a deep bow.

Luna grabbed a pointing baton, but held it under her wing for now. "This will take a bit, so you might want to grab a seat." With a nod, both changelings took the satin cushions surrounding the tea table and sat down so they could easily observe the map. Luna noticed the changelings were sitting as close to each other as possible. Celestia offered them tea, to which both accepted with gratitude. Once everyone was ready and listening, Luna levitated several scrolls from her desk. "A few years ago, I sent a pair of explorers to map out the western coastline and terrain. Unofficially, it was to investigate the rumors of ghost ships in the area.

"They were ordered to instantly report anything that was out of the ordinary straight away. However, that never happened. At first, I assumed they had completed their survey of the coast without incident and simply moved on to chart the still unknown interior of the Endless Forest.

"It was an expedition expected to last two years before they returned to civilization to resupply and deliver their findings."

"I take it, the due date came and went," Blue Flare said between sips of tea. "I hope it was a simple mix up."

"That might be wishful thinking," Celestia replied with carefully concealed unease. "From what I've read of the reports, we now know there's a new civilization taking root on our western shores."

Rolled Scroll hummed inquisitively while Blue Flare's eyes glinted at the news. _Auntie Twi would love to see a new civ._ "Who are they? More ponies or a new species entirely?"

"A new race, and we have reason to believe they're carnivorous." Luna shuffled through the papers as her sister spoke before finding a few drawings and levitating them over to the drones. "So you might end up with some competition in the meat market," Celestia teased ever so subtly.

Flare took the document in her magic for both changelings to study. The parchment was torn in places, with a drop of blood or two on some of them. The drawings themselves were done in charcoal. The first few illustrations Rolled Scroll saw were separate body parts. A hastily drawn wing akin to that of a griffin barely registered to him, nor did the feline hind quarters and tail.

Yet it was the simian frontal features and fascinating head that brought a curious coo out of him. The very rough sketches revealed flat faces, absurdly small eyes, and a mouth that seems too small for a carnivore. _Well, it's not like I'm a biologist._ "What a strange creature indeed. Are they long lost cousins of the griffins, by chance?"

"That I can't tell you," Luna replied with more than a little irritation. "I lost contact with my agent shortly after these missives arrived by dragon fire."

"Dragon fire?" Blue blurted out with surprise. "Those are some expensive candles, your highness."

"I'm more worried about the pony," Luna replied with cool fire. The inexperienced drone sunk in her cushion a little at the implied reprimand. "I'm assuming he, like the explorers I sent before, was taken by these things."

"That is what I'm afraid of," Celestia butted in smoothly to give her sister time to cool off. "We need to handle the matter delicately. We can only hope that both the explorers and the scout were unharmed."

Rolled Scroll sized up the alien creatures, but sadly there was no scale or units of measurement to go by. "I know mother would jump at the chance to visit a new species." He chuckled darkly with a hoof over his mouth while looking at his blue counterpart. "We wouldn't exist without mother's scholarly curiosity about new races now would we?"

Eager to put her faux pas behind her, Blue Flare jumped at the lifeline Scroll gave her. "The hive is at the ready to assist you in this matter, in whatever manner we can give."

"Glad to hear it," Celestia replied warmly to reassure Blue, and to keep Luna from giving the drone a verbal lashing. "Now, while it is traditional for either Luna or myself to personally lead first diplomatic contact, we want to have some insurance in case these beings are unwilling to act rationally."

"In what form, if I may ask?" Scroll replied already expecting the answer to follow.

Luna allowed herself a predatory grin. "Your flagship."

* * *

Sadly, that flagship was held up in dry dock for ten more days before it was declared fit for service again. Most of the seven months it had been laid up was for an overhaul and upgrade of several systems, mostly revolving around the engines and replacement cloak crystals. As a result, the ship ran much smoother, and allowed the gunners to fire accurately at moderately faster speeds. Not that any of the gun crews had time to test that, with the ship immediately heading out to the west.

All that meant to Aegis is that she had steady ground onboard. She was slowly trudging along the central corridor of the _Deception._ She used wall walking with her front hooves to stay firmly upright on her still very shaky back legs. "Blast it. Hooves like this were never meant for two legs," she grumbled to herself. Aegis was wearing her old uniform shirt out of sentimentality, and a way to reaffirm the reasons for her dreams of royalty.

Intel was walking beside her, perfectly comfortable on four legs, and couldn't help but snicker a little every time Aegis checked herself when the airship rocked in the wind. "You know, I could just hold you up with my magic. You keep getting blood on the floor, that stuff's a pain to clean up you know."

"No, I got it, really!" Aegis stubbornly insisted. She gently pushed off the wall, and used her wings to stabilize on her back legs. "See?" She wobbled, but flailing her forelegs managed to save her snout another visit to the floor. "I got this."

Intel watched the princess take a few careful steps forward. Her forelegs were raised outward to keep her balance, and it seemed to be working. "Two weeks out of the shell, and you're already taking baby steps. I might be impressed if it didn't take us less than a day to learn to walk on four."

"Yeah, yeah, keep it up." She finally stabilized a little better, but had to keep a hoof slightly dragging along the wall to avoid visiting the floor again. "As much as I love seeing that plot of yours, Papa said he had a surprise for me waiting in the machine shop."

"Just as well," Intel lamented as she cantered over to Aegis' side. "I have to check over the diplomatic contact plan with the others." Instead of leaving right away, Intel lingered around, watching Aegis steadfastly refusing to give up on bipedal walking until she mastered it. Intel couldn't help but to feel a sense of pride in Aegis' royal eyes. _Well, sis, you dreamed bigger than anypony I know. I hope it all works out for you._

Aegis made it down to an intersection before noticing Intel was still by her side. She risked a light punch to wake her up. "Hey, you alright? I thought you had somewhere to be."

"Yeah, I'm fine…" Intel sighed with more sadness than she wanted. "It's just that with Riposte gone, and now you're out of the Queens' Guard, I've only got Ferrum out of the original four now."

Aegis stumbled, yet she managed to deftly wrap a foreleg around Intel to rope her up into a tight hug, masking her fall. "What are you talking about? I'm still here, Intel." The force of the hug pulled Intel full off her hooves and both crumpled in a heap. Aegis ignored the impact and just held her clutchmate even tighter. "The only difference now, is that you guard me, rather than guard beside me."

"I guess…" Intel sunk into Aegis' hug, drawing strength from her sister's affection. _But someday you're going to leave to form a hive of your own._

"Come on girl, we don't have time to be all mopey." Intel seemed to react little to Aegis' prodding, so she switched tactics and brushed a hoof across Intel's nethers.

"AAHH!" Intel half scream half moaned. She blushed furiously and looked around to find a couple other drones look at her, but kept on walking. "Damn it, Aegis, not here!"

"Fine," Aegis chuckled lightheartedly look to the right to find a broom closet and opened it with her magic. "How about I cheer you up in there?"

Intel worked her jaw for a few seconds before climbing off her clutchmate. She _was_ feeling mildly low on love, and she remembered that deepening depression was an early sign of love starvation. In the end, Intel couldn't tell if she was sad because of the situation, or that she hadn't fed all day. "Okay, but only for ten minutes."

"Make it twenty. I want to see what other _benefits_ having two legs brings." Aegis got up and leaned into Intel's ear, and added a husky quality to her voice. "You can say you were helping me conduct research."

Intel scowled at her horny sister for a few seconds before relenting. "Fifteen, not a moment longer."

"Deal," Aegis purred before pulling Intel into the closet.

* * *

Aegis walked into the shipboard machine shop forty five minutes later with a smug grin and more than enough love to satiate her royal hunger for the day. The shop itself was a small affair, as befitting the cramped quarters onboard. A single pair of light bulbs gave more than enough light to illuminate the various machine parts laid out in painstaking organization. Each piece had a tag on it, denoting the work order. Along two of the walls was an array of drawers of various sizes no doubt holding tools waiting to be used.

A painfully bright point of light was coming from the single rainbow-maned engineer in the room, who was welding something Aegis couldn't see. Heyya, Blitz. Long time no see.

The blue drone in question freaked at the sudden address and nearly dropped her welding torch. She shut it off and removed her oversized protective helmet to greet the newcomer. "Hey there, Aegis." She grinned at the princess. "Welcome to my humble shop."

Aegis fell back down onto four legs and trotted over to give Blitz a brief hug. "Where's papa? I thought he had something for me."

"He was called away to oversee Factory Seven's refitting, but don't worry I can handle things for him." Blitz found a series of cubbyholes with scrolls in them and pulled them all down with her magic to look over each one. "No, no, no, ah here it is." Blitz skimmed her technical notes in depth before putting them all all back except the one she was reading.

She then walked over to one of the back wall lockers and opened it to reveal a set of small machines. Finding a cleared workbench, Blitz placed them down. "After hearing about the nature of your rebirth, Uncle and I got together to give you a waking up present, but it wasn't ready until last night."

There were four boot-like objects in total. All of them had small cables and pipes running through the structure of the boot with four sets of actuators for each. "What are they?"

"A mechanical solution to a biological problem!" Blitz chirped proudly. "Granny Caddy's been making prosthetic replacement limbs for drones for about two centuries now. Ever since Aunty Twilight thought the minotaurs would be great customers, she commissioned my engineering section to make arms and fingers. So when I heard about your little experiment, Papa and my team modified that design to fit your legs. Go ahead and try them on!"

"Ahh-" Aegis bumbled as one of the smaller boots was thrust onto her left foreleg. "Okay."

With her tongue sticking out the side of her mouth, Blitz grabbed a headset with a collection of magnifying lenses. Aegis sat on her rump while Blitz held the captive hoof outstretched so she could examine it. "Good, good. Aunty Twi's predicted measurements of your hoof size were spot on. No surprise coming from the mother of OCD herself. Now, you might feel some discomfort with this next part."

Fear shot through Aegis. _No pony using that phrase ever tells the truth._ "What are you doing?"

"Just wait," Blitz admonished as her magic latched onto three long thin bars and slowly inserted them through the boot and into three of the five holes that Aegis' leg possessed. A thought struck her, causing Blitz to look up to the table and levitate a cord of bound leather, and shoved it in Aegis' mouth. "Now, you might feel a little pressure."

Aegis barely had time to even register the disgusting taste or the request before her hoof and leg felt like molten lead was pumping through her veins all the way up to her neck. _"Rrrraaaaooww!"_

She nearly bit the leather in half and ripped her hoof away from Blitz to cradle it as the pain spiked through each hole. She whimpered with the leather in her mouth for a bit before spitting it out. "Damn it all to Flaming Flamingo Friday! Get it oooff!"

Blitz stared at the princess with stunned bemusement. "Sorry, Princess, painkillers weren't part of the budget. Just be glad the bonding is a one time thing." Her eyes drifted to the first aid kit by the door with a note taped on it. "Ooohhh wait a second, actually I think they were. My bad."

She flew over the sobbing princess and grabbed the kit and thrust it open, only to have Aegis bark at her. "Don't bother, you quack!" The pain subsided slowly, sadly, she would be throbbing for a couple of days if not a week. "What was that for?"

"Ah, hello! That was the finger-boot attaching to your nervous system. Don't tell me you don't know anything about how prosthetics work. Last I checked, you're ex-military." Aegis shot her a scathing glare with bloodshot eyes. _Maybe I should talk about why she shouldn't rip my head off._ "We uhh, we used a corrosion resistant alloy of aluminum and quadrinix. That's why the boot's red. We can get it painted later." Aegis' mood soured the longer Blitz rambled on. _Brilliant, Blitz, juuust brilliant._

"Can I take this thing off?" Aegis grumbled as she tested her weight on the boot. Despite her pained nerves, the fit was otherwise snug and comfortable.

"I don't see why you'd want to," Blitz replied with a giggle to lighten the mood. "Once your body gets used to them, they'll give you everything Aunty Twi couldn't. Toes to help you stand on two legs, and fingers that'll let you grab things."

"Showering and cleaning come to mind." Aegis' curt reply caught the engineer up short. Yet once Blitz's words had a chance to sink in, Aegis took the time to fully examine the metal boot. It felt slightly heavy, with most of the weight around the hoof itself. The top of the boot stopped a few centimeters from her knee, so it didn't impede dexterity in that respect.

Her concentration on the boot caused it to hiss with steam, thankfully away from her face, and four two jointed fingers popped out of the boot and curled into a fist directly in front of her hoof. They were long enough to curve around the hoof with ease. Hidden within their quadrinix alloyed casing, Aegis could hear whirring gears.

Taking Aegis' silent curiosity as an excuse to talk, Blitz bounced over to hold the boot with a hoof. "As you can see, our mana steam engines have made great progress lately. The device only needs a few bits of your mana to function, but it can get very tiring after a full day's use. I'd say if you learned to sleep with these on, it'd retain enough of a charge to where you'd never feel the strain."

Aegis' wings buzzed loudly with excitement, the ache in her leg forgotten. "This is _awesome!_ I could probably fight like a minotaur in no time!" Aegis yanked her hoof back to get a closer look. She tried to flex or move the fingers, but aside from slight twitching they remained locked into a fist. "Any reason I can't move them?"

"You can, just try one at a time. You're holding the fingers in a ball because you think like a changeling, and not a minotaur."

"Is that a fact?" Aegis replied derisively. "And how am I supposed to think like a walking steak?"

Blitz just shrugged with a bemused half-grin. "I don't know. This whole thing was your idea in the first place. I guess you could just think of the fingers like a bunch of tiny legs, or monkey tails, or something grippy." Blitz shrugged at any further questioning along that route. _Honestly, what's with her fascination with all this whole hand thing when telekinesis is so much easier? I only took this job as a favor for her, and it was a pretty interesting challenge from an engineering standpoint._

"Better than nothing, I guess." Aegis focused on one finger at a time while Blitz grabbed the other boots and placed them on one by one.

* * *

Flying ahead of the cloaked _Deception,_ was the luxury yacht _Crystal Blue_ puttering along at a speed that made the crew of the changeling frigate groan. The yacht was half the length of the warship behind it, but it overflowed with creature comforts the likes of which neither Twilight nor Rainbow Dash had ever expected to enjoy any time soon. With a bitterly harsh winter in full swing outside of pony controlled territory, Princess Luna and the two queens lounged on beach chairs while the entirely glass roof and one side of the wall gave a magnificent view of the snowy forest below. The room was practically a sauna from all the heating vents releasing a steady stream of steam.

Twilight was sipping on a heavenly red wine, a luxury she hadn't tasted in years thanks to the eggs. With the decision to cut egg production to one fourth, both she and Rainbow Dash thought it best to simply go full production one week a month for the time being.

Alcohol had been a much needed distraction from the mounting impulse both queens suffered every day they went without laying. For Twilight at least, the book on griffin culture was a close second. With a warm blanket wrapped around her, and the large book with its wealth of information at her hooftips, Twilight was one extremely happy bug.

Rainbow Dash had drowned herself in alcohol. An empty keg of Sweet Apple Acres' Hard Cider gently rocked between a small table and the sky blue queen's head which was hanging off the side of the chair. With all of the business coming in from the Jiyya industry, Sweet Apple Acres was profitable enough to give Rainbow Dash a free lifetime supply of cider. Something she was only recently able to take advantage of now that she wasn't ovipositing every day.

Even with Twilight's best noise dampener spell, Rainbow's thundering snores still rattled the floor. Twilight had learned to live with it, even if it normally wasn't anywhere near as bad as tonight. If Twilight was truly honest with herself, the snoring was a sort of white noise to her now. A sign that her sister was at peace and close by.

Thirty six hours until arrival, my queen.

Twilight's concentration was broken by Captain Rourke's scheduled update. The distraction caused her to look up at Luna who was watching the setting sun with a forlorn expression. Celestia having decided to remain behind in Canterlot, lest the sudden departure of both princesses create a panic.

Twilight's instincts wanted to probe the ebony alicorn with her empathy, but she caught herself in time. It was an unspoken agreement between the alicorns and queens that the changelings would avoid using their empathy on any one of the three princesses. For the most part it was fairly easily to abide that, but there were times when Twilight couldn't help but to pick up on flashes of intense emotion. Now was one of those times as the specter of loneliness crept into Luna's heart.

 _I can't imagine what sort of scars a thousand years on the moon would do to somepony, no matter how long they have to heal._ While such stark isolation would be a nightmare to most beings, the deathly silence of space and being alone with one's own thoughts chilled Twilight to her core.

Luna was staring off into space, but Twilight kept picking up brief moments of anger and a sense of urgency. With Rainbow Dash in a drunken stupor, it fell to Twilight to comfort the stoic night princess. "How are you holding up, Luna?"

Luna briefly thought about giving a non-answer. _What good is that with an empath around?_ A waiter refilled Luna's drink and brought over a bowl of expensive salted nuts. With a flick of a wing, Luna dismissed him, and the three guards in the room.

Twilight removed her blanket and draped it over her sister after propping Rainbow's head back onto the chair. She scooted her chair over to be next to Luna before sitting down again. From there she remained silent, allowing Luna time to gather her thoughts.

"I admit I am a little concerned about contact. There seem to be powerful wards all over the western shore that makes finding my scout amidst the dreamscape akin to trying to find a single fish from the ocean."

Twilight gasped at the news. "You don't think they're expecting _us_ do you?"

"I have no way of knowing that for sure, Twilight Sparkle. But given the sheer size of the shrouded area, I do not believe so. It could merely be what these half-griffins normally do."

"Ahh, I see. I hope you're right. Do you have any idea if your field agent is still alive though?" Twilight inquired carefully. She was grasping at straws to see if she could pull the mare into a conversation.

"Slippery Shadow is a fine operative, and these beings must be most cunning indeed to have captured such a cautious stallion. I doubt they would intentionally kill him. In any event, I will not leave him to rot out here. Alive or dead, I am bringing him home."

"Well he had to be wearing some equipment if he fire-sent those reports to you. I find it hard to believe these beings would eat him before finding out more about us."

"Perhaps." Luna took a slow deep breath to calm herself. _I hope the original explorers are still alive as well._ "One thing you should never do, Twilight Sparkle, is assume anything with a new species." She craned her head towards the lavender queen. "That mistake is how you ended up a changeling in the first place, after all."

"Oh… right." Awkwardness suddenly filled the room as Twilight shuffled her hooves nervously. "I'm… I'm a little surprised you've been able to enjoy the pampering this boat has to offer, what with your valid concerns and all."

Luna didn't answer for a few minutes. The pregnant pause was too much for Twilight, who was about to drop the issue right as Luna spoke up. "You get used to such things, eventually. What is it the Guard often say…? _'Hurry up and wait.'_ Yes, that's it." Twilight nodded slowly. "Since there is nothing left for me to do until we arrive, there is little gain in brooding until I know Shadow's fate."

A minor issue back at the hive drew Twilight's attention away from Luna, not that the moon princess noticed. Luna was too busy going over how she would present herself to the beings she didn't even have a name for.

 _At least we knew what the griffins called themselves when we first officially met._ She summoned her scrolls to pore over them again. Barely an hour later, both queens were snoozing on their chairs, content to spend time with Luna. The alicorn might have been touched by the companionship if she hadn't been so focused on her work. The three royals had spent every day for the past week going over the mountain of possibilities and responses, so the queens decided to rest up early.

Luna finally snapped from her scrolls on an impulse and looked at her sleeping companions. She frowned slightly at them and the night sky in the windows beyond. _Just because the crew believes we'll arrive at the coastal town in the evening, it doesn't mean we won't make contact before then. I better get some sleep too while I can. If things go poorly, I may not get another chance until we return to Canterlot._

Before departing for her private cabin, Luna ordered the servants to keep the observation deck's temperature comfortable for the sleeping queens. Yet like the Dreamwalker herself, Twilight Sparkle would not sleep normally this night.

As her body rested, Twilight's mind finished fabricating a small dojo within the Linkscape. The room was little more than ten meters square with hard mats for the floor and walls. The dojo was well lit, but there was no identifiable source of light.

Twilight had just completed putting the finishing touches on the wall mounted clock when Aegis appeared, already standing on her hind legs. "Hey momma! You didn't have to make the dojo for me anymore, I can handle it."

With a beaming motherly smile, Twilight swept her daughter up in a squishing hug. "You can't blame me for wanting to dote on you."

The room was filled with giggling delight as Twilight slipped fully into mother mode. Aegis basked in her mother's presence, content to let it last as long as possible. She could feel her mother's pride in her, and that only made the moment that much sweeter.

This was the sixth night Aegis was to spend her sleeping hours in the lucid dreaming world of the Linkscape. Each night Twilight or Rainbow Dash would craft a room for Aegis to train herself in. While this form of training did nothing for her muscles, it did wonders for her muscle memory. Normally it was a rather isolated affair. Intel or some of Aegis' other close siblings would visit her early on, but only the royals of the hive could rest properly while also spending time in the Linkscape.

As it seemed with every occasion, Twilight had to be the one to break contact. "So how's your progress so far?"

"Well, it was kinda slow for a little while, but Blitz and Papa's gifts are making it a lot easier and a bit harder at the same time."

Twilight was about to inquire as to why, when Blitz materialized and quickly performed a formal bow to Twilight. "Good evening, Queen-Mother, Princess Aegis."

With practiced grace, Twilight slipped back into queen mode. "Evening, Blitz. I trust everything went well."

"Oh it was a complete success, my queen!" Blitz flustered before holding out a hoof. A few seconds later, one of Aegis' mechanical hand gauntlets appeared. "A roaring success if I do say so myself." She looked pointedly at Aegis. "At least it will be once somepony learns how to use the hand attachments properly."

"Hey, I said I was sorry." Aegis grumbled a bit, but everyone could see there was more apology than bite to it. "It's my first day ya know."

Twilight arched an eyebrow at the exchange, but neither young mare was willing to share. Blitz simply yawned and let her gauntlet dissolve into the air. "Yes, I know, I already forgave you, mostly. Anyway, if you'll let me, I should go ahead and recreate them on your hooves to real world conditions."

Sharing a look with her daughter, Twilight nodded at Blitz. "Go ahead. The sooner you do, the sooner you can get some sleep."

"Amen to that."

Knowing her creation inside and out, Blitz brought each of the four gauntlets into being around Aegis' hooves. The room was already set to mimic real world gravity and other forces as close as possible. Aegis felt her limbs go heavy one by one for an hour as Blitz worked to recreate the gauntlets in excruciating detail. The engineer knew every facet of her creation, and she wanted to make sure Aegis would too. While Twilight knew of the gauntlets, being the one to authorize its budget, she wanted to see them in use. _Even if this strain doesn't work out for a royal, it could have serious potential for a cadre of drones._

With the items in their latest stage of development, Twilight took the time to study the gauntlets, particularly, the back legs. As with the front ones, the 'foot' gauntlets were secured in place with bars laced through Aegis' leg holes. Instead of fingers, three metal toes arrayed out in front which reminded Twilight of Spike's feet. A solitary and slightly larger toe completed the set on the back of each hoof. It was only when Blitz was testing them that Twilight noticed the toes would fold up and into the gauntlet when Aegis stood on all fours.

"Knowing you, Aegis," Blitz eventually piped after thoroughly inspecting her work. "You'll end up wanting to punch and kick things before much longer, so I made sure to reinforce the joints as much as possible. _But!_ " she barked as a manic grin started splitting Aegis' face. "Do not, I repeat, do _not_ hit anything with your front gauntlets unless the fingers are in the fist configuration. The reinforcement only works while they're closed like that."

Aegis lifted her left foreleg up to inspect Blitz's work. "Use fists to punch, eh? I think I can remember that."

"Right," Blitz replied sardonically. "I explained everything else to you earlier. If there's nothing else…"

Aegis started walking around on all fours to get a feel for the weight. "Seems good to me." She closed in to give Blitz a peck on the cheek and whispered softly. _"How about I thank you later in private?"_

"Hmmm…" Blitz tapped her chin with mock contemplation.

Twilight inwardly rolled her eyes and glanced away out of some shadow of embarrassment. _Honestly. Mother never warned me how_ lecherous _my kids would end up becoming, and it seems RD's inclusion didn't help matters at all._ She was very good at disguising her discomfort as being distracted. _But curbing it might end up being detrimental. I'd rather my children be overfed with love, than to possibly starve themselves, even a little, out of modesty that I guess isn't really needed within the hive._

Even with such allowances, Twilight wasn't going to sit there as Aegis and Blitz started going at it right there in front of her. " _Thank_ you, Blitz," she said with a mild edge to break the two up. Aegis huffed, but meant nothing of it, while Blitz felt rather embarrassed to keep her queen waiting.

"Sorry, sorry. Whelp, I'll see you later, Aegis." Blitz gave Twilight sad puppy dog eyes, sitting on her haunches. It was an act Twilight and Rainbow Dash knew all too well.

With a playful snort, Twilight opened her forelegs to allow Blitz a chance to race forward and cling to her aunt. Aegis waited an impressive five seconds before joining in. "Alright, off to bed with you. You can check Aegis' progress in the morning."

"Okaaaay." Blitz dropped the sad puppy act and hoof bumped Aegis. "See you later _Prin_ cess!"

A moment later, Blitz vanished, leaving Twilight alone with Aegis. The atmosphere quickly shifted to all business. "Well, you've told me about your progress, now I want to see it. I haven't had a chance all day."

"Oh you're going to love these toe things." Aegis quickly propped herself up, using a kick off with her front legs with a short wing burst to keep her balance. As soon as her stance shifted, her back gauntlets shot its three metal toes forward, giving the princess enough stability to stop using her forelegs to balance.

Aegis easily fell into a rifle firing stance with her legs apart, and her hands woefully empty. "If I didn't know any better, I'd think you rewired my brain a bit to work with toes to begin with." She tried to show off by spinning in place, only to land flat on her rump. Twilight gave her an amused smirk as Aegis climbed back up. "Well, you get what I'm saying."

"I do, actually, and I'm glad to see you progressing. Sadly, as much as I would love to stay up all night to help you, Rainbow and I have already worked through the last four nights over this diplomatic meeting, and I don't think I can handle another night of lucid dreaming. I'll see you in the morning, Aegis."

* * *

Some days ago…

Chirping crickets gave a deceptively peaceful backdrop to the second night Slippery Shadow twiddled his hooves in a cage adjacent to the Sphinxes' town hall/ governor's manor. Luna's night sky gave the dark colored thestral some comfort. The snow on the ground was kept at bay thanks to the roaring fire pit keeping both Shadow and his guards warm in the cold winter night. The scout looked for all the world to be languishing on his back while scuffing his hooves together, yet his mind was far from inactive.

 _Three stationary guards around me at all times, plus two of the flying types constantly patrolling the air. They already have a few logging camps and a stable perimeter far outside the city. Do they fear an escape attempt this much, or are they always like this?_

His eyes wandered to the closest guard, a wingless female if his estimation was accurate. _Reminds me of Bertha, Spirit of Strength._

'Bertha' was eyeing the stallion closely. The hungry glint in her eye, and the runed morning star she held did a fine job of planting a cold pit of fear in him. Unlike the lost ones, these beings had the cold calculating intelligence of a sapient predator. Shadow tried to nonchalantly look away, but something told him she knew it was out of fear. _Explore the world I said, it'll be fun to see what the future brought! Bah… maybe I should have taken Queen Twilight Sparkle's offer to stay with the hive instead. Sure she may be a freakish bug thing, but she's still a recognized Imperial descendent. Neither Celestia or Luna know or even care of the old ways._ He grumbled as the smell of cooked meat over a fire reach him from an open window of the manor. _I wouldn't mind dying in combat. The executioner's block isn't exactly what I had planned though, but at least that would have some modicum of respect. I got a super bad feeling about these – whatever they are. How long are they going to let me marinate in my own fear before these bastardized gryphons eat me?_

With the guards keeping such a close eye on him, Shadow groaned and tried to sleep on the pile of straw he had for a bed. _At least it's dry after yesterday's rain._

Yet before he could try to get some sleep, two wingless soldiers exited the backdoor of the manor and talked briefly to the guards. Shadow readied himself for anything as the group moved over to his cage door.

"Ge'ta!" the one with gold trimmed armor commanded. She jabbed a paw at the metal collar and chain in her possession. "Fel da lerma foosh."

Taking his sweet time, Shadow slowly stood up and stretched to pop his joints. "Yeah, yeah, hold your oats."

While he had not been tortured thus far, Shadow didn't want to test his hosts' hospitality, so he jumped outside and presented his neck for the collar to be slapped on. "Go on girly, I know your knickers are in a bunch. A bit too big for my tastes though." The lead guard briskly applied the restraint before starting to pull him towards the manor's rear entrance.

The interior was much like he remembered it the first time he'd been brought here. Statues big and small were scattered about in strategic locations. All of them were painted in a fresco style with pleasing colors. Without his soft shoes, Shadow was painfully aware of his loud hooves as opposed to the nearly silent paws of the feathered felines surrounding him.

He was brought into the main throne room where Thaddaeus stood beside Governor Ventras' seat of power. The governor and his majordomo had spent a few hours each personally studying the stallion. Between them and the guards, Shadow been able to pick up on their names.

The Majordomo had a small table in front of him, a large blank scroll completely blanketing its surface. Thaddaeus was sitting on his haunches with his forepaws shifted into hands. His left held a black inkpot while the right held a thin brush.

Shadow was entranced by the sphinx's chanting as he wrote onto the air itself. Foreign runes of black ink hung in the air, waiting for the incantation to finish. The stallion was placed on a simple mat in front of Ventras who was lording over his wooden throne. With a wave of his paw, the guards removed the pony's restraints.

 _That fireplace doesn't look like it's for cooking. I hope this behemoth doesn't like his food raw… or still alive._ Try as he might, Shadow couldn't stop his terror from leaking through, earning him a few contemptible glances from the ten guards surrounding the room.

Ventras silently studied Shadow while one of the guards jabbed Shadow to get him to look at her. "Valus!" the guard commander barked. She moved her paw from the base of her throat and sweeping out through her mouth. "Valus!"

"Oh, so you want me to speak?" That got her to stop, and give a mildly pleased look. "Well why didn't you say so? I love to talk! Let me tell you something else. The old language of the Moonlit Empire was so damned flowery it drove everyone I knew crazy, so I got speech lessons from an old bean name Earl Grey. Dapper fellow, let me tell you. Physically anyway, not in speech, but it was good enough for me to blend into the modern world better, let me tell you what.

"So yeah, apparently you guys can't understand me, but hey, you're not telling me to shut up so I was wonder if you guys have a court jester position open, by chance? It's degrading, but its healthier than being on the menu, am I right?"

Shadow paused briefly to notice the ink floating around Thaddaeus was flowing from the inkwell and onto the page, the more he spoke. He chose to ignore it to keep his hosts happy. "You want me tell you about the Labors of Marecules? Great heroine if I do say so myself. It all started with a bout of insanity."

Ever since Shadow was a little colt he loved the stories the city elders used to tell, and he had felt an itch to find a listening audience for years. Granted, none of the sphinxes could understand him, but if they wanted him to speak, then by golly he would speak.

He did so for hours, on and on he went about the epic tale of Marecules. He even went so far as to act out his favorite parts, only to be prodded by the butt of a spear if he ventured beyond the mat. Despite his stoic outwardly appearance, Ventras had to admit he rather enjoyed the comical dramatic little pony. He held no fear for the dark brown stallion, on the contrary, he was feeling rather attached to the amusing creature. It helped that Equestrian sounded quite melodious, rather than the gruff tongue of the sphinxes.

"So there she was! Staring down the fifty headed dog-beast with nothing more than her wits about her!"

"Git!" one of the guards commanded with a halting gesture. "Ferus malin."

Shadow stood there with profound sadness in his eyes. "But I was just getting to the best part."

"Git!" she repeated more forcefully.

He slumped on his mat, and looked to Thaddeus who now had forty scrolls around him. He said something to Ventras who climbed off his throne while trying to hide the crick in his back from sitting too long.

A few attendants shuffled into the room and helped scatter the scrolls all around Ventras, then everyone pulled back to give him space. Shadow watched with intense curiosity as Ventras shifted his front paws into hands, and opening a nearby bag, rubbed powder all over his arms. After closing the bag, he rubbed his hands and made a sweeping motion to cast the powder all over top of the scrolls.

He started chanting while making a strange sign with his fingers interlocked with each other to form a triangle. Ventras chanted quietly at first, slowly growing louder until he peaked right above a normal speaking voice.

The ink from the scrolls started to float up to surround the governor. Finally, he started noisily inhaling the ink which quickly fled into his mouth.

 _That is the weirdest magic I've ever seen, and I even saw arcanum in action once._ Shadow got a chill up his spine when Ventras seemed to swallow the mass of ink. A few moments later, he looked Shadow dead in the eyes speaking Equish in the thestral's accent. "So, this is the tongue of prey. How very… interesting."

"Ohhh, heebe jeebe you know Equestrian." Shadow's ears fell flat at Ventras' knowing toothy grin.

"Is that what you call yourselves? Or just your language?" Ventras slowly, methodically advanced on Shadow. "Know that I am Ventras, First son of Felnarious, and patriarch of this house."

Shadow was familiar enough with predators to know to keep from showing too much weakness. Maybe not sapient predators, but the analogy probably fit well enough. He tried and failed to prop his ears back to their normal posture. "I'm ahh, my name is Slippery Shadow these days. Not many seem to like the old naming conventions sadly."

The governor took notice of the odd excuse, it would be a question he would ask later. _Do these beings even have titles, or are they that culturally backwards?_ "Good, cooperation will see you live another day. Now, Slippery Shadow, you're going to tell me all about your people and where you come from, and in return I'll let you have better accommodations than the cage outside."

"Oh?" Shadow's ears perked right back up again. "Well, if you really want to know all about the Moonlit Empire, then I simply _have_ to tell you about the Labors of Marecules. An absolute need-to-know, but ahh…" His stomach growled noisily, and his throat was dry from regaling folklore for hours. "Any chance I can get some food? Maybe I could tell you all about it over dinner?" He plastered the biggest friendliest smile his fang filled mouth could produce. _They're cat things. I'm sure fangs look fine to them._

Ventras mulled over the idea for a moment before letting off a belly laugh. "You want to dine with us?! Very well then, grass-eater, provide tonight's entertainment, and you shall live quite comfortably within my walls."

He switched to his native language. "Thaddeus, prepare a proper room for our guest, but watch him carefully. If he tries to run, throw him back in the cage."

"At once, Governor." He barked a few commands and sent the servants scurrying.

Shadow inwardly smirked at how easily it was to exploit the ignorance of others. _Such a pity you never asked about Equestria or Phoenix's Roost._

The next several days would be filled with wild tales and outdated strategic information about Shadow's old homeland, much to his profound amusement.


	39. Chapter 39

First Contact

The lands surrounding the sphinx colony were blanketed in snow, and the blizzard was determined it stayed that way. Logging Center Flex was just one of dozens hemming the forest down to size, to make way for the latest arriving colonists set to head inland within the week. It was situated along a wide moderately fast flowing river, perfect for sending logs downstream for processing.

The overseer of one such logging team was busy shouting a rhythmic cadence as three winged sphinxes stood on the end of a clearing with four wingless sphinxes with axes standing at the ready.

The winged spellweavers were hovering just off the ground as they made sweep and pulling motions with their forelimbs, churning the earth around a particularly large tree.

"Clear!" shouted the overseer, the weavers forced rock and dirt away from the roots of the tree, weakening it's hold.

"Push!" he ordered with a sense of urgency. The rock and dirt that was removed, now floated up and pushed on the tree.

"Chop!" The lumberjacks moved in on the exposed roots, clearing out each scrap of wood as far from the trunk as possible.

Over the course of five minutes, the tree gave off a deep cracking groan as the high angled push, coupled with the missing roots, finally toppled the wooden ancient.

Further orders were not needed from the overseer. The earth shapers moved on to another tree while the lumberjacks processed the fallen tree. A second team of woodsmen moved in to assist the magi. Behind them all were a small army of foresters and civic planners bundled up and huddling against the cold with a few campfires spread around camp. The planners mapped out where future roads and buildings would be placed while the foresters replanted local tree seeds and uprooted saplings.

The need for wood was massive, and would only grow as winter pressed on and as the ships with inbound colonists increased with every convoy. Every scrap of wood from the strong heartwood, to the roots themselves, were consumed by the burgeoning colony, nothing was wasted. Aside from the various structures and sawmills around the camp, situated right in the middle was arguably the most critical structure to the _entire_ frontier; the pub. Well, for morale at least.

The establishment was the size of a large house, and on this cold snow covered afternoon, well over three dozen workers and a detachment of soldiers were engaging in getting drunk under the table. It was perhaps the only pastime that transcended species and cultures.

While there was a standing order to be on the lookout for more natives, with the exception of Slippery Shadow, not a single soul had even been spotted, let alone found. With no other intelligent natives to check the expansionist sphinxes, the land seemed ripe for the picking. While the Federation was slow to move inland, they were rapidly spreading out along the coast thanks to their strong maritime culture and the sheer overabundance of fish and other large marine animals.

The pub was in the middle of a drinking song about the last war ten years ago when a rather young winged scout burst through the front door with a frantic look on his face. "Legionary!" He cursed the fact that his commanding officer wasn't at the Guard post.

The bitterly cold blizzard slammed the door wide open, sending the nearby patrons into growling belligerence. "Shut that door before I plant your skull in the ground!"

The scout ignored further spite from the patrons when he saw his commander on the second floor awning leaning against the railing. The scout shut the door and bolted up to his commander and threw up a salute. "Legionary, I spotted more natives to the east roughly ten miles out. My wingmate is keeping an eye on them now."

The officer both cursed and thanked the fact he had yet to start drinking today. "More of them?" The scout nodded. "Good. Evocati," he barked at the NCO who was sitting at the nearest table. "Gather a search and recover party. We have more guests to capture for the governor."

"On it, sir!"

Yet before the evocati could give orders to the surrounding soldiers, the scout shouted to get both the officer and the NCO's attention. "Actually, sirs, we need to bring this to the governor's attention straight away. I don't think we're equipped for this."

"Equipped for what?" the Legionary growled earnestly. "Spit it out!"

"We don't know if they're the same natives we've captured so far because there's a flying boat headed our way, held aloft by a giant balloon."

The NCO scoffed at the notion. "A flying boat you say?" he chuckled deeply. "On a balloon of all things? I thought you scouts were sober by choice. You haven't suddenly discovered the wonders of scotch have you, boy?"

The officer had more faith in the scout corps than his underling. "What kind of boat? Are you sure it wasn't one of our warsmiths testing a new invention? There's always at least one trying to get a flying machine to work."

"Not a chance, sir. It's on straight course coming in from the east. It even has flags that don't match up with any of the warsmith families that have immigrated here." He changed a paw into a hand to fish out a hastily drawn picture of two winged and horned creatures circling a sun and moon.

The frantic look on the scout's face was disconcerting enough already, the figures on the flag looked too much like the prey they had already captured so far. The idea of a flying boat spoke of technological or magical power none of them expected from the natives, and that alone was something the governor needed to know as soon as possible. "Go to the outpost and get a marathoner to send word of this."

"As you say, sir," the scout said hastily before zipping off, again ignoring cries of indignation at leaving the door open.

With his commander taking such a believing stance, the evocati couldn't help but to rethink his options. "What are your orders, Legionary?"

"Gather every abled body you can find. We don't have the numbers here in camp to make a show of force, but we can at least prepare for a fight. Send word to the other Legion outposts and to Chevalier Headquarters. We'll need our best at the front." _As for me, I need to see this air-boat for myself._

* * *

"You think they noticed us yet?" Rainbow Dash asked aloud sarcastically as she, her sister, and Luna watched sphinxes swarm on the ground and at a wide berth in the air.

The _Crystal Blue_ was passing over the logging center with no intention on coming to a halt until it reached the colonial capital. They had best-guessed their way so far, but now the road and log filled river gave them a straight run to the coastal town that was just barely visible in the distance.

Tittering a little with a hoof to her mouth, Twilight stopped all pretense of regality and plastered her face to the glass for a closer look. "No. I think we might need to sound the trumpets first. You know, test their auditory senses."

Rainbow arched a mildly exasperated eyebrow at that. "You could just say ears."

"Ahh, but what if they have more than just ears? What if their whole body can pick up sound!? This is just too much!" Aegis, did you organize the sapiopology team in time?

Yes, my queen. They're already taking notes, but we won't get any serious data until we actually start talking to them.

Rainbow Dash was listening in, and groaned at the over the top exuberance from Twilight. _For Luna's sake, she's bouncing on her hooftips like a school filly. You'd think the trade convoy attack that started this whole 'ling' thing would have her acting more like Rarity or Fluttershy._

Rainbow Dash dismissed her sister stealing a pair of binoculars with an eye roll to focus on security concerns. A small part of her was actually quite touched that Twilight trusted her so completely with everyone's safety. Intel, how are things looking on your end?

The new head of the Jevruun Vrunningee was fully geared up along with two squads of eight drones each, and twice that number in royal guards. Unlike the royals one deck above them, the pony and changeling soldiers remained hidden behind the wooden deck. Reflective portholes allowed eight of them to watch the sphinxes outside without fear of discovery.

Of the sixteen drones, half were of Rainbow Dash's brood. It was a clear declaration that both queens shared power. Intel watched them, seeing the excited tension race through them. Every last one of Twilight's drones here were veterans of Rookhaven, and a few other small skirmishes with probing attacks by other queens.

Thunderfury was the only blue changeling to experience real, albeit brief, combat along the railroad between Stripped Gear and Ponyville. _That fight's the very reason he's in my squad to begin with,_ Intel mused.

She briefly spoke to the greater bulk of her soldiers on the cloaked ship. _Good, they don't seem to be noticing the Deception at all. Let's hope they don't give us a reason to_ make _it noticeable._

* * *

As the luxury yacht puttered along with the western ocean becoming more pronounced on the horizon, the sphinxes started to vastly grow in number around the _Crystal Blue._ Through her looking glass, Rainbow Dash spotted many armored sphinxes either being ordered closer, or were working up the nerve to close in. _Not a single airship in sight. Did we slip through the net, or do they not have them at all?_

Another matter she noticed was that dozens of the half-griffin things had spyglasses as well. "Can they see us through the glass?"

"No," Luna replied evenly while keeping her eyes on the town that was still off in the distance. "This ship is named _Crystal Blue_ due to how the glass dome looks like from the outside. They won't know what we look like until we step outside."

"Ummm," Twilight grinned sheepishly at Luna's oversight. "Aren't we flying the Equestrian flag? That has both you and your sister prominently displayed on there, after all."

Hey Twi, how come we never thought of a flag for our hive?

Luna let the slight embarrassment roll off her withers. "By the time they figure that out, we'll have already revealed ourselves so I doubt that matters."

Twilight let the matter with Luna fall away. Can't believe I never thought about that. I'll have Gentle Touch take care of it.

* * *

The yacht steamed ahead for another hour straight towards the harbor town until a living wall of two hundred fliers formed in front of the ship. With so much attention focused on the _Crystal Blue,_ the _Deception_ climbed four hundred meters above to keep any nosy sphinxes from accidently flying into the cloak bubble.

Not wishing to provoke them further, the _Crystal Blue_ came to a full stop half a kilometer in front of the wall of fliers. A large procession walked out along the road with tall blue flags mounted on an open carriage pulled by a brown beast of burden akin to a rhinoceros that had far too many horns all over its body. Several more sphinxes carried family coat of arms around the carriage. With so many warriors in both the air and on the ground, Ventras waved off any further escorts.

From her perch in the observatory, Luna turned to the queens and an earth pony aide. "Looks like we have the newcomer leader's attention. Shall we?"

Rainbow Dash glanced at her sister with a playful smirk. "No sense in making our _guests_ wait."

Within short order, the alicorn, both queens, and one changeling princess moved down to the chariot hangar, where a team of four pegasi were already hitched up and waiting for them. As soon as the bay doors opened, and the chariot departed, the Royal Guard and Queens' Guard flew out right behind them, numbering a total of forty nine escorts.

A thrill of excitement coursed through Rainbow Dash at the sight of so many creatures that reminded her so much of her old friend, Gilda. "Say, Twilight. How are we going to be able to talk to these guys? Last I checked, your translator spell needed hours to get simple phrases."

"Let me handle that," Luna answered for her. "Despite my looks, I'm a rather accomplished linguist myself." She didn't afford herself a smile. The tension of the moment coupled with Shadow and the explorers' fate killed any good humor she had.

The cloud of sphinxes moved to stand or hover behind the virtual line that Ventras formed as he exited the carriage with his majordomo and daughter following up behind him. None of them had time to dress more formally. Rasua barely had time to remove her protective blacksmithing clothing, and was reduced to wearing a soot covered wooly brown blouse with a heavy black jacket on to snuff out the cold. Thaddaeus was the lucky one, as he was already wearing very warm clothing in the form of a furry overcoat. Ventras wore a long sleeved white topped and red bottomed hakama, which Twilight took for something similar to Rarity's dresses, except for the very masculine style. _At least I think the big one's male._

By contrast, the royals were wearing somewhat matching wind resistant form fitting clothing with Luna's regalia sitting on top. Twilight's warm clothing was navy blue with Rainbow's being a hue of many different colors. Aegis was certainly glad one of the anchor rods in each gauntlet had a warming spell to keep the cold metal from freezing her hooves. Having no faith in her ability to walk upright on snow, Aegis remained on all fours.

The four of them disembarked the large chariot with all of the Guard staying behind to mimic the sphinxes' forbearance. One of the military scouts glided down and quickly spoke a few words with Ventras before flying off again.

The royals and governor closed the hundred meter distance between their respective carriages. It was only now that both parties could truly size each other up. Thaddeus and Ventras were eye level with the queens, while Resua easily matched Luna's height. Aegis, who was currently two inches shorter than her original self, felt rather dwarfed by everyone.

Luna would have made her sister proud with her emotionless regal posture, but she couldn't shake the rather disturbing superior look the center newcomer was not even bothering to hide. _He must be feeling quite comfortable with having five times our soldiers. How telling._ The whole time both parties were walking towards each other, everyone was studying each other intently.

With the distance closed to speak comfortably with the windy blizzard now slowing down, Luna prepared her translation spell, only for Ventras to speak in nearly perfect Equish, catching them off guard. "I greet you, Princess Luna of the Moonlit Empire. I, Ventras Talarn, High Governor of the Sphinx Federation, welcomes you to our colony; Stratholme."

Ventras concealed his mirth at the royals' surprise, but his hunter's eyes picked up on Luna hiding some humor as well. "I see you have me at a slight disadvantage." Mentally smiling at the misinformation, Luna made no effort to correct Ventras' error. "Since you know of me, please allow me to introduce my close friends and allies, the Sister Queens of the changeling city-state Phoenix's Roost. Presenting Queen Twilight Sparkle," she said as she gestured to Twilight.

Twilight gave a slight nod and friendly smile. "A pleasure to make your acquaintance."

"Likewise, your majesty." Ventras and the others internally scoffed at the notion of a monarchy. _Such a strange attempt to fix a primitive form of government. It doesn't matter if it's one queen or two, a nation should not be ruled by the whims of so few._

"And to her right is her sister, Queen Rainbow Dash."

Ventras and Rainbow locked eyes for a moment before anyone spoke further. He had briefly done the same with Twilight, and what he saw in her eyes confounded him. _What is with that gaze… Are they warrior-queens, or iron fisted rulers?_ "You and your allies are welcome, Queen Rainbow Dash."

 _Funny thing, since you're welcoming us to_ Equestrian _land._ Rainbow bit down on that reply before it could leave her lips. "Ventras," she replied tactlessly. Cultural barriers were not enough to hide her obvious distaste for him.

"Lastly, their heir, Princess Aegis Altair."

 _By the First Mother, why did I spend all my time learning to walk instead of first contact training. Oh right, there wasn't any._ Aegis brought a hoof to her mouth to cough nervously. "It is an honor to meet you."

Ventras snorted with a mirthless grin. "Yes, it is. Let me introduce my Majordomo, Thaddaeus Windscar, and my daughter, Rasua Talarn."

"It is a most welcome honor to be among the first of our kind to greet the leaders of another." Rasua bowed a little more deeply than Ventras would have allowed towards prey. Yet she saw something in the pony and former ponies' stance that gave her a torrent of instinctual signals, some of them were conflicting. If she had to pin that feeling down to any one thing, it would be the comfortable confidence that none of the so called 'prey' should possess. She vastly preferred to have actual information on the natives before making a judgement call, but any huntress worth her salt knew to trust their instincts. _They are_ not _prey. I hope father realizes that before he does something the Federation will regret._

Thaddaeus may not have had Rasua's insight on the true nature of the foreign leaders in front of him, but he saw what he could only surmise to be a weapon on Aegis' back. During the introductions, he tried to look at the changeling and pony guards' weapons. Even from a distance of a hundred meters, he could see the ponies had a small variety of weapons, but they were mostly spears and short swords, ultimately nothing he was concerned about in the least. However, a number of changelings carried weapons that were unmistakable to him. He had studied Trail Mix's musket long enough to recognize firearms at a glance. Most sphinxes would mistake the rifles for headless spears or quarterstaffs, but one look at Aegis' unusual weapon told him that these hole riddled creatures were the ones to be cautious about above all others.

He smoothly returned to the conversation when attention shifted to him. "I would be honored to extend our hospitality to you all." He wanted to say more in terms of maintaining peace, but it was not his place.

Ventras turned and frowned at his majordomo's genuine courtesy. While Rasua could hide her ill-at-ease well enough against the natives, she utterly failed to do so against her father. _Why are they so afraid of prey?_ He didn't like it one bit. We _are the predators, not them. Perhaps everyone needs to be reminded of that._

Instead of offering the Equestrians passage to his warm manor, the aging governor sought to reaffirm everyone's position as predator and prey. Tradition and honor demanded as such. _This is not for just personal honor, but for the entire Federation!_ He returned his eyes to Luna with a slick smile. He had been too focused on the rulers themselves to notice the drones' equipment. "So, for what purpose do you come before us?"

Rainbow Dash gave her sister a questioning look. Isn't this where he invites us out of the cold? she queried with more than a little distaste for the governor.

We have to assume their customs are very different, RD, Twilight replied calmly. But he does seem overly aggressive for a first meeting. Be ready for anything.

Being ignorant of the exchange, Luna spoke. "I have come to secure the release of my explorers, and to negotiate a treaty regarding your seizure of our land."

"Your land?" That was the perfect angle to use for Ventras to assert everyone's respective roles. He let a brief howling wind pass before speaking with carefully crafted superior civility. "We were unaware that anyone claimed these lands, seeing how there was no one to be found when we landed here. We've barely seen a handful of your people over the years we've been settled here." He turned to the changelings. "And none of yours."

"That is why I'm here to negotiate a treaty, rather than use less… pleasant means of persuasion." Luna fully believed that a careful mix of courtesy and show of force was needed for any first stage negotiations. The griffins and minotaurs know full well of Equestria's armed forces, which were now backed by the technological might of the sisters' hive. Unfortunately that was only long after bloody wars with both species that ended far too many lives than either alicorn thought necessary. _Our task here today is to make sure a war never happens._

Luna's choice of words regarding violence was extremely poor. If this had been a few months later when both races got to know each other better, it would have been just fine, but Ventras and every other sphinx within earshot saw it as a sign of weakness. While his daughter and majordomo assumed it was cultural ignorance, Ventras was operating under the lies and half-truths Slippery Shadow had been feeding him, along with his political obligations to tradition and the Federation. As a result, he took the sign of weakness at face value. It didn't help the fact that prey had just threatened a predator with violence.

Ventras' expression became as cold as the blizzard snow. "I am more than willing to return your explorer as a sign of good faith, but if this was truly your land, then you should have properly claimed it as such with a physical presence. Why should we abide any treaty when you are incapable of enforcing your claim?"

Rasua nearly freaked at the insult her father dropped on the equines. _Why is he antagonizing them so much!? This isn't a rival faction that we know the strength of. They could have an army of millions for all we know!_

Rainbow Dash wanted to step forward, but Twilight held her back with a hoof. "My good governor," Twilight said placatingly. "We're all reasonable, civil-minded people." Her tone grew friendlier as her internal diplomat came out in full. "How about we talk about each other's position before deciding on anything further?"

Thaddaeus noticed the changeling warriors fidgeting with their weapons, moving them from their backs to being ready to use. He practically jumped at the chance when Ventras leaned towards him, gesturing for his council. He tried his damnedest to keep the edge of panic off his tongue. "I highly suggest we at least agree to talk with them, old friend. There is something highly unsettling about the queens that I can't put my finger on," he whispered in the off chance the royals might know their language.

"Do not be fooled by deception, Thaddaeus. Does not the Flarehound burn his surroundings to make it seem like there are more of them? We need only to assert our position of power to dictate the terms of this _treaty._ " _We can always send the army over for conquest later._

"I think it unwise, my lord." Ventras nearly followed Thaddaeus' warning in the face of such formal address, yet he was certain to be correct.

Ventras faced an increasingly impatient Luna. She may be the Princess of the Night, but she still hated the cold. Rainbow Dash was scant inches from pushing her way past sister's hoof, and Twilight was equally close to unleashing her. "Very well, I grant you and your allies free passage through my city for the duration of the talks, and I will still release your explorer as previously mentioned." The royals picked up on the singular version of 'explorer' and hoped that it was due to a miscommunication. "But let us not forget what roles we truly play here," he said with a dangerous edge. "My soldiers outnumber yours five to one, and while impressive, your flying boat has no weapons at all, does it?

"So if anyone should worry about less _pleasant_ forms of negotiation, it will not be us."

All Rainbow needed to do at that point was to glance at her sister's eyes for the hoof to fall. Rainbow flashed the wicked smile of a beast let out of its cage. "Oh, I guarantee it _will_ be you, buddy. We changelings know our role quite well. Observe." Captain, fire a warning shot… or two.

Within seconds, a barren hill one kilometer to Rainbow's left disappeared in a collection of fireballs as the _Deception_ unleashed a full broadside. The concussive force of the blasts was so strong that they could be felt by the negotiators. Every sphinx in the area recoiled at the sudden violence, with some dropping out of the air from sheer shock. Their first reaction was to look towards the _Crystal Blue,_ but it was the hanging mass of gunmetal grey steel standing out in stark contrast to the white out of the blizzard. The warship seemed to warp into reality as the very air twisted and squirmed around thanks to the attack destabilizing the cloaking field. The vessel was triple the size of the yacht in front of it, and kept everyone's gaze fixed upward.

The _Deception_ was hanging at a steep tilt, with its top and bottom guns still smoking from the display of firepower. It rolled back over to hover normally and started to descend downward as the _Crystal Blue_ moved out of the way. The warship's four main batteries aimed towards the ocean with blanks and fired for effect, driving home that the steel monster _demanded_ center stage.

Twilight allowed her sister to step to the front of the Equestrians to confront Ventras directly. When her movement grabbed his attention, she made a dramatic display to hold her hoof out towards the diving warship in a halting motion. Much to Ventras' astonishment, without uttering a word, Rainbow Dash commanded the airship to level off and remain at the _Crystal Blue's_ side.

"Now, we can either do things Twilight and Luna's way, or we can do it _my_ way." Rainbow let a large fang filled grin show just how much she was begging for Ventras to give her a reason to do more than flatten hills. "Don't hit the ling hive, Stocky. You wouldn't like us when we're angry." The moment she finished speaking, half of the Jevruun Vrunningee ignited their flamethrowers and sent off a full ten second stream of fire in front of them to spell out "Queen Rainbow Dash was here" scorched in the earth. Rainbow Dash let the burning oil give the sphinxes some idea on how much a conflict would cost them.

Luna suppressed a scowl at Rainbow's display though most of that ire was directed at the need for it at all. _Can't say I'm a fan of gunboat diplomacy, but sometimes it's the only way._

Twilight Sparkle kept her expression neutral throughout it all. One of her half-puppeted drones allowed her to see the display from onboard the _Deception._ Did you really have to be that flashy?

Yes, yes I did, Rainbow chuckled back.

You forgot a period at the end, Twilight admonished teasingly.

Ventras couldn't believe what he was seeing from Rainbow Dash. _Inconceivable. Whatever these changelings are… they are not prey. It seems I vastly underestimated Slippery Shadow._ With the realization that he was operating with false information, Ventras tried to save face with a stoic tone of voice. "I concede the position of strength to you." He bowed curtly, prompting his majordomo and daughter to do the same. Unlike Ventras, the other two breathed sighs of relief that these beings prefered peace. "Might we retire out of this blizzard and begin talks in earnest?"

Thaddaeus and Rasua braced for the response to follow. Rainbow's iron stare at Ventras ended when she looked backwards at Twilight, seemingly at an unheard request. Without saying a word to the sphinxes, Rainbow Dash backed off to allow Twilight to take her place. The sphinxes were used to body language, but the changelings appeared to take it three steps higher.

Unlike her sister, Twilight Sparkle maintained a friendly face with a beaming smile. "I believe that would be an excellent course of action. Understanding breeds camaraderie, and with camaraderie, peace and friendship."

"I agree. It is late, how about we begin over a meal?" Luna piped in with just enough urgency to get things moving, but without sounding too impatient. _Hopefully we can avoid such vulgar displays in the future._

* * *

All the way back in Canterlot, Celestia's head was pounding from a massive headache as Blue Flare continued giving her a play-by-play recount of first contact with the Federation. A servant dropped some aspirin in her tea before Celestia downed in it one go.

"I must say, Blue, your mother has a certain flair for the theatrics I never really expected to see in her."

"In her defense," Blue Flare said after a polite hoof-covered titter, "it seems to have done the trick. Everypony's moving on to talk inside the coastal town."

"Be that as it may," Celestia started, only to be stopped short by a discreet knock on the door. "Yes?"

A guard poked his head in. "Princess Celestia, Bean Counter is here to discuss the rearmament of the Night Guard."

Celestia suppressed a sigh, and instead gave the world her best regal gentle smile. "Is it so late already?" She looked outside to find the sun would be setting soon, and that she and her sister had their daily dance to do. "Ambassador, please keep me apprised of any further developments."

"Of course, your highness." Blue Flare bowed deeply with a warm smile of her own. Like Rolled Scroll, she loved to serve both her queens and the princesses alike. Truth be told, both drones played poker to see who would be the one to have the privilege of keeping Celestia apprised of the situation. With the dismissal, she cantered towards the door right as the guard swung it open. "Barring any emergencies, I'll have my report ready for you first thing in the morning."

* * *

Hiding among the freshly planted saplings, heedless of the bitter cold blasting against its shell, was a changeling drone who had witnessed everything that had just transpired between the Equestrians and Federation. This breed in particular thrived in winter.

The scout was not alone, as every single hive had at least one drone always watching the _Deception._ Normally it was insanely difficult once the warship's cloak was active, but the arrival of the _Crystal Blue_ made tracking the queens' movements trival.

More than one had been spotted by the warship's ever vigilant observers, and subsequently killed, but that was why there was always more than one spy. The queen currently puppeting the drone snorted in approval after both parties were retreating to the coast town. _You did well to hide your vessel from these newcomers, but it was not difficult at all to follow the pony ship._

"If both queens are here along with their warship, then the time to strike has come at last. The frigate is too far away to respond in time." The queen left the scout's body with orders to keep watch. _I must inform my allies that the Culling has begun._


	40. Chapter 40

Meet and Greet

Stratholme was a thriving boomtown when Spinning Compass and her husband first discovered it, and by the time Twilight set hoof within its boundaries the city had tripled in size. The prospect of an untamed land with government subsidized sea travel to all colonists coupled with the seclusion a new continent offered caused the city to overflow with people of all walks of life. While the city proceeded to grow well past the ring of hills that served as a natural wall, vast stretches of dock homes and warehouses began to crowd the shallow waters surrounding the natural harbor. Twilight felt waves of powerful magic emanating from three large stone towers located at the far edge of the docks. As to what they were for, she couldn't tell without a closer inspection.

Ventras was already profoundly embarrassed from Rainbow Dash's display of technological power shaming him into conceding the position of power to the natives. That shame was compounded by the presence of sphinx citizens crowding the streets and air to gaze upon the parade of VIPs along the road and the two strange airships above. As if the echoing thunderclaps didn't cause enough chaos, word among those who had witnessed the display of power spread like wildfire, and the story of the destroyer sized warship materializing out of thin air was on everyone's lips.

Twilight sat in the Royal Guard drawn carriage with her sister and Luna at her side as Ventras and his escorts guided them towards his Governor's Manor. The sights and sounds of so many strange new onlookers sent the scholar in her flying into a tizzy as she allowed a filly version of herself to squeal for joy in a private Linkscape. That was the only way she was going to keep from doing the same thing in the real world.

Rainbow Dash was just _eating_ up all the attention. Her prismatic mane already set her apart from the rest of the royals, and the rumormill identified her as the one who commanded the steel behemoth in the air thanks to word of mouth. Rainbow even waved at her "adoring" fans, yet showed impressive restraint by not calling out to them for more praise.

Finding a tactful way to keep Rainbow Dash from making an ass of herself, Luna poignantly cleared her throat and started speaking in Vespid. Luna wasn't the best at the language, but she was more than passable at it. "Now that we have their attention and, for the moment, their cooperation. We need to learn as much as possible about these sphinxes."

Rainbow inwardly groaned at having to deal with matters of state, but Twilight was highly enthused. "Right, we need to know if they always value strength over courtesy, and at what times is the opposite true. We need to know body language, slang, what manner of speech to use, the list goes on and on."

Rainbow rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah, if we screw any of that up, they'd better realize that it's out of ignorance. And if they don't, we've got two and half thousand tons of firepower to smooth over any social muck ups."

Twilight arched an eyebrow at her sister and gave an approving hum, while Luna frowned at the idea. "Crude, but in the end, the warship should make treaty negotiations easier."

"At the very least, it will give us time to show we mean no harm," Twilight added decisively after catching Luna's tone, "but that we are more than capable of defending ourselves."

Aegis, who had been listening intently, absorbing all of the wisdom she could, had something to add. "Assuming they never find out we only have one frigate and the two gunboats back home." _One of which is still in dry dock for another two weeks._

Despite herself, Luna couldn't help but to give off a light chuckle. "It's strange how apt the name of your flagship is, Rainbow Dash."

Twilight was glad that Aegis inserted herself into the conversation, and used it as an excuse to speak to her. "Aegis, I have an important mission for you, one that you're perfectly suited for as a princess."

Aegis stiffened into attention out of old habit and saluted her queen-mother. "Name it, and it'll be done."

Luna tapped Twilight on the shoulder before she could state Aegis' objectives. "I should have thought of this earlier. We don't know how the sphinxes learned Equestrian. It is possible they might be able to pick up a language just by hearing it. You better use your hive mind from here on, no need to speak aloud on my account."

Twilight smiled and nodded. "Thank you, Luna." The carriages turned a corner to reveal a large manor situated on a hill. That looks like our destination so I'll keep it brief. We don't know how keen these sphinxes' sense of smell is, nor how important it is for communication. Since it would look suspicious to have our soldiers going around and catching samples, I'll need you to do it. Thankfully, your royal blood will allow you to disseminate that information throughout the hive for later sphinx disguises.

Rainbow Dash had been listening in and thought of a few things to add. You might want to look around for other kinds of information as well. That Ventras guy has a daughter. Why don't you chat her up princess to princess. Who knows, you might even get to be the first changeling to bed a sphinx.

Twilight scowled at her sister, but Aegis flashed a predatory grin at the prospect. That same grin was seen by every sphinx along the road, and they all knew that grin well. As you wish my queens, I shall set forth to make history. Who knows, I might even break the world record in fastest new species mating. I wonder what their love tastes like.

Twilight groaned used her magic to pinch her brow. _Wonderful,_ as if she needs more encouragement. Look, Aegis, keep your mind focused on the task at hoof. Even if a romantic outing could loosen her lips, we can't afford a diplomatic incident on day one, okay?

Rainbow conceded the point with a submissive shrug with Aegis nodding apologetically. Wanting to derail her sister's irritation, Rainbow Dash hummed aloud. Hey, is it just me, or do these guys feel totally blank on the old emotion-detector?

Aegis shook her head at the observation. No, I sensed nothing. But isn't that normal for meeting new people?

True, Twilight allowed with a slight warning tone. But there's something else in the air and I bet my crown it's coming from those three towers on the water. I can't get a read on anyone who isn't a changeling, not even Princess Luna.

Hold on a bit! You think that might be why Luna can't dream-dive her scout? Rainbow jumped in excitement at such a deduction.

Could be, Twilight conceded with a thoughtful rub of her chin. Luna's dreamwalking is a very precise form of telepathy, not magic. It's possible the sphinxes are telepathic themselves or have a history with it. Either way, we better be careful to gauge their view on psychic ability before we reveal ourselves, and watch for any attempts to probe your thoughts.

Everyone nodded in agreement, and the order for discretion was passed down throughout the changeling ranks while Rainbow passed the warning on to Princess Luna. A bump in the road returned their attention to the three story tall manor, and only now realized that they were nearly there. The manor was situated on an artificially flattened hill with only a short vine-covered garden fence to denote the edge of the estate.

If Twilight had to guess, she would estimate the manor was roughly a third the size of her childhood home: the Sparkle Estate. _That places it much larger than the average house, but still… I will have to see if the size is to denote status alone, or if it's a live in city hall._

Aside from a layer of white paint to protect the wood from the elements, there was very little colorful decoration. _Could be a sign that these sphinxes can't make dyes in these lands, and importing them is a low priority._ Yet if there was any doubt in her mind about the Federation being poor in the arts, the virtual forest of statues that practically covered the whole city threw such thoughts out the window. Twenty lined the driveway alone, while yet more statues and gargoyles dotted the windows and roof of both the manor and on every street corner and building. _I can't help but think they use them as business signs as well._

As the group of royals departed the carriages, Aegis noticed the small dog sized statues along the stairs to the front door were newer than the rest thanks to the slightly richer black paint. Unlike all the other statues, these had an even mix of winged and wingless sphinxes in black priest robes with hoods obscuring their faces. It was only when everyone disembarked from the carriages and started walking up to the front entrance that she saw each priest was holding a gem-capped staff in what looked like a minotaur's hand in place of their right paw. _Hands?! Is that artistic license or for real?_ Her fixation on the hands abated as her senses touched more heavily on the ingrained magic of the black statues. _Those things give me the heebie jeebies. They're giving off some kind of creepy magic._

The eeriness of the statues was not quite enough to make Aegis warn the others of them. Even so, she used her magic to pull her jacket a little tighter around her chest and hurried up inside where Ventras, Thaddeus, and Rasua bowed and swept a foreleg towards the dining room across the main hall. Ventras was still fuming, but was able to hide it with ease. "I greet you and your houses with all the honor and respect that I can give. Let it be known that no sphinx will harm you while under my roof."

Even with the double doors being wide open, the interior was much warmer by far, and did much to take the edge off. Twilight let Luna's greater and older wisdom in diplomacy take the lead while Rainbow Dash was indifferent unless called upon or if there was a threat of violence. The dark alicorn mirrored the sphinxes' bow, but did not bow quite so low, prompting the queens to do the same. "We thank you for your hospitality. Shall we move straight onto business, or is there an event we need to participate in first?"

Thaddeus couldn't tell Luna's tone was sincere or that of warlord patronizing her lessers. _I'll act like it is the former._ "It is tradition for our people that those who have the most power during first time negotiations to dictate how negotiations are conducted."

"I see," Luna replied evenly. She turned to whisper to Twilight in Vespid. They spoke briefly and without emotion, unwittingly putting the sphinxes on edge. They wondered why they didn't seem to include Rainbow Dash, but to their confusion, Twilight and Rainbow would meet eyes every so often yet no words seemed to be shared. After a minute or so, Luna turned back to Ventras who had recovered from his bow. "While we came here looking for our explorers, we also came to make new friends, not enemies. In the spirit of such cooperation, and the fact that we stand in your house even if the land is still in dispute, we would like to take part in one of your ceremonies to mark the occasion. Provided my explorers are returned to me _without_ delay."

Ventras and all the sphinxes who listened in weren't sure how to take that. Within their own culture, abdicating the right of ceremony, which was viewed differently than simply choosing not to have one, was a sign of cultural poverty on the level of a barbarian. _All the rules go out the window with these foreigners,_ Rasua mused darkly. _They're playing it smart. They want to know more about us, while at the same time revealing less about themselves. But at the same time, that makes it easier to accidentally insult them._ She inwardly scoffed. _Father's too old to adapt quickly enough to keep up with an entirely new set of rules._

To his credit, Ventras showed none of the smoldering embarrassment from earlier, and passed himself off as a welcoming host. "If that is what you desire." He looked all three royals in the eyes to try and sniff out any dissent, anything he could use to gain favor with at least one of them.

Finding none, he moved on. "Today marks the darkest hour of the year, and lowest point on the Great Cycle. A few priests of Lerasium were consecrating my house and evening meal when word of your arrival interrupted the event. I know they are eager to continue. As for your explorers…" Ventras turned to one of the ten guards in the room and barked a short command. "The one we captured recently has been unharmed, and proved to be very _talkative."_

"And what of Spinning Compass, and her husband Trail Mix?" Rainbow suddenly snapped. "They better not have been treated unfairly."

Fearing Ventras would word his response poorly; Thaddeus stepped forward with his head low. "The one calling himself Slippery Shadow resides on the second floor, no doubt aware of your arrival by now. If you mean the two explorers sent here many seasons ago, all we can provide is our deepest apologies." He hesitated out of respect. "They are dead," he said apologetically. "If anyone is to blame for it, it is I."

Twilight feared that was the case. _Explorers willing to go this far would have been resourceful enough to get word back sooner._ She could feel Rainbow's indignation surging to match Luna's own, and feared her sister would act before the princess. She watched Rainbow's indifferently pursed lips quickly shifted to boiling anger as Thaddeus explained the married couple's fate. She was in the process of surging forward when Twilight stopped her with a hoof. Rainbow shot her a look between disbelief and fury. Twilight knew Rainbow's argument the moment it came into being. Hold on, sister. They were Luna's subjects, if not friends as well. Let her be the one to deal with this.

The request wasn't for mercy, or to hold back for diplomacy's sake, and for that, some part of Rainbow Dash was grateful. You're right, Twi, but if Luna wants to bring on the pain, then I'm all for it.

We'll see what we do from there, Twilight replied with steel. _If_ we get there.

For her part, Luna was equally angry, but also sad for the loss. "You had better to explain yourself, _immediately._ I tell you now that every one of my loyal subjects is precious to me."

Ventras knew what his old friend was doing, and as much as he wanted to spare him whatever wrath the royals would demand, he knew that trying to intervene would only dishonor his majordomo and his family name. Rasua, however, was inches from intervening on her oath-brother's behalf, honor be damned.

Thaddeus took a brief moment to choose his words carefully. "My sister and I were talking on the roof of this very house. I pulled over a clump of hillside to," He trailed off because he hated sounding childish in front of everyone, and the native rulers only made it worse. "To drop on Rasua to pull her away from her hobby for a moment," he partially lied to protect Rasua from her bout of laziness. "When I crumbled the dirt, one of the ponies dropped right on top of us. I was so stunned I dropped the rest of the dirt on us. The one who fell tried to jump back up the hill where its mate was waiting for her with a rope. Caught unawares, Rasua was struck with something and was momentarily thrown from the roof. I attempted to halt the ponies' escape by pulling the hill down around them, while doing so I was hit by the male's weapon that launched this into my gut." Thaddeus morphed a paw into a hand, much to the Equestrians' astonishment, Aegis chief among them, and withdrew a small bag from a pocket. Thaddeus then emptied the contents and presented it to the natives.

Luna's suspicions abated when she saw the deformed musket ball, and further confirmed when Thaddeus pulled his jacket and underclothing aside to reveal a large dimple-like scar the size of a bit right below his ribcage. Rainbow Dash's anger waned a little the sight of it with a chilling thought crossing her mind. _Yikes. That's a musket wound alright. What would I have done if some random new creature had shot me? I haven't seen a firearm among them at all, so I bet they were freaking out._

Thaddeus continued his tale with a stout determined tone. "I was too injured to give chase so I summoned a Chevalier and ordered her to retrieve the fleeing ponies. I was less than clear about how I wanted them retrieved."

"I can understand your confusion," Luna said at length. As with Rainbow, her anger was slipping as well, but was by no means disappearing entirely. "But you make it seem that the soldier killed my explorers. They were not fighters or warriors, they were scouts. Why did she feel the need to slay them?"

Rasua knew Thaddeus too well. _That idiot will just give no excuse, and these natives will demand his head!_ Seeing no alternative, she jumped into the conversation before Thaddeus could throw himself to the wolves. "You must understand, your majesties!" Ventras barked a curt command to shush her for speaking out of turn, but she ignored him. "We come from a land where we are the only masters of logic and reason. My brother was too stunned to clarify his orders, and the Chevalier acted out of ignorance until it was too late."

Out of all of them, Twilight was shocked the most by that. "What?!" She pushed ahead to be just in front of Luna who was far too mired between flabbergasted and doubt to object. "There are changelings, ponies, dragons, zebras, minotaurs, sea serpents, and griffins just to name a few of the intelligent species that inhabit the known world. Do you seriously expect us to believe that your lands gave rise to only one sapient species?"

"As weird as it sounds, it's all true, your highness," came a voice from the stairwell a few meters away. Everyone looked up to find Slippery Shadow and his guard escort. The thestral looked no worse for wear. So much so that Luna almost thought he had gained a little weight. Shadow flew over to bow before Luna and the other royals. "I've had the pleasure of discussing a great many things with my hosts. They were dumbstruck when I told them of all the races of the world." He leaned in and whispered to Luna. "Much like I was when I arrived at the hive."

Luna had been prepared to demand harsh reprisals in the event of her explorers' death, yet with Shadow being unharmed, she reevaluated her options. Seeing only one recourse that her morals would agree to, Luna elevated her voice a little. "Both nations of the Equestrian Alliance were founded on the principles of peace and friendship. For that, I believe Spinning Compass and Trail Mix would rather have their deaths prevent further loss of life, instead of being an excuse to end more."

In fear of sounding weak, Luna's voice took a hard edge. "But I still demand recompense. Two indentured servants, not executions, as payment." Luna stared directly at Ventras as she spoke. "I have little use for a corpse."

Every sphinx in the room who could rub two brain cells together instantly saw this as a "Des'tai", a test of character and honor that Luna had challenged their entire civilization with in one deft stroke. Thaddeus' thoughts mirrored those of his kind. _I'd wager my right eye she'd accept anybody, even a couple of street rats as her servants. But what would that tell these Equestrians about the honor of our people? I for one will not see our glorious civilization be seen as dishonorable barbarians by those who have undoubtedly risen above their prey ancestors._

Rasua cursed that fateful day when the married explorers found Stratholme, and of what Thaddeus' honor demanded him to do. _I won't allow them to take my oath-brother._ Rasua stepped forward before anyone could speak. "I volunteer to serve you."

"Rasua!" Ventras yelled worriedly, but his daughter pressed on. Even Thaddeus was caught flat footed.

"I am a capable warrior and a renowned blacksmith," Rasua stated firmly at Luna and the queens, momentarily ignoring her father's protests. "I know that honor requires my brother accept your demands, but I beseech you that he is too important to the colony's success to leave. For the good of my people, and that of your lost explorers, allow me to go in Thaddeus' place."

"That is acceptable," Luna replied evenly. Few were able to catch the glint of respect in her eyes. "It would not do well to disrupt the governance of your city." Thaddeus glowered at his oath-sister, but couldn't bring himself to speak. "Even so, you are only one of two that I require."

"There can be only one acceptable choice," an old thready feminine voice called out from behind the guards to the right. The line of guards parted to reveal two sphinxes, one of each kind, garbed in the same black robes that Aegis noticed on the statues earlier.

The aged wingless female of the pair leaned against her ornate staff as she guided her younger winged male counterpart along with her. "The vision I warned all of you about has come to pass. 'A blasted hill and terrible warmachine will herald the Great Death. The exiled metal-shaper, and one of the cloth must venture into the howling dark, lest we all be swept away.'"

Rainbow Dash was as skeptical about such things as her sister, but more so out of stubbornness than the need for scientific evidence. Yet the supposed vision only ranked second on her groan-o-meter. "Just how many of you guys speak Equestrian now!?"

Slippery Shadow shrank a little where he stood. "I umm…" He self-consciousnessly clapped his hooves together and sweated at her coming response. "I sort of convinced most of the people in the manor to take the language spell so I would have a bigger audience for my reenactment of Marelet."

 _What a foalish idiot._ Had she been anywhere else, and if Slippery was an actual soldier, Luna might have taken the time to berate him for the next hour. Nevertheless, Luna was nothing if not cunning. _A priest? Or at least a seer, and a willing one at that. One of them could tell me all I want to know about the sphinxes ideology and mentality._ Luna leaned over to beckon Twilight into a hushed conversation in Vespid. "An interesting proposal. How would you feel about splitting them up and taking Rasua with you?"

Twilight found it difficult to keep the exasperation out of her voice. "Personally I find this whole punishment thing rather archaic, but I can't think of a better one other than imprisonment."

"You know it's the perfect excuse to learn more about their kind," Luna retorted as if she was surprised that Twilight wasn't reading between the lines.

"Believe me, I know. If you're really dead set on this, we'll go along with it." Twilight paused a moment as she listened to her sister over the hive mind. "Plus RD thinks we'd be better off gauging the sphinxes' level of technology if we had the smith anyway."

"Then it's settled." Luna returned her attention to Ventras who was caught between fear and pride for his daughter's foolishness and courage. "The priest will come with me to my capital, and your daughter will go with Queen Twilight Sparkle and Queen Rainbow Dash. But I will tell you this: they are not our slaves, nor our property in any way. Nor will they be treated as such. You have my word that both of them will be treated with all _due_ dignity and respect. Their willingness to accept our demands grants them that much." _I had no intention of treating them otherwise, but let them think the opposite,_ Luna mused. "For the time being, shall we begin this ceremony of yours before talks begin?"

Fear for his daughter coursed through Ventras like lightning. _I know she's a member of the Sestapo, but they never trained her to be a spy._ Shaking off his worries for the moment, he nodded at Luna. "If it is my daughter's wishes, then I agree."

* * *

A solitary black carapace drone hid in a tree on the outer edge of Stripped Gear. It's painstakingly crafted lithe body easily blended into the backdrop of greenery surrounding it. Here in the equatorial jungle, winter's frozen touch was rarely felt. The edge of Stripped Gear's caldera loomed upward with the barest trace of the illusion dome rounding it out, making it impossible to spy what lay within. _Ever since Cadista gained access to Equestrian magic, it's been impossible to scry what she's doing anymore. Attacking her with an army at this point is far too wasteful, but where there's a will, there's a way…_

Scattered out along the edge of the hive were the heads and broken thoraxes of hundreds of drones from almost every other changeling hive. The macabre sight was not there to scare away any would-be spies, due to other queens caring nothing for the life of a few drones. _A warning on how prepared she is against infiltration. She's no fool. She knows a large enough swarm could defeat her, but it would undoubtedly be a pyrrhic victory, one the other queens would capitalize on. So she tightens the noose on spying. Well, I'll just have to see if they measure up to this latest infiltrator._

The queen puppeteering the drone grinned wickedly, even its fangs were dull so they wouldn't glint in the bright cloudless day. The prospect of the operation sent a primal thrill through the puppet's mistress. _I couldn't ask for a better test._ With nary a whisper, the drone slinked out of the tree.

Negotiating the empty expanse between the tree line and the edge of the caldera was child's play. The puppet expected there to be guards right behind the illusion dome, but they were not a concern just yet. _With the volcano's edge being a hundred meters high, any guards there would be more concerned about seeing a swarm attack them, than a lone drone._

The puppet reached the edge where the illusion shield and the natural rock of the caldera met. The controlling queen wouldn't dare to use any magic to peer through. _I could magically peer through at this range, wards or not, but I have to expect secondary warning spells are in place._

Without any other recourse, the puppet stuck its head through to the loud din of an industrial hive. The first thing the puppet noticed was the slight polluted haze that permeated the air. The interior of the wall was actually a steel plated rampart with a few fixed gun emplacements built so they couldn't be turned in towards the hive in the event of being overrun. If the puppet had a better understanding of such technology, it may have noticed the trap door hatches that might have housed hidden weapon platforms. The overbuilt urban center of the hive sickened the puppet. _So much wasted effort on unliving technology._

The puppet looked around to find two of Cadista's drones a few meters to the left who were distracted as they picked apart another hive's drone with rifle fire further down the wall. The rival spy was cut down with ruthless efficiency, yet that did little to dissuade the puppet's queen dim view on inorganic technology. With the guards distracted, the puppet pulled itself fully through the shield. _My camouflage magic should work even in this urban environment, but I'd better not take any chances._

The distance between the edge of the wall and the drop off of the caldera was short but that was no excuse to be sloppy. Over half of all of the queen's earlier attempts at infiltrating Stripped Gear ended shortly after underestimating the hive's defenses. The puppet found a couple metal crates of ammunition to duck behind as two more riflelings flew in at a low hover to aid their kin in searching for more spies. _Good, they're going in the wrong direction. I hope my luck holds._

Waiting a full hour for things to die down and to gauge the patrol patterns of the guards was a serious pain. The infiltrator's camouflage was made to be sustainable for weeks, but it destabilized badly while moving. Cadista's guards were _good_ and the puppet saw no less than three other spies try to breach the shield within half an hour. All of them were cut down almost immediately, if not by those on the walls, then by the flying cavalry that always seemed to be a stone's throw away.

Such attacks were to be expected, and the puppeteering queen didn't even bat an eyelash at the spectacle. _Word has it Cadista's building something new. For how long I don't know, but in the end it won't matter if she's taken out before she can bring this new weapon to the battlefield._

The infiltrator's musings were cut short when it saw an opening. The wall guards were being relieved and the flying cavalry were momentarily distracted by their replacements. In a flash of movement, the spy raced to get off the wall and used its hooves to cling to the inner side of the caldera wall. In a moment of impatience, the controlling queen wanted to press the advantage and slip further down towards the urban sprawl below, but caution won out and the puppet stayed where it was.

The act had been fortuitous as the spy soon discovered more teams of cavalry were watching the interior of the walls like hawks. _I should have expected as much. Cadista may be a fool when it comes to having intelligent drones and using technology of machine and metal, but when it comes to security…_ The controlling queen made sure her grunt of approval came from her real body and not the puppet. _That is a long way down to the nearest building. I better leave the puppet here overnight to study the patrol paths. Cadista can wait another day._


	41. Chapter 41

Diplomacy

Rasua was in her room on the third story of the manor packing her possessions away, everything from undergarments to various odds and ends. Thanks to the _Deception,_ she was allowed to take whatever she wished, provided anything dangerous was declared ahead of time. Rasua didn't take long since she had little beyond work clothing and an assortment of blacksmithing tools. She always kept her trade secret tools in her chambers when not at work. The runed smithing hammer that she paused to study was her particular favorite.

With her room in upheaval, she took the time to shift both forelegs into hands and gently rubbed the expertly crafted handle as one would a lover. _I hope I get to continue to shape metal wherever it is they're taking me. My old master would be spitting curses from the hereafter if he knew his teachings would go to waste._

Before she could put it in its travel case, such was the care she had for the tool, Rasua grabbed some mana infused oil to recharge the runes. She was half way done before a knock on the door broke her concentration. "Enter!"

A guard popped his head in. "Princess Aegis Altair wishes to speak with you."

"The princess? I thought she'd be busy with the deliberations."

The guard fully opened the door, allowing Aegis to canter inside. "I'm keeping tabs on it," she answered for the guard. "But all of it is as I expected it to be. Our side is leveraging our ancient claim to the land and ability to enforce it, while your father and… oath-brother, I believe, are countering with the fact that there was no Equestrian presence in the land and how none of us have been using it in the slightest."

Rasua stiffened at her new master's abrupt entry, and did her best to ignore the invasion of privacy. "I see. Is there something you require of me, Princess?" She couldn't help but to notice the glint of red-ish metal underneath Aegis' heavy clothing.

"Since you'll be coming with us to Phoenix's Roost, I thought we should get to know each other better. Perhaps I could even help you pack, if you like."

Rasua was caught flat-footed by the offer and her mouth hung agape for a brief instant before she waved the guard to leave, and spoke once he shut the door. "I am all for expedience." _How is she going to do that without hands? She better not drool on anything._ She pointed at a trio of small painted statues. Aegis immediately identified Ventras and Thaddeus were depicted in two of them, but an unknown winged female with a caring face was the third. "Since that ship of yours is so spacious, I'm taking everything except furniture. So if you could wrap them up, it'd save some time."

"Of course." Aegis saw a stack of silky towels next to the statues. _If these are of her family, she must love them a great deal. I wonder why she'd let a stranger do this._ With the greatest of care, Aegis proceeded to wrap them up with her telekinesis.

Rasua was already familiar with her brother's own form of telekinesis, so Aegis wielding the same power only produced an inquisitive hum out of Rasua. _So that's how they manage without hands. Does it work with everything or only certain materials like brother's power? I'll find out soon enough, and at least I don't have to worry about drool or skin oil on them._

The pair passed into silence long enough for Aegis to finish wrapping one statue and to begin on the second when Rasua asked a question that was bugging her whole family. "So tell me, Princess, why do you changelings look so much alike? Do you dye your fur and hair to signify which queen you champion or something?"

Aegis couldn't help but to giggle behind a hoof at the notion, earning a slightly sour look from Rasua. "No, it has nothing to do with social reasons. Any purple changeling you see from our hive is Twilight Sparkle's child, while all the blue drones came from Rainbow Dash."

 _Hive, drone?_ Rasua stopped packing at the strange ideas Aegis' comment was giving her. "You mean figuratively, right?" she asked with an edge of fear.

Aegis wrapped up the last statue with a sly grin, completely missing the sphinx's fear. "Nope. My queens can lay up to thirteen eggs a day, and I came from one of them." Her heart went aflutter. _Oh, I can't wait to lay eggs! To feel the love of thousands, no_ tens _of thousands of children would be divine!_ Aegis stopped swooning over her future to notice Rasua was staring at her wide-eyed. "We may look like mammals, Rasua, but that's only skin deep. We changelings are actually much closer to insects than anything else. At least that's how we think of ourselves."

Rasua had noticed the gossamer wings, but between the fur and eyes she hadn't made the connection. Aegis watched her open and shut her mouth repeatedly, but the words never came. "If you're wondering why I'm telling all this, it's because my queens feel understanding can defeat ignorance induced fear. It's worked fairly well with the ponies, so they hope it will with your kind as well."

 _Vath! As if being technologically superior wasn't bad enough, now she tells me they're bugs too?_ Rasua's mood sunk rapidly thanks to her entomophobia. She looked away to hide her creeping hyperventilation. _J-just don't focus on that. She's lying, yeah, just a big joke, that's all._ Her wings ruffled at the thought of maggots, flies, spider webs, and even butterflies. _It's all a lie!_ she screamed at herself. _She has fur, and hair, and, non-bug eyes, and only four limbs, and stuff. She's a damn mammal, and she's going to like it!_

With her mental gymnastics done, she calmed down enough to look back at Aegis who was inspecting how Rasua had folded her clothes and was trying her best to mimic it. The act alone puzzled her. "Say ahh… Do you always fold your own clothes?"

"And the laundry, and my own weapons' maintenance," Aegis replied plainly while turning to look lovingly at the flamethrower strapped on her back.

"Why, aren't you a princess?"

Aegis had made a point to avoid any obvious undergarments, and only looked at Rasua briefly as she spoke between folding. "I was a soldier before I was a princess, with all the trappings that came with it. I wouldn't have been chosen to become a royal if I was a self-centered prick. Everypo-everyone has to contribute to the welfare of the hive, and sitting on a pedestal all day complaining about trivial things is unacceptable." _Mother would sooner die than allow me or any future royal daughter become like those self-centered rich "noble" girls from Canterlot._

"I see." Rasua finished packing her tools and moved several large pieces of luggage over to stuff her clothes in. She was operating under the assumption that she wouldn't find any tailors suited for her in the heartland of the Equestrian Alliance.

"Well I've told you about my people," Aegis commented as she helped levitate some of Rasua's larger belongings into a crate. "Could you tell me about yourself and sphinxes in general?" She paused a moment before adding, "like what do you say to distinguish between gender and the possession of wings?"

Rasua looked at her funny before remembering that they had been speaking in Equestrian the whole time. It was also a harmless question enough. "Adult males are called toms while females are called janes. Being a winged sphinx I'm called a Grecian while those like my oath-brother and father are Egyptians. That's a holdover from the original civilizations both races came from, but our two races united early in recorded history due to the actions of the Prophet Felryan. By the time that old religion died out, unification remained entrenched in our general society and mindset."

"Fascinating," Aegis hummed curiously. "That's far quicker than ponies unified." Aegis went into the abridged version of Equestrian history revolving mostly around the Hearth's Warming Eve story. Rasua took the story as heavily sanitized half-truths, but said nothing to potentially insult the changeling princess.

"An interesting tale to be sure," Rasua focused on how non-bug Aegis acted, which was helped by the fact that she looked mammalian. "Since you told me of your history, it is only fair I do the same. We are a federation of seven nations bound by steel since the last of the Geyser Wars ten years ago. We used to be eight territories within an equal number of empires, but the wars ended up killing off all the royal families in the end, with one province being totally wiped out in the process. After that, the rival army marshals called for a cease fire since it was the ruling caste of the two empires that wanted the war in the first place. Those army marshals ended up becoming the first members of the Council of Seven."

Aegis was stunned long enough for a small crew of movers to come in and take the luggage and crates away. "How did your people unify so quickly?"

"It's… complicated." Rasua remembered stories about the Old Families. "Let's just say the people were more than happy to see the old imperials lines finally wither away. They were the only ones who really kept our people so divided. Plus one of the marshals declared this was an extension of Prophet Felryan's will. He tried and failed to resurrect the old religion, but it helped expedite cooperation." With the movers and all of her possessions being passed over to a parked shuttle out front, Rasua felt it would be a good idea to get one last look of her new home. "Would you like a brief tour of Stratholme tomorrow? I'll likely not see it again anytime soon, and there are some sites you might find of interest." _I'd like to see if anything catches her eye so I can use that later._

"Sounds cold." Aegis shivered at the thought of going back outside, and the frozen over window didn't help at all. "But intriguing nonetheless, I'd like that." With tomorrow planned, Aegis switched gears. "You said you were a warrior earlier," she said to pull attention away from the blizzard. "Do you have a weapon of choice?"

"Aye, well, two of them." Rasua brightened considerably at the question, and dearly wished the question had been brought up earlier. "My new love is my smithing hammer: Thul. I'd never swing him in combat, but with that hammer in my hands, I can forge arms for others to fight with. In that way, I fight with not just _my_ hands, but with all of those who I craft for."

"I hadn't thought about that line of reasoning before," Aegis decided to leave out the hive's assembly lines for the time being. "And the second?"

"The Spark Cannons. Militarily I'd imagine they operate the same way your muskets do, only far too big to carry by hand. They rend the skies with lightning, making flight during combat all but impossible." She subconsciously rubbed her right foreleg. "I would not be here today were it not for those weapons."

"I can sympathize with that." Aegis pulled her pride and joy off her back. "This is my flamethrower: Burny. This guy's saved my skin more times than I care to count."

"Flamethrower?" Rasua commented absently, earning a bemused eyebrow out of Aegis. "My people have always excelled at harnessing lightning ever since we witnessed nature brandish it during storms. Yet aside from the cook, hearth, and forge, we've never trusted fire or explosive things. Between this flamethrower, the explosions on the hill, and that explosive powder we found on the first explorers, your people must use it far more extensively than sanely possible."

"I see," Aegis said at length as Rasua lead them to the kitchens. "So you guys were," she tried to put it diplomatically, "compelled to concede the position of power to us, due to concerns about our fire based weaponry and having a flying ship?" Rasua nodded with a grimace. "Why didn't you try to use those cannons on us once we moved into the city to grab power back?"

Rasua paused on the stairs and turned to look at her. "Just because we were caught off guard by your ship's display of power and the fact that it appeared out of thin air, doesn't mean we couldn't think." Aegis almost recoiled a bit at the taste of venom coming out of Rasua. "We tried making airships before a long time ago, but lightning technology was too far advanced by then, and all the early flying ships were destroyed long before they could ever influence the battlefield." She wasn't sure if Equestrians had railroads, which ended up killing any future airships had in the Federation, so Rasua left them out.

"And those early ships were made from wood and rubber hulls, I could tell even at that distance, your warship is made of metal. Which means you found a way to shrug off lightning from thunderstorms, and if you could do that, our cannons are worthless against you." What Rasua didn't want to add was how much destruction the flamethrower armed changelings could cause if they targeted the city instead of the guards.

Aegis recalled Gethar's failed attempts at using lightning against the _Deception._ "I'm surprised you perceived all that so quickly."

 _Well, father wanted to lead that ship into the city until I convinced him lightning would be folly._ "A huntress must think quickly or she becomes the prey instead." Aegis wasn't actually sure anything she could say would be correct, so she opted for silence. The pair started moving towards the kitchens again. "In any event, I wish to have an early evening meal." _It may be the last chance I can get ribs._ "You have no need to join me, princess."

"Hey, I get hungry too! And I think it'd be interesting to see what kind of food you guys have."

* * *

"I think it's a fair compromise," Twilight stated in front of the conference room. "The Alliance is willing to part with sixty thousand square kilometers of land, centered on the logging camp we passed over into Stratholme, and in return, you build a land trade route to Vanhoover in the north, along with guarding and maintaining it for the next decade after completion." There were other smaller details, like regulations, but she didn't want to drag it out by speaking of each one. "With that, we can enjoy open borders and trade relations."

Thaddeus had to admit, he couldn't have asked for better. "And you also desire to send a diplomatic envoy to the Federation homeland, as well as set up an embassy here."

"Correct," Luna replied with carefully measured grace. "I assume you'll wish to wait for a formal response and diplomatic team from your homeland to arrive. Just remember the land we trade is more of a gift than an actual bargaining chip. If you desire more, you will have to _pay_ full price for it."

Ventras looked over the two scribes, a sphinx and Slippery Shadow, who were jotting down all the details of the negotiations. "Before we finalize this agreement, I must ask. Why are you not demanding more concessions for so much land? What sort of back dealing are we going to have to put up with?"

Twilight gave him an acknowledging smile, and stood up to pace around the square table where they all sat. "While I do not subscribe to most of them, I whole heartily believe in the thirty fifth Rule of Acquisition: peace is good for business. Demanding what we perceive as the full value of this much land would cost you dearly, and may not be what you would find fair." She reached Ventras' chair and gently dragged a wing along the back of it. "Were that to happen, all future relations between the Alliance and Federation would be soured by the notion that we bullied you into giving too many concessions. So we'd prefer to start things off where everyone is happy." She rounded Ventras' chair and flashed him a winning fang-filled smile.

 _The bigger the smile, the sharper the knife._ Ventras studied the purple mare intently, it was only now that he felt he truly saw her. "Your words are gentle, and yet..." He turned to look at the _Deception_ through a window. "They have _weight._

"Yes... I can see you clearly now, Queen Twilight Sparkle. Your forefathers may have been prey, but you, _you_ are not. I can see it in your eyes, in your stance, in your teeth, you are not prey, you are the prime huntress of your people. For that, you have my respect.

"If you have seen fit to have these ponies be your close allies, then they too are undeserving of the moniker of prey. We would be honored to work alongside you."

"Wonderful," Twilight replied as she settled back down in her seat. Celestia's training served Twilight well as she took the compliment in stride. "I look forward to a prolonged friendship with both you and the Federation."

While Rainbow Dash was more than happy to remain silent the entire time, Twilight prodded her to add a token voice to the proceedings. "We'll have the formal papers written up by morning. You can review it to make sure there are no errors before signing it."

Thaddeus clasped his hands together and bowed graciously. "We'll be doing the same in our language to send back home." He had to admit, he felt good about how everything turned out. _Thank the stars Ventras didn't try to push for anything outrageous. We need to keep these fire mongers happy._ "We should celebrate! Since the weather would make for a poor hunt and we do not yet have any enclosed stadiums, why not join us in a game of strategy and chance?"

Ever since becoming an officer in the Wonderbolts, Rainbow Dash had grown to value strategy games. _Helps keep the mind sharp when you can't get any explosions._ "I'll have a go at it."

"As will I." Twilight mirrored her sister's enthusiasm but for different reasons. _Games are an excellent way to learn about culture._ "And afterwards we can play some from my homeland as well."

"An excellent idea," Ventras agreed, if only so the Equestrians would share some of _their_ culture. "Why don't we start with the Federation's most widespread and competitive game?"

A fire was lit under Rainbow Dash the instant "competitive" left Ventras' mouth. "OOoo, sounds fun." She raised her eyebrows at Twilight and Luna who nodded with a grin and relented with a sigh respectively. "So how do we play?"

Ventras turned to the soldier behind him. "Evocati, gather all the rule books and other objects for Vaults and Villains from my quarters."

"Sir!" the soldier replied with a curt salute before leaving.

Rainbow's alarm bells started ringing at the mention of multiple rule books. _Poker only needed a single sheet of paper for its rules, but maybe this will be more like Peril, or Apologize._

Limited small talk ensued as they all waited for the guard to return. Soon enough, the soldier came back with a stack of five books, a few pieces of elaborately painted folding mahogany wood, a couple of sacks, and a large carrying case full of small figurines. Ventras grinned maniacally as he was given a large collection of papers. "I will tell you now that I am a world renowned Vault Lord. I will give you all time to read the rules while I prepare a starter campaign that I've always enjoyed. Thaddeus, why don't you assist them in this?"

"For our new acquaintances, I would do it gladly." He waved at the three royals to gather closer together as he brought the books over. Rainbow Dash eyed them with intense trepidation, but her time as a WonderBolt's officer and queen, (along with a helping hand from Twilight's DNA,) allowed her to keep from rejecting the idea out of hand.

Luna couldn't help but to be curious, even if she was always bored to tears at board games. _All in the name of diplomacy. Tia, you owe me big for this._

Out of all of them, Twilight was beside herself with glee the moment she cracked open the one inch-thick rule book, and started weaving her translation spell. "Okay, girls, this is going to be so. Much. _Fun!_ "

Hey, Twi, can I just pretend to read it all so you can brain dump it all into me when you're done? I ahh… I gotta use the little fillies' room.

Yeah, sure, no problem. You don't know what you're missing though! Twilight had Thaddeus move over to her to begin translating the text to speed up the rate at which her language spell could work.

My loss, Rainbow replied with a thick helping of sarcasm. _I hope Aegis is having more fun than I'll be for the rest of the day._ It was only when she was escorted to a lavatory did Rainbow finally let off the massive groan she had been saving for the past five hours.

* * *

"And so that's how our race came to be what it is today," Aegis finished with a flourish of a hoof.

Rasua was a poster child for deep thought as she nestled on a bench just outside the manor. The frigid winds helped her think, and calmed her nerves somewhat at the prospect of living inside an insect hive for who knew how long. _She calls herself an insect and yet she's warm blooded!_ No matter how Aegis described her home, all Rasua could see were beehives, ant hills, whole chambers full of maggot worms writhing in their own mucus, and halls full of chittering clattering insects the size of teenage sphinxes.

"Hey, Rasua, you listening?"

Blushing furiously, the sphinx nodded hastily. "Yes, of course, Princess." She quickly racked her brain to catch up to the conversation. "You say your kind used to be thestrals like Slippery Shadow. Why did none of you wish to try and change back?"

Aegis had told her briefly about alchemy, but lied about how it could be used on anyone, not just changelings. The last thing she wanted was fear popping up about Rasua potentially getting converted. "I can't tell you to be honest," Aegis sat on the bench while trying to mimic Rasua contemplatively rubbing a finger on her chin. "Maybe my ancestors tried and failed, or didn't think it was possible. I'm sure there could be a way, but nopony's in a hurry to discover it. At least not anymore, it all happened thousands of years ago after all."

"I see." Rasua scanned Aegis' face as non-confrontational as possible. "So what is it you changelings do for entertainment?"

The first thing that came to Aegis' mind was sex. She almost said it too, but she caught herself in time. _I'll never understand why non-changeling species tried to hide that universal fact, buuuut I better not risk being so blunt._ "We've ahh, taken most of our stuff from Equestria. Hoofball mostly, but we have music, dance, theater all that stuff." She noticed Rasua's didn't look impressed in the slightest. _I guess they do that sort of stuff too._ "While I haven't participated in one before, every year we hold a technology fair in the hive, during which teams of engineers, scientists, and independent parties can showcase their inventions and discoveries. It's a chance to introduce new things to the world at large and try and get them out to the general public." _Well, outside of the hive anyway._ That got a curious hum out of her feline companion, but it wasn't enough for Aegis. "In fact, we're going to be hosting the fair in a few weeks. I'd love to see you there."

"Will metallurgists be there?"

Aegis saw the perfect opportunity to bring hands into the conversation. "Oh yeah, we recently finished building a whole lab for them." She pulled back the sleeve around her left foreleg to reveal her gauntlet fully for the first time since arriving in Stratholme. "This little number wouldn't have been possible without them. This alone was enough to give our metallurgists a specialized lab of their own."

Now Aegis had Rasua's full attention again. Even a few of the nearby guards risked lapses in their vigilance to try and get a closer look at Aegis' armor. "What is this thing? If you don't mind my asking."

Aegis barely suppressed a squeal as Rasua shifted a paw into a hand to poke at her gauntlet. "This is a prototype meant to give me hands, in a sense."

"Hands? Are there other species out there that inspired you to make this?" Since Aegis had not given any resistance to her gauntlet being prodded, Rasua shifted to sit closer and started to inspect the gauntlet more closely.

"These are based off minotaurs, but smaller so it could fit me. I'll show you some pictures of them later."

"I would like that."

Aegis gently cleared her throat and tugged her gauntlet free so she could extend the fingers. "I have to admit, I'm still trying to get the hang of using fingers." Her eyes lit up. "Why don't you teach some pointers and I'll give you a grand tour of the hive when we get there."

The mention of the hive brought the fact that Rasua would be leaving her home and family right back to the forefront, and into a nation revolving around the love of fire. "As you wish, Princess. If there is nothing else, I would prefer to spend this time with family."

"Oh, sure. Family is a changeling's whole world, so I don't mind. Your brother and father are most likely still in the audience chamber." She wanted to be vague to hide the existence of the hive mind.

"Then I should be there." _If only to be at their side a little while longer._ "Can you tell me when your ship will depart?"

"That'll depend entirely on my aunt and mother. Although I suspect they will want to stay in port for a while and try to break the ice, as we say, to get both of our people to coexist more easily."

That was a welcome relief. The longer Rasua stayed around, the less time she'd have to spend in a bug hive. _Now I just have to conjure a reason to intrude on the deliberations. Maybe pull some fake tradition out of my ass so the Equestrians aren't offended? They seemed pretty understanding so far._

As Rasua went back inside, Aegis scowled at having to wait for her hand lessons. _Great, now what am I going to do?_ A sudden jump in wind speed cut through Aegis like a frozen knife. _Preferably going someplace warm. Plus I think I got plenty of scent samples off of Rasua anyway, so I think I need to move on to some of the stallions, er I mean toms._

She pinged the hive mind to gather some information. _Hey! Intel's squad is off rotation since the cats proved cooperative. Maybe I can catch her and the rest of Squad One at the pub before they go back to the ship to sleep! I can hang with them and get plenty of scents while I'm there, it's a win-win._

With her mind made up, Aegis raced off to the pub two city blocks away. She took note that two sphinx guards tailed her at a discrete distance, but made no action against them. _If Boss Cat's enthusiastic game fanaticism is any sign, I doubt those guards will try to screw with me._

* * *

Much to her surprise, only a scant handful of drones were at the pub. They directed Aegis to the stables on the east side of town. With everyone either staying indoors to escape the blizzard, or looking up at the two airships, there were only a handful of sphinxes that noticed Aegis moving along the streets. Some of the growing criminal underbelly may have considered attempting to kidnap her for ransom were it not for the two burly guards tailing her already.

The hive mind's chart of Stratholme was still sketchy. Even with the observers on the _Deception_ attempting to build a map, the dense snowfall coupled with the completely unknown function of most of the buildings made locating anything difficult. Nevertheless, a few sphinxes were trudging through the blizzard. Strange visitors or not, life must go on. All Aegis needed to do was ask a question or two, and she found her way to the stables within an hour of leaving the manor.

The stables themselves were situated along a major avenue with one covered, heavily burdened wagon being pulled into the marshalling yard within. Aegis was about to enter the door underneath the sign-statue when she saw Intel and her squad through the closing gates as the wagon entered.

 _There they are. I should have known Intel would have kept the squad sober until we return to the hive._

With the stables' roof in the way, flying in was out. So Aegis had to go through the reception area, and was admitted inside to join her kin. She passed through the small office to find Intel's squad gathered around one of the beasts of burden in its stable, along with a Grecian tom who Aegis assumed was a salesman. _Or would that be salestom?_ He was dressed in a finely tailored suit, and seemed to be trying to calm two Egyptians and one Grecian who looked angrier than Rainbow Dash after Pinkie drank all the cider. It didn't help that the three belligerents were both armed and armored for battle. Intel was at the front of her squad with Ferrum and Counterspell flanking her. While the changelings were armed, they looked vulnerable with only cold weather uniforms, and no armor of their own.

"You may be high and mighty with your ship above our heads, but down here, I wager I could take all four of you," the lone Grecian tom jeered.

Aegis saw Intel was keeping a cool head, but Ferrum and Counterspell were on edge. "Until our queens say otherwise, we have no reason to fight you. Why don't you wait your turn to talk to the salestom?"

Aegis started marching over as one of the Egyptian janes heavily slammed the head of her warhammer on the ground beside her. The tell-tale crack of electricity resounded throughout the chamber. "This is _our_ city, prey. Get out of our way."

Not one to shy away from a fight, Aegis barked at the group once she was within earshot. "Anypo- anyone want to explain to me what's going on?"

Thus far, Thunderfury, the fourth member rounding out Squad One, had been staying out of the confrontation by studying the multi-horned blue beast of burden, but the moment he heard Aegis' voice he raced over to in a prismatic flash to interpose himself between her and the armed assailants. Princess Aegis, I advise extreme caution. Probability of violence has escalated to eighty nine percent with your presence.

The level of tension shot up to papable levels among the rest of the changelings, causing them to adopt a defensive posture, yet refrained from drawing their weapons quite yet. The leading sphinx glanced in disgust as the salesman slipped away. None of the antagonistic sphinxes had seen any of the royals up close on their way to Ventras' manor, and didn't know what a changeling princess looked like, but from the squad's reaction they knew Aegis was of importance. "Yeah we got a problem. Your kind barge into our territory like you own the place!"

The jane with the hammer stepped with an equally foul sneer. "You ain't got the right!"

"Funny," Aegis replied derisively. "This land belongs to the Equestrian Alliance until the treaty is signed. And our _right_ is floating above your heads with its cannons pointed _down._ " She saw the rebuke coming before it left their lips. "And I would just _love_ to see you try using lightning to bring it down."

That stopped the two janes from speaking further, but they still scowled in defiance. The tom wasn't so easily cowed. "You really think this colony represents the might of the Federation military?!" He scoffed harshly. "The legion alone numbers in the millions, and once the council hears of today, they'll bring the hammer down on you all." He stepped forward to glare Aegis down, trying to force his prey to reveal any weakness. "You can act like predators all you want, but your little fire show can't fight the fact that all of you are prey to the core."

Aegis nonchalantly brushed some snow off her jacket. "I think the steak I ate for lunch would disagree."

Princess, altercation unavoidable, requesting permission for preemptive strike. Thunderfury cautioned as he crouched low, ready to spring.

Thunderfury's warning made Aegis scan the rest of Intel's squad. Each of them had their kinesis gripping their weapons and were slowly pulling them from their holsters. Counterspell was already flooding his staff with mana to enable highly empowered spells. Thunderfury however made no attempt at subtlety, and summoned his two Quadrinix alloy tech-shields, and had them hovering at his sides, which made the two janes shoulder their weapons as well.

The shields themselves were teardrop shaped and flared out to cover him in a full 270° arc. They also had the tell-tale shimmer of artificial Arcane Wing magic, but Aegis was unfamiliar as to what configuration was active.

Denied. We have to hope their laws will side with us if these guys attack first. _Shouldn't those guards be telling these guys to back off by now?_

She didn't want to turn to look for them out of concern that the sphinxes would use that as an excuse to attack. As it turned out, they didn't need any further provocation and the tom took to the air so his forelimbs were free to reshape into hands and grabbed his Chu-ko-nu repeating crossbow. "I refuse to allow _prey_ to act as equals!" Spittle flew along with his rage. "Kill the-"

A rainbow blur and the sickening crunch of breaking bones on metal resounded through the stables. Thunderfury's left shield slammed into the tom's jaw, fracturing it and knocking several teeth free. The shimmering surface of the shield remolded slightly around the impact area, and added a second kinetic push that sent the tom to the dirt and out cold.

Thunderfury raced back over to stand guard over Aegis. "No one threatens the princess!"

"That will be quite enough," a feminine voice called out from the office door. Everyone turned to see Aegis' sphinx guards stroll up to both parties with cold malice. Both janes forgot their Grecian leader and started backing away from the newcomers. "The Sestapo's here?!"

"Cheese it!"

The two Egyptians tried to make a break for the side fire exit behind the stables. The thus far silent Sestapo agent sighed. "They always try to run." Pulling out a Chu-ko-nu of his own, he fired two quick shots at the fleeing sphinxes, hitting both in the rump. Trailing wires from the crossbow bolts allowed him to channel electricity through them. The two janes dropped within seconds, prompting his partner to fly over and restrain them.

Eying the changelings with an oily grin, the agent holstered his weapon. "I must thank the lot of you. Baby Face Callion has been a stain upon the Legion for too long. Assaulting a recognized dignitary is the perfect excuse to… discharge him."

"Is this sort of behavior normal for your citizens?" Intel inquired with as much tact as possible.

The agent's oily grin vanished and was replaced by a lopsided frown. "We are a very proud people, changelings. Your warship's stunt stepped on a lot of toes, although personally I find the backlash will be far too amusing to feel insulted myself."

The comment made Aegis look at the criminals who were being restrained as several normal police officers entered through the office to take them into custody. "That may be so. But I find it difficult to believe any of you would have seen us as anything other than prey had we taken a softer approach."

The agent laughed wholeheartedly for a good half-minute, long enough for his partner to return. "You may not have realized it, Princess Aegis, but politically, you did the correct thing in asserting your influence. No matter how much my people will squirm about it. That above all else is why I'm greatly looking forward to the coming years."

His partner interposed herself as the officers gathered up the disgruntled sphinxes behind her. "Come, we have processing to take care of."

"Yes, your right. Callion has a lot of friends that need," he paused as if remembering the changelings were still there, "a deft hand." He turned again towards Aegis. "It has been a pleasure, Princess. But I suggest you return to the governor's manor when your business here is done. At least for the time being," he added with a sly wink.

With a slight bow, the two agents excused themselves and departed, but not before running into the salesman within the office. "So that's where you ran off to. I trust you'll accept any worthy offering of trade and report back to us immediately."

Despite the blistering cold weather, the salesman sweated in his suit. "Y-yes of course."

"Good man," the lead agent replied with a winning smile and a hand clap on the salesman's withers before both Sestapo operatives departed to chase after the police.

With everyone gone, Aegis turned to her protectors. "Well that was _fun._ What brought all of you out here anyway?"

Intel jabbed a hoof at Thunderfury who was in the process of unfolding a long finely tailored weapon teleportation scroll to send his shields back to the ship. "Fury here wanted to see if we could buy a few breeding pairs of the talbuks. That's what the Feds call those blue beasts in the stables."

Ferrum giggled at his squadmate. "I told him it's a bit big to be a pet. Not to mention we could barely fit one in the cargo hold, let alone two."

All eyes turned to Thunderfury who was muttering to himself while a small abacus click-clacked in front of him. A few moments of silence led Counterspell to groan. "You should really leave the math stuff to _good_ mathematicians."

"Sush, I can figure it out!"

Aegis glanced at the salesman reentering the stables out of the corner of her eye. "Figure what out? We have no use for anything like these…"

"Talbuks," Intel provided.

"Right, talbuks back at the hive. We have trolleys and rail carts for transit."

Thunderfury's ears shot up and he hastily looked away from his abacus. "It's not for us though." He flew into a low hover so he could gesture with his forelegs, his abacus clicking constantly with his movements. "Think of rural Equestria, especially places without a railroad. These talbuks are stronger than even earth ponies, _and_ their wide round feet allow them to walk on Stratholme's cobblestone roads without damaging them. Since Aunt Applejack already has a small ranch for sheep, pigs, and cows, they could expand that to talbuks and sell them as beasts of burden. I'm sure they would make farm work easier at the very least."

Counterspell and Aegis had to pause and think on that. Intel caught on right away. "Hey, that's not a bad idea. Rural Equestria doesn't have the infrastructure in place to support railroads in every village, but even a small community could tend to a few of these guys if they can graze on grass or hay."

The salesman was feeling extremely uncomfortable eavesdropping on a conversation in Vespid. "H-have you come to a decision, Mistress Intel 'La Gence?"

"Huh? Oh, right." Intel looked to Aegis. "Well I guess since you're here, it's your call, Princess."

Bull. You just want to dump this on me in case mom gets mad. Intel's response was to whistle and look away with an insanely innocent look. Sighing, Aegis looked to Thunderfury who hugged his abacus out of hope for his idea's acceptance. She pinged her mother to see if she could spare a moment.

What do you need, my daughter? Aegis couldn't help but sense intense amusement and a touch of a competitive edge in her mother's tone.

Thunderfury has an idea that I think might be pretty good, but we'd probably need a chunk of gold to pay for it. Aegis relayed Thunderfury's plan in its entirety.

Are you sure these talbuks are not intelligent? No pony in the alliance will condone slavery. Although you'd never guess when it comes to some of the nobility. she added with disdain.

Aegis flew over to look the beast up close, and saw nothing but the eyes of a dim-witted animal slowly chew on cud. She waved a hoof over its eyes and only got a slow blink and a lazy chew on some feed. If it is, I see no sign of it.

Twilight paused for several seconds as she spoke briefly to Rainbow Dash. Go ahead and buy what Thunderfury originally wanted. We'll use the trip back to make sure whether or not these talbuks were subjected to forced conditioning to suppress their intelligence. If everything checks out, we'll pass them over to Applejack for breeding. Knowing her, she's been itching for a new challenge ever since she cracked greenhouse farming Jiyya trees.

Roger that, momma. I'll handle it from here.

Glad to hear it, Twilight replied warmly. For the time being, she would operate under the assumption that the talbuk was as animalistic as the sphinxes claimed.

* * *

As Aegis set events in motion to buy the animals, Twilight refocused on the game when Rasua returned and immediately asked to join in. Thaddeus had provided the three royal Equestrians with premade character to jumpstart the Vaults and Villains game. What had surprised Twilight most was the stack of papers outlining a hundred premades to choose from.

The three of them played along for different reasons. The interest of diplomacy on Luna's part, while Twilight had to trade away three days of laying to Rainbow Dash to get her to give more than token involvement. _I don't mind,_ Twilight mused with a wry grin. _I had a few years of laying before she got a chance, so this will help even out the population just the tiniest bit._

Twilight however was more intrigued by the game than any of them. She spoke as she tried to settle on the three best looking character sheets. "I must ask how a game of this nature became a national sport." She looked up to Ventras for an answer. "We have something remotely similar, but it hasn't garnered much public spotlight outside of being a hobby."

Rasua couldn't help but chuckle inwardly at the impossible idea that something similar to Villains and Vaults could be anything except wildly popular while her father tried to remain diplomatic. "We sphinxes have a long tradition of hunting to prove one's worth as a predator. We have… less bloody sports to test one's teamwork and physical prowess. We even have some games that challenge strategic thinking as well."

He started speaking extremely dramatically to the point of embarrassment on Rasua's part. "But Vaults and Villains is a test of everyone's creativity and cultural richness. It is the Vault Lord's job, nay, privilege to present and direct a riveting tale, while it is the players' task to bring fresh ideas and plot twists to life." He tapped his chin before grinning at the Equestrians. "Something I'm sure the three of you will offer in spades."

* * *

Time melted away for Twilight Sparkle as the campaign Ventras picked out cast everyone's characters into a pitched battle right from the start and didn't let up for hours. Thaddeus and Rasua's characters were teamed up with the Equestrians as the gathered party tore through goblins, gnolls, the undead(Rainbow's particular favorite), and beasts of questionable nature. Everyone tried to keep things simple for the Equestrians by only playing Egyptian sphinx characters.

The campaign lasted for hours, and at the end of a long slog through a virtual sea of monsters and hostile soldiers, the group arrived at the warlord: Warchief Guth the Butcher of Fangly Harbor, who rode upon a large fire breathing winged serpent. Luna took a moment to notice quite a crowd had gathered around the room. At least three dozen guards and servants watched on from the sidelines or up in the rafters.

With a manic grin, Rainbow Dash jabbed a hoof at Ventras after winning the roll of the dice to go first. "I, the masked monk Tiburón Perdido, charge in for a tackle!"

Ventras gave her a set of dice for Rainbow to roll. A hoof pump heralded the results. "Eighteen!"

"Alright," Ventras started as he formulated what happened next. "You latched onto the rear section of the winged serpent a meter behind the saddle." He rolled some damage dice before turning to Luna.

"I guess I'll go ahead and preemptively start casting a healing spell for her." Everyone else joined the battle with far more caution.

The battle ended up going poorly thanks to some bad rolls and the overall difficulty of the campaign. Through sheer luck, Rasua's character managed to rip the Warchief's halberd away, leaving him with only a shield and his winged serpent. It had been a winning move the last time Rasua had played this, but her father's eyes glinted in predatory malice.

He propped himself up on the table and bellowed in his best intimidating baritone voice. "Foolish mongrels! You think disarming me will save you? Serpent! Fly above these worms and incinerate them from above!" Breaking character, Ventras also added, "Since Guth still has his shield, he casts Omni-Reflect, protecting him and his mount from spells for twenty turns." He looked upon the horrified faces of the audience and players. "Queen Rainbow Dash, I'll give you a chance to let go before the mount flies too high."

Thaddeus and Rasua slouched back in their chairs in defeat as their melee characters were rendered useless, while Luna and Twilight tried to comb the spellbook for a way to break the reflect barrier. Thaddeus was about to announce his intent to duck for cover and look for a discarded crossbow when Rainbow Dash slammed a hoof on the table. "Screw that, I roll to pin." The room went dead silent. Even the blizzard outside seemed to give pause. Fearing Ventras would null the action as impossible, Rainbow clarified. "I move to grapple the serpent's wings together so he can't fly."

Everyone looks at Ventras. He worked his jaw as an internal war debated on whether or not to accept the action. After a long pause he nods. "Roll it."

Everyone scrambled over each other to watch Rainbow toss the dice into the center of the table. The whole room followed the dice as they bounced on the table and came to a stop at the center. A collective gasp resounded throughout the chamber while a fang-filled toothy grin cleaved Rainbow's muzzle. "Natural twenty, baby! Wooo!"

Cheering erupted from the crowd, buying time for the flabbergasted Ventras to recover from the shock. _Only a tenth of any fresh party groups ever survive this campaign._ Laughing at himself, Ventras made a large sweeping gesture to silence the crowd. "You succeed in grappling the serpent's wings." He rolled the dice twice. "And the warchief fails to dislodge you. All three of you plummet to the ground, snapping the winged serpent's neck and throwing both you and the warchief to the dirt. Roll for fall damage."

As it turned out, Rainbow's character was knocked out with several broken bones, but the warchief was still able to shakily climb to his feet, only to find Thaddeus and Rasua waiting to finish him off. Luna weaved a spell to mend Rainbow's character while Twilight lifted her sister's foreleg and cheered to the crowd as if she was a sports announcer at Cloudsdale. "And the winner issss Tiburrrrrrrrón Perdidoooooo!"

Ventras closed his campaign book, signaling the end to the game. The whole room thundered in applause, and money changed hands as bookies doled out gamblers' winnings. Most of the sphinxes were quickly shooed out of the room by the guards within a few minutes after the game was over. Ventras couldn't help but to feel uplifted by how well the game went, and how enthusiastic the two changelings had gotten halfway through. He gathered up the rule books and several other paraphernalia and put them in their case before walking over and presenting the package to the two queens. "Seeing how you two have taken to the game so strongly, I would like to present to you, all you need to learn the greater depth of Vaults and Villains. Perhaps in the future, one of you can host a campaign of your own design."

Luna was more than happy to miss such a present while Rainbow Dash took the case in her kinesis. "I gotta say, Venny, a game like that is like living through a Daring Do book, crazy fun stuff."

"I'll take your word for it," Ventras replied having no idea what a Daring Do was, "The cooks should be done preparing our evening meal."

Both queens had noticed the delectable aroma of smoked ribs and steak leaking in through the western doors. Twilight tried to hide her growling gut. "Well if the smell is anything to go by, I'm sure it will be excellent."

As the night continued on into early morning, both the Equestrians and sphinxes enjoyed a much warmer atmosphere since the game broke what little ice was left after the treaty negotiations were finished. The rumors spreading out from the servant staff about a respectable treaty and the highlights of the game lifted many fears and concerns, allowing its denizens a moderately restful night-early day sleep. Ultimately however, it would not be the actions of leaders who would see peace in their time, but the will of the people. Only time could answer the hundreds of questions that danced in the minds of every citizen of the Sphinx Federation and Equestrian Alliance.


	42. Chapter 42

Of Spies and Farewells

It took two days for the changeling puppet to carefully slip down into the Stripped Gear proper. Out of sheer luck, the infiltrator ended up next to a bakery. The security was fairly lax this far into the city, allowing the puppet to steal several loaves of bread and a bucket of filtered tap water. It originally tried to use collected rainwater from the building's gutters, but the filth in the runoff looked dangerous, even for the infiltrator's expected short life.

Of course, laxer security was relative. Every drone between the infiltrator and their queen was a deadly threat. It didn't matter if they were soldiers or non-combatants, any one of them could alert the whole hive to the spy's existence. _And that would cause Cadista to move to a locked down area until this puppet's corpse is found._

The puppet was currently stuffing it's face with stale bread in between two recently emptied dumpsters. Even with a hive mind's efficiency, there were still a handful of discarded crates that the controlling queen cobbled together into a makeshift shelter and more importantly, a place to drop the massively calorie-burning camouflage. _This shelter won't last more than an hour at most before someone gets suspicious._

The queen used other drones surrounding Stripped Gear to monitor the weather. So far, the skies were clear. _Rain would make stealth all but impossible._

There was one other problem that the queen had not accounted for: air pollution. While the shield dome kept the thin layer of smog from leaving the caldera, that did little for anyone in the heart of the hive itself. Out along the walls, it had been tolerable, but now the pollution was a security risk. The queen could suppress the puppet's need to cough, but the body was starting to suffer.

 _Damn all this soot. This body's growing weaker with every breath._ The controlling queen recalled the drone's memories as it descended the walls. The grey tint of the pollution was denser the closer to the shield dome, but only by a marginal amount. The puppeteering queen clapped her hooves. _Bravo, Cadista, Bravo. You made it so the shield is actively drawing in the soot by a slight amount. Making it nigh impossible for this body to survive very long where your personal chambers would be. No doubt your entire brood is immune to this poison._

The puppet scrapped a hoof along the blackened wall of the bakery, picking up a large lump of carbon. _It must be taxing to keep those steam engines of hers clean enough to function._

A proverbial light went on in the queen's head. While she had little interest in the technology itself, she _was_ familiar enough with it to know a hive of this size required vast amounts of power. _Wait a second… Where_ is _she getting all the power necessary to drive so many machines? I can't believe that pitiful amount of coal she pulls in from Equestria is sufficient. And, from what I remember from eavesdropping on a of few of her love collectors, Cadista doesn't use mana to drive much either._

The puppet looked at the ground beneath its hooves, and noticed it was volcanic rock. _Yeeees, this is a volcano! Cadista is practically sitting on a time bomb!_ Her enthusiasm faded a little. _Or at least it used to be. This volcano hasn't blown its top since I've walked this planet, so this is either a dead end, Cadista's keeping the mountain stable, or it's only active enough to be a source of energy._

A scowl of deep thought appeared on the queen's muzzle. _The last time I abducted one of Cadista's drones, I remember it saying something about a crystal factory down in the heated depths. Too bad the smart drone managed to wrestle enough control to kill itself before I could learn more._

 _In any case, she might have some sort of device in place to keep the volcano dormant, and she wouldn't have built a hive here if it wasn't sturdy._ A wicked grin cleaved the queen's maw. _However… If I can cause a big enough of a disturbance, I might be able to temporarily force her to leave the hive as a precaution. And if she does that, I can rid myself of her once and for all. I better tell my allies to get into position. There's no telling how much longer Twilight will be distracted by those cat-things in the west._ Eager to flee the poisoned air, the puppet recalled a sewer access it passed earlier and retreated for it to slink deeper into the hive in search for the underground crystal factory.

* * *

Cadista was standing on the observation platform situated on the left side of the covered hanger deep within Stripped Gear. A new vessel laid before her, while nowhere near as massive as the _Ashes of the Phoenix_ that came before it, it was a marvel of engineering to behold.

The vessel itself was long and flat and measured out to nearly one hundred and sixty meters from bow to stern, and had a beam of just barely twenty meters across. It had no weapons to speak of except for small close range flak cannons ventral mounted on the port and starboard sides. _This could be my most powerful far reaching weapon to date, and it isn't even the ship itself that's the true threat._

The voice of Brass Excursor was heralded by a high priority ping. Pardon my haste, my queen, but I just ran into a swarm of Polybia's drones marshalling three and a half kilometers outside our southeastern farmlands.

Cadista's mood darkened. How many? Is it an invasion or a probing attack?

I'd say more of a raiding party, judging by their numbers and present drone strains. They couldn't have been here for more than hour or so.

The heavy weight of concern in Brass' voice intensified Cadista's worry. There are two gunboats stationed in that area. Have the rest of your scouting party fan out and assume forward observation duties. I'll have the shipmasters follow your orders.

Thank you, my queen. We'll strike the moment the ships are in position, but I must say. There is something off about these drones in particular. I can't put my hoof on it, but feels as if they are radiating more mana than they should be.

Look into it while the navy gets into position, and investigate the corpses afterwards.

Aye, my queen.

Cadista ended communications, to refocus on her radically new ship. _Things are coming to a head. The next war will begin soon, and if my spies are right, it will all begin here. I didn't think Polybia had the brass to start it though._

Cadista cast her consciousness far to the north, past Equestria, and deep into the heart of the Chaos Lands where no one roamed except wild things. Out into the now totally abandoned city of Rookhaven, where even the stubborn pride of the old imperials was not enough to eke out a decent living compared to migrating to Alliance territory. One particular area had been flattened out and turned into a proper testing ground so far out of the way that none of the other hives even knew it existed.

There, another new kind of airship was in development, one that was much faster and smaller than any other before it. Wing Clip, how goes the trials? Is there anything else to report?

Yes, my queen, our latest modifications proved fruitful. I must say I'm glad you took my advice in funding our first real testing airbase. We located over a hundred defects in our best designs in less than two seasons. That's allowed our latest prototypes to reach a flight velocity averaging double typical drone air-sprinting speeds, with an operational range of a few hundred kilometers. We'll keep trying to push it further, but that's really a job for the boys back the hive labs. We don't have the resources up here for experimentation beyond test flights.

Cadista scowled at the lengths she had to go to in order to keep her new weapon a secret. _Finally having an outdoor airfield's been a serious boon now that we can test full sized aircraft, but the sheer distance makes it a logistical nightmare._ Very well, Wing Clip. Relay your findings to R&D. How's the automatic reloader operating?

It looks good on paper, but like ninety percent of the full scale creations here in the field, on a fast moving prototype no less? The thing's complete garbage. I'm sorry, my queen. It worked okay enough for the larger caliber flak cannon, but for something small like a hoofheld rifle it jams too often during maneuvers. Thankfully the flak cannon is _just_ small enough to be put on the latest test aircraft. But until then, unless the boys in the lab figure it out…

They're working on it, but they can't give me a deadline. At any rate, keep me informed of any more developments.

As you wish, so shall it be, my queen.

Returning her attention to the hangar, Cadista ground her teeth in exasperation. _For two hundred years I've pursued a way to project my power over vast distances and in a timely manner. Warships like the Deception simply aren't fast enough. Yet with this ship, I'll finally have the might necessary to finally secure Twilight's bloodline._ A cruel sneer marred her face. _Between Twilight, Rainbow Dash, and now Aegis bearing royal blood, our legacy is secure behind the shield of Equestria, Yumia. We finally fulfilled our purpose._

A cold fury enveloped her, yet it was tempered into loathing indignation. _Still, one thing remains that may yet jeopardize my daughters. The only queen who'd dare to take Equestria head on, and she needs to die._

Cadista passed her awareness across the construction crews. Everyone was performing the tenth recheck of all onboard systems with the boilers and engines idling. The only real thing left to do at this point, was the installation of the cloaking crystals. _That's still going to take another week to finish perfecting the crystals, but debugging the ship's engines will take longer than that anyway._ Attention all crews! She waited a moment to give her children time to react. The war is coming sooner than I expected. Begin launch sequence at once. Let's take her out around the palace for a test run. Hopefully we can get a shakedown cruise completed before the war.

A chorus of affirmatives resounded through the local hive mind as drones rushed to obey, and the vessel would be free of its moorings by the day's evening.

* * *

The main audience chamber of Ventras' manor was silent save for the scribbling of quills on parchment. The mid afternoon sun shined through several windows now that the blizzard had passed. Twilight Sparkle and the other Equestrian leaders sat on one end of a rectangular table as each in turn signed away, while Ventras and Thaddeus prepared to do the same on the other side. Well over two dozen sphinxes and changelings bore witness to the signing of the Treaty of Stratholme.

Eventually, both language versions of the treaty were passed out to ten sphinxes of rank, and to ten other equestrians, five from Equestria and five from the hive to mark them as official witnesses.

When all was said and done, Luna gave the signatures one last cursory glance before handing over the sphinx language treaty in exchange for the one in Equestrian. "Very good." She nodded politely to Ventras and Thaddeus. "With everything in order, my colleagues and I wish to return to our respective capitals. We have much to do back home to ensure the comradery this treaty has created will flourish."

"My thoughts exactly," Ventras agreed. He bowed out of respect. "You are welcome at my hearth whenever you choose to visit." He glanced over at Rasua who was doing an admirable job keeping her swimming emotions in check.

Twilight Sparkle didn't need her empathy to know what he was thinking. "Do not fear, Ventras, as one parent to another, I will make it a point that she is treated with the respect she has earned."

It wasn't a guarantee of protection, fortunately, because that would have insulted his pride as a father. "I… Thank you, Queen Twilight Sparkle. May your house stand for a thousand years."

 _Hopefully longer than that,_ Rainbow mused as Twilight finished exchanging pleasantries. _I can't wait to get back to the hive and whip up a huge VnV campaign. I hear Counterspell has aspirations for writing, maybe he can write the first one._

* * *

Eager to remove both ships from Federation territory due to the fear the _Deception's_ painfully visible weapons had caused, everyone loaded up into their respective vessels. Rasua put her curiosity about the warship aside and asked Aegis to guide her to one of the underbelly observation blisters she saw on the way up.

From there, Rasua plastered herself to the glass and gazed out across her home. All the sweat, blood, and tears that went into the first landing upon these shores, and building Stratholme from the ground up surged in her mind. Rasua couldn't stop a few tears from falling, even with Aegis watching the city by her side.

Rasua spoke with slightly fluttery speech as the warship lazily turned to the east. "It's such a powerful experience. Building a city from scratch." She spied Aegis nodding in the corner of her eye, as if a princess would know of such trials. Shoving a surge of indignation to the side, Rasua pointed to the center of the docks. "I still remember Thaddeus and I being the first ones off the landing boats. Once the homeland government received word of the fertile land we found, our colony became a rallying cry for people from all territories to immigrate to."

At least that's what Rasua wished to believe. But in her heart, she knew being reassigned to the colonization effort had been tantamount to banishment from the Sestapo. The fact that her father and oath-brother had already set out to lead the expedition had been the perfect excuse for her superiors. _I won't fail the Federation again. I swear it._

"You mean as a point to further solidify and tighten the new unity your people share?" Aegis asked after Rasua fell quiet for too long. The sphinx blinked at her with a vacant expression.

"Oh, yes. That's right," Rasua blurted out to recover. She coughed to buy time to recompose herself. Yet as the _Deception_ started to steam away, Rasua couldn't help but to feel as if she was being separated from her child. _Almost every building there stands because of the nails, screws, and tools_ I _made! Why in all the seven seas did I have to do this!? Why couldn't someone else have stepped up? Why didn't that monumental idiot Chevalier not go to this bug hive instead!? Why did she have to kill those two explorers?_

More and more 'what ifs' and 'why nots' questions swirled around in Rasua's mind. The more that sprang up, the further her composure slipped until she was on the verge of a panic attack.

Aegis was only willing to stand by for so long before placing a firm hoof Rasua's withers. "Hey, hey!" Rasua stopped hyperventilating for a brief moment. "Look, I know this is going to be a rough time. Building a new home, only to have to leave it like this can't be easy." She took a softer tone. "You're a strong person, Rasua. Whether it was calculated or impulsive, you chose to take responsibility and demonstrate the honor of your people." Rasua seemed to tense the longer Aegis kept her hoof on her, so she removed it. "I don't know about your people, but with us, the display of real emotion is encouraged. It is how the strong can heal."

"I… see." Rasua's gaze returned to the shrinking city as the ship neared the outskirts. "I ask forgiveness on that. It is a sign of weakness for such a display to anyone other than close family."

It was about as polite of a dismissal request as Rasua could voice, and Aegis took the hint. "I can understand that. The griffins and minotaurs are a lot like that. I need to go train anyway." She started heading for the door. "There will be a guard outside if you need anything. We'll find out how to best use your talents once we reach Phoenix's Roost."

"Good," Rasua said a moment before Aegis could shut the door behind her, "I want to be useful." _If only to keep myself from going mad._

Aegis simply nodded and shut the door, leaving Rasua to mourn the loss of her second home in a single lifetime. For the next hour, her eyes remained glued to Stratholme, and only turned away when the last vestiges of sphinx civilization were obscured by distance and trees. But even as the forest and sky shrouded the colony, a massive gout of lightning danced in the sky, drawing all eyes towards it.

Rasua's heart fluttered at the send away, and she fell flat on her rump. _The Spark Cannons. This is your doing, isn't it father?_ The light show was a traditional farewell to a hero of the state. To further hammer the point home that this was indeed a message for her, seven long twisting streaks of stark orange lightning pierced the heavens to form a stylized anvil. Rasua's tears returned in earnest as she pulled out the necklace bearing her badge of apprenticeship blacksmithing, with its primary rich orange finish in the shape of an anvil.

She squeezed the badge tightly in her hand as her love and pride for her family surged. "I promise you father," she spoke aloud so her ancestors could hear, "I will bring honor to the Federation and our house. By my soul it shall be."

With her resolve given strength, Rasua turned to the east to await what new horizons were in store her. A deep rooted fear started to creep up from the depths of her mind, darkening the eastern horizon.

* * *

Both queens and Princess Luna watched the lightning show from the observation deck of the _Crystal Blue_ with a mix of emotions ranging from being impressed, to concern. Yet before anyone could voice that concern, the sphinx acolyte, named Pax Diomedes, hummed in approval. "That's quite a show of respect. I can only hope Metal-Shaper Rasua was able to witness that. There are few greater honors a governor can bestow upon another."

Twilight visibly calmed at the explanation, thankful they were not being attacked or threatened. _One can never be too sure about new civilizations._ "Last I heard, she was watching the city fade into the distance, so I'm sure she saw it."

The priest dipped his head towards the west and kissed his thumb before making a circle gesture on his forehead. "The maiden of the great cycle will be pleased." Diomedes meditated silently for a minute while the royals returned to their chairs at the port side of the deck, save for Rainbow Dash who hovered around him. When he returned to the present, Diomedes turned towards the sound of Twilight and Luna chatting only to find a face full of Rainbow Dash at eye level. He backed up, exuding surprise that Rainbow was finally able to pick up on with her empathy, but just barely.

"So what's your deal? You some kind of holy guy?"

Twilight picked up on her sister's less than diplomatic tone and mannerism, but decided to let Rainbow have her way. _No sense in reigning her in all the time, she'll never learn tact that way._

The priest gave a slightly insulted faux smile. "I'm not sure what you mean by 'holy'. I am an acolyte of the Great Cycle. A paragon and upholder of the maiden's laws and morality."

Rainbow gave him a sardonic look. "Uh huh, sounds like a holy guy to me." She pulled back to stand to her full height, which made her tower over him. "Something's been bugging me ever since we got to Stratholme. What were those three towers out by the docks for? They were pumping some mad magic over the whole region."

"Oh, is that all?" His posture relaxed significantly as he started rummaging around his robes. Now that they were in the warm confines of the _Crystal Blue_ everyone had shed their winter clothing for something looser. The Equestrians had disrobed completely, much to the dismay of the priest. "They are psionic dampeners designed to, as I'm sure you can surmise from the name, suppress psionic abilities. Not only from being used, but also from manifesting in the first place."

Twilight suddenly lost most of her interest in her conversation with Luna, and quickly asked Rainbow to relay whatever she heard. For her part, Rainbow was equally chilled by the comment, and wasn't quite able to hide her discomfort. "So you guys don't like mind readers or something?"

Diomedes visibly shuddered at the mere mention of it. "I don't know about your kind, your highness, but psychic ability is an uncommon trait among us, and it is the most reviled. They steal thoughts, rip the mind to tatters, and can even pull the blood from your marrow. I tell you now, your highness, such powers are beyond dangerous, and must be stamped out for good." He caught himself after seeing spittle fly from his mouth. He cleared his throat and tensely brushed the book he found in his pockets. "My apologies. My order makes it a point to seek out those who willingly use such abilities and cleanse them from the Earth."

At this point, Twilight excused herself from Luna to canter over and join Rainbow's conversation while the blue queen replied in a less than thrilled tone. "So you just use the towers to protect yourselves?"

"Quite right," he replied with a curt nod. "A loyal citizen of the Federation, and tenant of the Seven Virtues cannot help it if genetics cursed them with the unlawful ability, and too many dormant users have proven steadfast paragons of righteousness. So the towers keep psychic ability from manifesting in the first place. Partly to save them from the angry mobs, Sestapo, and my order, but also to protect the citizens at large from the profligates who would try to harm them with the abilities as well."

"Sounds dangerous," Twilight commented carefully, revealing nothing of her mounting worry that the sphinx might try to flee back to the colony or harm her hive. "How do you differentiate between magic and psychic power?"

 _I wonder if her words means these Equestrians are familiar with such abilities. This does not bodes well if they do not see the danger of such uncontrollable power._ "It's simple really. Magic uses mana, while psychic powers use a wholly different form of energy we call mutons. I have my ways of detecting such abilities, but you needn't worry," he added with a reassuring smile. "Every initiate in my order is tested for dormant abilities, and I have none. Your thoughts are safe from me, your highnesses."

Well that's the reddest flag I've ever seen, Rainbow griped. Her instinctive use of the Link rose the hairs on the back of both queens' necks, but if the priest had detected the hive speak, he made no indication. "Well I've got to ah… powder my nose. Have fun with Princess Luna."

Twilight's fur was starting to discolor from the heavy sweating on her forehead. _Oh this is just_ great! _Now we have to tiphoof around Rasua or she'll never trust anypony in the hive before she gets to know us!_ Giving her best fake smile, Twilight tried to look at regally neutral as possible. "I have matters to tend to aboard my ship. Affairs of state and what not. I trust you'll get along just fine with Princess Luna." With that, she turned about face and speed trotted out of the room, leaving a very baffled priest behind. As soon as she was out of the room, Twilight teleported back to her quarters on the _Deception._

 _I wonder what that was all about,_ he mused with a cocked head. _Perhaps even talking about such things troubles them greatly. In any case, I better ingratiate myself with the Princess so as to make things easier for myself._

* * *

Twilight popped into existence inside her quarters only to find Rainbow Dash struggling to dislodge herself from the tangled pillows and sheets on Twilight's bed. "I see your teleporting skills still need work, but at least your aim is getting better."

Rainbow managed to free her head out from the blankets. "I was trying to port into _my_ room. But we've got bigger problems." She rolled off the bed, still prying the sheets off. "There's no way in Tartarus that we're going to be able to hide the hive mind for long. Even if that priest, monk, whatever he is, is going to Equestria, we still have Rasua to deal with."

Deciding to save her sister from any more struggles, Twilight used her magic to peel away the rest of her sheets. "That will be a problem for sure. If our abilities were limited to just the hive mind, I think we could get away with it, in their eyes, but we royals have psychokinesis, along with others things. Although outside of the hive mind most of our psychic abilities overlap with common spells. Sadly, I doubt they'll care about technicalities."

Rainbow buzzed her wings to quickly stand up. "I don't think anyone in the Federation will trust us if they all share that kind of hatred towards it."

Twilight's ears wilted a little at the prospect of facing more distrust and possible prejudice. But memories of Equestria gave her renewed hope. "We faced such issues with the Equestrian public in the face of Chrysalis' invasion and fear of our disguises. Now, most ponies in the world at the very least, see our hive as friends if not true allies. The sphinxes will be no different, save the fears we must overcome."

"I hope so," Rainbow replied with more than a little concern. "I guess the first step is getting Rasua and that monk to trust us on some level. If _she_ can trust us, then I bet she can convince her brother and father."

"And it can snowball from there. An excellent idea, Rainbow." Twilight had hoped her sister would come to that conclusion, and would have continued the conversation along that line if Aegis hadn't pinged her mind requesting entry. Yes, Aegis? Twilight broadcasted to both Aegis and Rainbow Dash.

The princess in question entered with a deep seed of concern that nearly everyone in the hive shared after the mass warning about the sphinx's view of psychics. Aegis managed to walk in on her back legs with only moderate wobbling. "I get that the fear thing is an issue, but we have something else too. Rasua might be able to reverse engineer some of our technology. The only reason they didn't do anything with Trail Mix's musket is because they distrust fire."

"Really?" both queens replied in perfect unison, with Twilight continuing. "I guess we're mostly okay then. Judging by the equipment of their guards, their steelwork is at least on par with our own, and I think their body armor is more advanced than Equestria's."

Rainbow smirked as she thought about it. "Yeah, and since most of our weapons are based around gunpowder, I think we're mostly in the clear. Even our steam engines might give them pause."

"I figured as much when she told me," Aegis commented with concern still etched in her brow. "But subtle things, like our new Quadrinix alloys. Rasua _is_ a blacksmith after all, she's gotta have extensive metallurgical knowledge. There's no telling how rich her homeland is with the stuff, or if they even use it at present."

"Good point," Rainbow conceded with a slight scowl. "Guess our best bet is to earn her friendship and then go from there. If we start restricting her movements, that'll backfire quicker than I can fly."

"I agree," Twilight felt more than a little pride in her sister at choosing diplomacy over hardliner security. "We'll play it by ear and adapt. It's what our kind are best known for," she added with a wink and a smile.

Feeling some pride in her linage, Aegis smiled in return. "I'll let the hive know about the plan." Aegis turned about face, and nearly fell in the process. "And in the meantime, I'm going to get hand lessons from our esteemed guest. Hopefully I'll be able to hold a rifle again by the time we get back to the Roost."

"Before you go, Aegis", Twilight called out with a raised hoof. The princess stopped at the door and turned back to listen. "I just want to say how proud I am of you, for your actions in Stratholme. Not just gathering the necessary scents for disguises, but in your handling of Rasua and the troublemakers in the stables."

Aegis swelled with pride at the paise while Rainbow joined in. "That was good thinking too. These sphinxes are kinda sorta like griffins. They will only befriend people who have the strength to stand up for themselves and speak their mind. You're going to end up being a better queen than me one day," Rainbow added with a sidelong smile.

A massive grin split Aegis' muzzle. "Thanks, Momma, Aunty." She rushed over to hug and nuzzle them both. Being told she had brought honor to her royal blood was the sort of praise Aegis yearned for above all others. It wasn't enough for her to believe in herself. Aegis needed to know others thought she had the makings of a good queen.

The hug lasted barely a minute before an idea that had been lurking in the back of Aegis' mind came to the surface, causing her to jump back a bit. "Ooo, I just remembered!" The queens looked at her expectantly. "Now, I've been thinking, let's say I _do_ prove the worth of my strain." Aegis waved down to her bipedal stance for clarification. "It's still going to take a really long time for me to rework alchemy to make up for it. Plus," she said while focusing primarily on Rainbow Dash, "Stripped Gear, Equestria, and our hive work, or had worked, really _really_ well with two queens. So I was thinking that maybe you could have a royal daughter to be my counterpart."

Rainbow hummed in contemplation, looking up to think, only to have Twilight begin nuzzling her affectionately. "I know my rule feels so much more complete with you here, Rainbow. I think Aegis has the right idea."

For her part, Rainbow Dash leaned into her sister, eager to return the affection and love. "Yeah…" Her tone shifted from contemplative to self-assured. "Yeah! I know I'd never be able to run a hive all by myself." She took on a mock southern accent. "We're like two halves of an apple pie!"

Both queens stood up straight to look each other in the eyes. A spark passed between them as they spoke in perfect unison. "And together, we are more than the sum of our parts."

They nodded before facing a bemused Aegis, and continued speaking in unison. "It's a good plan, Aegis/my daughter, we'll figure out the best way to implement it later."

"Great!" Aegis cheered and buzzed into the air out of excitement. "Well I better leave you two to Link Meditate, I have to get hand lessons from Rasua, bye!" Aegis made haste to leave while Rainbow gave her sister a smug look.

"And _I'll_ be making some eggs," Rainbow announced with a manic grin as Aegis left the room. She lightly poked Twilight with a hoof. "You owe me three days of eggs, and I'm cashing in now."

Twilight shot her sister a sarcastic raised eyebrow as Rainbow concentrated to begin production. "Are you sure? There's still a week's supply of royal jelly cider in the ship's hold with your name on it."

Rainbow grinned widely as she lovingly rubbed her abdomen. "The jelly tea's almost as good. Besides, thirty nine more awesome eggs are worth the wait." She looked back up to her sister who still had an amused look. "Plus, we'll be escorting Luna's _Crystal Blue_ Back to Canterlot airspace for the next week or so to make sure some of those rival changelings doesn't try to foalnap her or something. There's plenty of time to guzzle that cider."

"Fair enough," Twilight giggled. "I'll give the order to have the ship's hatchery be brought online."

* * *

The changeling spy within Stripped Gear was cooking in its own chitin. The sewers were becoming swelteringly hot the closer it got to the bowels of Stripped Gear. The stench alone was almost enough to make the puppeting queen abandon the quest entirely.

 _In all my years, I have rarely found anything that could curl my nose quite like an omnivore's sewer._ For the hundredth time, the spy came to an intersection in the pipes. Security had been almost completely absent, save for steel grates that kept the small denizens of the jungle from reaching sensitive areas. There was only one time she saw a drone down here, and he was too busy repairing a steam pipe to notice the spy creeping by.

The infiltrator was in front of one such grate, testing its encrusted edges to find any weakness when one of the queen's other spies sent word. _Damn, the Deception left that cat-thing town sooner than I expected. Thanks to that cursed cloaking device, there's no telling if Twilight is escorting the pony airship back, or if she's sprinting back to Phoenix's Roost. If I'm going to do something, I better do it within the next twenty four hours._

Suspecting the sewer grate didn't lead further down towards the geothermal plant, the spy left it alone to follow the steam pipes, and seek out a means to bring about Stripped Gear's end.


	43. Chapter 43

Bonus: Magical Engineering

Cargo Bay Two was typically very clean, very orderly, and very _exact_ despite the regular visits from the crew to take or store supplies. Just like the prideful Quartermaster Darktail liked it.

This fine morning however, the lavender drone walked into her normally pristine cargo bay to find it crowded by four large blue animals, and a mixture of hay and straw completely covering the ordinarily shiny floors. The reek of cow pies and a smell not unlike wet dog drowning out the once pleasant lemon pine scent augmented with a delightful hint of oily lubricant. To top it all off, the deep belly, yet nonaggressive, growls and moans from the spiky animals rivaled the _Deception's_ normally endearing engine hum.

Darktail stood at the entrance to her once immaculate cargo bay, a paragon of order, with a ghastly scowl fixated on the blue drone with a brow so furrowed it might cause scarring. The object of her fury was hovering next to one of the beasts. THUNDERFURRRRRRY! When we get back home, you better help clean every last minute piece of straw and dung out of my cargo bay or so help me I'll personally wring your hide!

The growling mare caught Blitz's attention as she was cantering by on her way back from breakfast. She took one look at the cargo bay and promptly fell off the ceiling laughing her head off. "Damn Darktail, I thought you were a neat freak."

"I _am,_ and proud of it." she bit back through clenched teeth.

Shh, I'm trying to concentrate, and besides, this is all for the good of the hive and the Alliance, Thunderfury replied at length before returning his attention to the bull talbuk. A clipboard, an inkpot and quill, along with his trusty abacus were all held aloft in his magic as he looked deeply into the animal's unfocused eyes.

Darktail spouted more obscenities at Thunderfury, but he was too focused on his work to notice. Blitz however perked her ears up at the rather inspired tirade, and took mental notes to remember some of the verbal barbs. Both mares entered the cargo bay, one out of indignation with the other out of curiosity. The lone stallion in the bay registered neither of them. "Intelligence Test number twelve…" He said while simultaneously writing it down and clicking a bead on his abacus to the other side. "Okay mister male talbuk… note to self: ask Rasua for talbuk terminology. For now, using cow terms." He looked up in contemplation while tapping the quill on his chin before he began writing again. "Addendum: find out why cow and minotaur terms are the same thing. Connotation of similar evolutionary path?"

"Would you stop that, and actually promise me you'll clean up this mess!?" Darktail blustered once she finally reached earshot. "I have a very tight schedule to keep, and that doesn't involve spiny blue dung factories!" She turned away with more green than lavender in her face. "I think the smell is going to make me puke."

"You gotta admit, TF, this whole place is going to need to be aired out for like a week when we get back." Having nothing smaller in her satchel, Blitz grabbed a vice and squeezed her nose shut.

Thunderfury bit his lower lip. He had been thankfully ignoring the smell by throwing himself into his work, and the reminder only made the stench return in full force. "Come on, girls, it's the dead of winter, and the cargo bay's barely above freezing. All the dirt and grime in their coat helps keep them warm. You know we can't heat the _entire_ ship. Just the living quarters and mess hall." He started petting the bull's head with calming strokes, eliciting a gentle rumble from the beast. "Besides, if these guys pass their intelligence test, then they're entitled to just as much creature comforts as the rest of us." Blitz didn't really care either way and just shrugged from her hovering position. Darktail's glowering face and wrathful aura finally made him remember that she had been giving him a demand the whole time. He looked at her with one ear half hanging to one side with the other rigidly straight. "Yes, I promise to help clean up."

Darktail's scowl started to abate at his unwitting charm as both mares melted at his completely natural sad puppy dog face. "You're lucky you ended up being so cute as a boy." Darktail pulled him into a rough longing kiss, joyfully feeding off his spicy electric love which had grown more intense since he had become a stallion. "See you tonight? Your bunk?"

"Ahhh…" Thunderfury rummaged around his tool belt to pull out a small booklet and flipped to a middle page. "Sorry, Counterspell already scheduled for tonight." He gave her an apologetic look. "You know how he hates threesomes, even if we didn't have small bunks."

Blitz prodded Darktail in the withers. "And you can forget tomorrow night too. Aegis and I got him then," she said with anticipation in her eyes.

"Gah!" Darktail angrily kicked some straw around. "The Queen-Mothers should make threesomes mandatory. Gotta share, gotta care am I right?" She huffed and her mood wasn't helped by his helpless shrug and Blitz's lopsided grin.

"I can tell Resta to wait until Saturday's regular checkup. If I go last that day, it shouldn't interfere with her job." His tone became moderately pleading. "You know how she is. Between overworking herself and creating salve all day, she needs more love than anypony around… well royals notwithstanding," he added with a helpless shrug.

"Yeah, fine, point made." Darktail eyed the talbuk lazily chewing on his cud. "I guess that'd make up for trashing my cargo bay. A bit."

"It's for a good cause," Thunderfury whined with sad puppy dog eyes. Darktail refused to be suckered in by them and averted her gaze, causing Blitz to giggle madly. Seeing that he bought some time, Thunderfury's gaze returned to his clipboard and then scooched his stool to be closer to the bull's face. "Anyway, if you're only here to yell at me, could you reschedule that too, so it doesn't rile up the talbuks? The stablemaster only gave me enough sedative so they wouldn't mind travel aboard ship."

Darktail had to think on it for a minute as Thunderfury closely examined the animal's eyes. Eventually she groaned and cantered back to the exit. "Fine, have fun with your spiky friends. I have to reorganize cargo bay one after _some_ pony decided to shove all my perfectly organized crates around to make a hoofball court!"

Blitz twirled a lock of her prismatic mane with a hoof. "I can help," she directed at Thunderfury. "Work's pretty light right now, and Aegis is busy getting hand lessons from Rasua, so there's not that much for me to do until we get back home."

Without looking away from the talbuk, Thunderfury levitated his clipboard over. "Awesome. Write down my findings would you, please?"

"Alrighty." Blitz replied cheerfully while taking the clipboard and other items into her magic. _There's no way I'm landing. I might end up with crap on, or worse,_ in _my leg holes._ She skimmed the densely packed words already written on several pages. "It seems like these guys don't have much more than a blip on the ol intelligence chart."

When the talbuk failed to show any interest in the assortment of colorful basic shapes Thunderfury held in front of the bull's eyes, he sighed a reply. "No, it doesn't look like it. The sedatives are only there to keep them calm enough to travel. I can try again once we get them out into open pastures, but I'm not holding out much hope."

"Well then it looks like the sphinxes were selling them as advertised: big ol dumb beasts of burden."

The bull snorted loudly and moved towards one of the three females. Both drones winced as the bull started getting amorous, with Blitz giving her brother a bemused look. "I thought you said they were sedated."

"They are," he deadpanned with an arched eyebrow at the bull. "I think something like this was mentioned in the manual the stablemaster sold me." Thunderfury gathering his things and taking to the air. "How about we collate my finding over some tea? A few of our siblings promised to watch over the animals for the day and should be here any second now."

Logically, Blitz felt rather odd how the instinctual actions of a couple of animals made her ill-at-ease, and yet walking in on her siblings doing the same acts wouldn't faze her in the least. _I can ponder the mysteries of double standards later._ "Sounds good, but you better shower first." A particularly bad smell wafted over her nose. _Ugh, I think I need a shower just from being here._

Blitz zipped away, leaving Thunderfury to sniff and recoil at his hooves. Right. Good idea.

* * *

As it turned out, pouring over data about a field of study you not only have zero experience, and only a cursory interest in, proved to be a laborious task that tea only barely assisted with. Never the less, Blitz plowed through it, if only to have an excuse to remain close to Thunderfury. _It really sucks our clutch all ended up going different paths. We really only get to see each other every other weekend._

"The cows scored really well on following the commands the stable master told us about, but they don't seem to respond at all to anything else," Thunderfury said out of the blue. Blitz looked up from her notes to see Thunderfury was scratching his chin, looking for all intents and purposes to have not a care in the world.

"Maybe Aunty Applejack would be better at finding any spark of intelligence," Blitz suggested while sending a link request to the mess hall's galley staff for more tea. "Assuming there's one to be found at all." Thunderfury nodded silently, letting the conversation fade away.

The mess hall itself was busy with well over two dozen drones chatting away in both the physical plane and via the Link. The furniture consisted of bolted down round tables and mass produced metal chairs with worn down cushions barely a pancake thick. The ever present thrum of the engines and the hiss of steam felt like a small piece of the hive, giving both Blitz and Thunderfury a longing to return home.

When Thunderfury didn't answer right away, Blitz let him be. She smiled in delight when a fresh pot of tea arrived and quickly thanked the overworked waitress. Pouring, Blitz refilled both of their cups and started nursing her own. Idly, she let her mind wander the hive mind and thought she'd check in on one of the very few persistent linkscapes across the hive mind.

The _Deception's_ mess hall faded away as Blitz's consciousness was thrust into a massive forum with information kiosks evenly spread out for half a kilometer. The ground beneath her hooves was grated metal, below which a maze of gears and pistons churned away. The kiosks were completely covered in post-it notes of all the latest developments and announcements. Only the queens were capable of hive-wide verbal announcements. To get around that limitation, everyone else came here.

Hundreds of lavender, sky blue, and grey drones came and went, each reading various tidbits of information. Some stopped to chat with friends or discuss issues. It didn't matter which kiosk Blitz went to, as all of the posted notes were identical between them. The strain of keeping this information center running at all hours was a taxing effort, so a cadre of specially tailored drones was bred for fabricating and holding persistent Linkscapes together so the queens were free to focus on other events.

Blitz appeared near the crowded ceiling. The whole room was well lit, but aside from a few dim lamps, there was no discernable light source. _I don't know who will really care, but I might as well post our findings on the talbuks._

Finding the closest kiosk, Blitz flew over and reached for one of the blocks of notes and grabbed one to start writing down. A quill manifested into reality at her whim and she labeled the note appropriately before it expanded and continued to do so the longer she wrote.

She got half way done when Gentle Touch appeared in the center kiosk and grabbed a microphone to, in effect, cheat her way into making a mass vocal announcement across the archives. "Attention all factory workers and engineers of Phoenix's Roost. Starting next week, all factories and work equipment will be limited to biannual upgrades only. The budget can't handle constant equipment replacement every time an incremental improvement is discovered. Upgrades from here on will be staggered. See Directive 8B-0531 for further details. That is all."

 _Bummer,_ Blitz mused morosely. _There go my plans to implement my latest version of Aegis' finger design. Buuut I guess that means I have more time to further refine it._

Blitz put the finishing touches on her talbuk findings and discarded the quill after signing her name to the document. She gave it to the drone manning the kiosk. "Don't copy it all just yet. My clutchmate Thunderfury should be here soon to add more to it."

The grey secretary nodded and tucked the document below her seat. "I'll be sure he's sent here when he arrives at the archive."

As if on cue, Thunderfury appeared by her side. "There you are! Oh cool, you already started posting the data, thanks!"

Identifying him immediately, the secretary retrieved Blitz's post-it note and gave it to Thunderfury who started adding to it right away. Blitz grinned sheepishly and brushed a lock of red and orange hair out of her eyes. "Just trying to help."

Thunderfury engrossed himself in copying down all that he had learned, along with drawing a little doodle of the talbuks with exaggerated smiley faces and horns a bit longer than normal. There was something to be said about drones who were less than five years of age.

The grey secretary noticed, but did not react to Blitz's dreamy eyes, and Thunderfury being wholly ignorant of it. _I swear, these love-drones are the weirdest bunch of loonies I've ever seen._ A few minutes later Thunderfury gave the document back to the secretary and she gave an unamused hum at the doodle. _Mother, what have you wrought by mixing ponies with us changelings?_

Blitz couldn't hide her huge grin once Thunderfury looked back at her. "So what do you wanna do now?"

"Hmm. I should probably tune up my tech-shields. That sphinx's jaw I plowed through must have been denser than I thought, because the arcane wing emitters have been spotty ever since."

"Ha!" Blitz cheered with a competitive smirk and pointed at herself. "Momma hasn't had a better engineer than me yet! I'd love to see what I can do for you. Why don't you bring the shields to my workshop?"

Thunderfury's face lit up like the sun. "Really?! You'd do that for me?"

"Of course, silly. What are siblings for, right?" Blitz shot him a winning smile. _Sure I was supposed to be reviewing Aegis' spare gauntlets, but I'm sure she won't mind._

* * *

The pair downed their tea and pinged the waitress before leaving. Blitz all but blasted her way into her workshop while shuffling for the light. The workshop was the same calculated level of order as she left it the night previously. As expected, since no one had been in the workshop since Blitz's last visit. It helped that this particular machine shop was not the primary engineering bay for fixing and repair work aboard the warship, so it only saw light use outside of battle.

 _Okay, I've got like five minutes before TF gets back from the armory._ She raced over to her primary tool chest and pulled out several large heavy drawers. Within each were racks upon racks of carefully calibrated tools of the trade. Sadly, her fairly young age meant that she was only truly proficient in less than a quarter of them. Both queen-mothers were under the belief that every drone had to strike a balance between Link gifted knowledge and real working experience, hence why Blitz was so specialized in one field.

 _I hope I can actually_ do _something to help._ She scratched behind her ear. _Well, besides just repairing the thing._ She cringed at the thought of being in over her head as she sifted through her tools, making doubly sure she knew where everything was. _What if I can't even repair it!? I'm good at robotics and Aegis' armor, not tech-shields. I'd never even_ heard _of a tech shield until Thunder told me about it! What if it's totally beyond me that not even a brain dump could help me!?_

Blitz was about to ping the hive mind to get that very information, but she stopped herself and started nervously biting her hooves. _I can't do that! What if Thunder hears my request and finds out I don't know anything about his shields? Then he'll go somewhere else to get them fixed, and my chances will be ruined!_

"Hey, Blitz."

"Ahhh!" Blitz jumped out of her skin and into the air before she turned around to find Thunderfury at the door with his shields.

He looked at her with bemusement. "Should… I come back later, maybe?"

"No no no no," Blitz gushed as she flashed what she hoped was a composed smile, but it only served to make her look a little loony. "I was just making sure everything is good to go for you and your shield!"

It was only now that Blitz finally registered the two items held in the stallion's rich cerise colored magic. She'd never seen them before, but they didn't seem too different compared to most things she was used to working on. That allowed her to calm down a little. Thunderfury played it off as if he didn't notice her sweating profusely. _I'm sure she'll do fine… or at least not damage my babies. Plus, she might do better if I wasn't watching. Sis gets all weird when we're alone… aside from mattress gymnastics anyway._

"I'd love to watch you work, but the guys down at the cargo bay've been telling me the talbuks have been getting rowdy, so I need to try and help calm them down." He sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck as Blitz's mood visibly deflated. "Sides, I know how to wield them, but repairing work like my shields is above me."

"Oh…" Blitz's ears and face wilted, then she realized what good fortune his absence was. _That means I can ping for the shield's inventor without him noticing!_ "Ah, well, that's okay. I should have your shields all fixed up before too long then."

Thunderfury carefully placed his tech-shields on the nearest clear workbench. "Great, see ya soon." He slid past Blitz, but not before planting a loving kiss on her cheek. "love ya, sis."

"Love you too." Although Thunderfury didn't see it as he left, Blitz placed a hoof on the cheek, and swooned. Blitz had been kissed plenty of times before, and her libido rivaled that of even Aegis herself, but _this_ was from her, admittedly, favorite clutchmate. As if logic needed even more reasons to shake its head at her, she had been with Thunderfury more times than she could count in this year alone. Even in a society where love was plentiful and free, she still treasured Thunderfury's the most by far.

Blitz felt a warm smile grace her features. _He trusts me with his weapons. If Aegis is anything to go by, warriors love their weapons almost as much as the queen-mothers themselves._ A great weight of responsibility and duty fell on her shoulders, but now she felt the drive and will to bear it.

She turned to the shields with that same grin shifting to smugness. "Right, as if I'd let _him_ down. Let's **do this!** " She looked around for paper and a quill. _Okay, as second-momma Twilight always says: checklists are the key to organized success._

"Let's see," she thought aloud as she started scribbling. "First up, get info from the designer. I'm sure Uncle Ratchet knows. Second, find the break, third fix the break, fourth, profit!" Her grin faded as she reviewed her list. "…Maybe I need more detail than that. Well, I still need to talk to the designer first either way."

Clearing her mind, and failing, Blitz focused her mind's eye on Ratchet. Uncle Ratchy, are you busy?

The grey stallion hissed as the boiler he was working on suddenly blew a gasket and started rattling horribly with steam beginning to rupture out of several pipes. "Somepony shut it down, do it now!" He and three other engineers raced to use enough ice magic to cool the boiler down before it exploded or the scalding high-pressure steam could obscure the whole factory.

The boiler banged and clattered deafeningly as the titanic forces within stressed the metalwork to its limits. A drone by the control board sweated profusely as she looked at the dials. "The fire's out… And… the pressure build up is slowing. It's stable!"

Once the machine was safe, Ratchet groaned irately. "Damn it all! Okay, boys and girls, take it apart and find out what went wrong; three pints to the one who finds it, a keg if you can correct it by sundown."

He pulled an oily rag and wiped up some of the sweat and grime from his face, only now realizing someone had been pinging him incessantly. The fact that it was such a formal ping, finally grabbed his attention. _Blitz – Scion of Rainbow Dash – Engineer 5th class – robotics division._

Formal pings were considered by most to be a better form of 'hello' than that word alone. Both sending and reading the pings was taught during nymphhood as a training method for sharpening the mind. For one of Ratchet's age, reading a formal ping took less than a second. Look kid, unless somepony is dead or dying, this isn't a good time.

 _Uh oh, he only gets like that when things explode._ Blitz did her best to keep a business tone. I need information on Thunderfury's tech shields.

Ratchet was stopped short on giving his next orders to his crew. _Thunderfury? He's part of First Squad for the Jevruun Vrunningee._ Well that changes things, he said while going from irritated to stoic. I remember Rainbow commissioning the equipment personally, and if I recall correctly, it was Slag Filter who got the assignment. She's always good at filing her paperwork correctly. If this is just to do some repair work, go to the archive and ask for document MFA – 4515-0. That stuff isn't classified above your rank.

Blitz sighed in relief, her elation evident in her tone. Thank you, Uncle.

Uh huh, if you need anything beyond that, ask Slag Filter herself. He started barking orders to the clean-up team to make sure they didn't damage anything, and effectively dismissed Blitz.

Not that she noticed as her mind was already back in the archives and obtained the document within half an hour. Once her consciousness returned to the workshop, Blitz finally _looked_ at the shields on the bench.

They were lying face up on the mana-inert resin bench. They bore a slight concave with an overall teardrop shape. Blitz noticed there was a stylized bird, a phoenix she assumed, on the bottom with its burning wings flared to form the edges of the lower half. Arcing lightning was painted along the top of an otherwise navy blue shield. She looked at the other shield to find the same pattern. _No doubt to keep enemies from guessing that each shield has a different purpose. I wonder how often Thunderfury has to repaint this between sparring practice._ To the untrained eye, there was no visible evidence of the hardened and thin machine within the shield's contours.

Now that Blitz had knowledge straight from the designer's notes, she knew the tracing lines were more like minute channels that ran along the entire length of the shields in jagged harsh angles. They still possessed a strange beauty about them, though. _Yes… these are the amplification channels. These help enhance the force of the arcane wing at the expense of costing more mana to maintain. The notes said the emitters were along the back though._

Blitz attempted to turn the shield over, but found her telekinesis slipped all around the shield, but failed to grab hold of it. "What the? Is it supposed to do that?"

She browsed deeper into the notes, only to find a single line on the issue.

As per protocol RD – info-sec – 0192, the weapons have been attuned to react only to the royals linked to the commissioner, Queen Rainbow Dash, and the owner.

"Oh that's just great!" Blitz growled. "Well _there's_ a practical use for Aegis' hands."

As every other changeling before her, save her mother, Blitz was spoiled by telekinesis and had difficulty flipping the shield over so she could see the underside. There she found several prongs with the tell-tale reddish hue of Quadrinix alloys. The prongs themselves were arrayed in a grid pattern and were barely an inch high. _Obviously not meant to be held with a hoof… or hands for that matter._

"Well the emitters are embedded within the shield, so I'll need a mana probe to find the problem," she thought aloud while rifling through the proper drawer. Despite its simple name, each mana probe was calibrated to possess an identifying carrier wave when a changeling used it. In effect, the shield would only reveal its secrets to Twilight's bloodline of hybrid changelings wielding this mass produced tool.

Blitz felt her magical senses pass through the probe and into the depths of the shield. _Hmmm… let's see. According to the notes, the emitters should hold steady at 10 joules from the probe's current setting._ Starting from the top to the bottom, Blitz moved methodically across the shield until she found what she was looking for. Two emitters just shy of the center area were reading at 9.2 joules.

Pleased with herself so far, Blitz continued along the rest of the shield to make sure the rest of the emitters were functioning. _Okay, now according to the notes, this means there could be other problems causing the emitters to underperform. I better follow the guidelines by the numbers._

Over an hour passed before her scanning was complete. Her own thoroughness and excitement kept her enamored with the shield's exquisite construction. With a gentle grin, Blitz rubbed her chin as she contemplated a way to fix the error without going into the notes again. _Can't challenge myself if I keep looking at someone else's notes. So the problem was that the emitter had improperly mixed alloy, which made it too brittle to smash into a sphinx skull. Far too weak for a shield in any situation._

She smirked as an idea sparked in her head. "I bet my grey aunts and uncles would say the whole weapon is a wash, but they don't know Quadrinix like I do."

After working on Aegis' armor for as long as she did, Blitz always kept a stock of carbonated water and acid batteries in the workshop. _It might damage the paint, but I think TF can forgive me this once… I hope._

Pulling out the same large container she had worked on Aegis' armor in, Blitz started pouring in the carbonated water, and set up the batteries to electrify the water. Once that was done, she crunched the data in her mind and on several pieces of paper. _So, there's too much iron and not enough carbon in the emitter. So I need a mana tunneler to keep from damaging the healthy metal._

Blitz used her magic to grab two clamps to place on the shield's prongs and carefully dropped it into the water. From there, she unlocked the swing arm bearing the two meters square mana tunneler. Missing lunch entirely, it took her two and a half hours after that to calibrate the tunneler to her exacting specifications, and another hour just to make sure her calculations were absolutely correct.

Blitz held her twenty page long checklist, the last page consisting of 'recheck the checklist', as she finally reached the last page's first check. "Correct the error."

Taking a deep calming breath, Blitz connected the circuit to electrify the water and channeled her magic into the tunneler. The various instruments she had set up started measuring the metal composition, its structure, and a timer set to cut off the tunneler with more precision than Blitz could do alone.

By the time the clock cut the tunneler off, Blitz was tired, sweaty, and felt drained to the point of collapse. But it was done. Breathlessly, Blitz cut the electricity and took the shield out using the clamps. She levitated it back over to the workbench and used an electro-void stone to quickly pull all remaining traces of mana out before it could become detrimental to the metal.

Once the shield was dried off, Blitz frowned sadly at the ruined paint. The phoenix and lightning was reduced to a thick morass that was slowly trying to fall off the sides of the shield. "Yeaaaa… mana tunneling saves the surrounding metal, but doesn't do much for salve-resin based paint."

Before she could even think of what to do about it, there was a knock on the door, accompanied by Thunderfury's ping over the hive mind. Blitz nearly freaked the instant Thunderfury's smiling face barged its way into her workshop. "Heyya, Blitz, sorry I was gone for so long. The guys wanted me to watch the animals for the entire afternoon shift cause of a favor I owed them."

Blitz buzzed into a low hover in front of the shields. "Oh that's no problem. I actually, um, just finished fixing the problem…"

Thunderfury caught onto her saddening expression, and tried to counter it with joviality. "Wow, all in one day? I thought you'd have to tear it apart or tell me to live with the defect." He fully entered the room carting a take-out box of steaming food. "I brought you some of the meatloaf they were serving since no pony had seen you around."

A thundering growl from Blitz's stomach made her blush furiously enough to land and cover her belly with a foreleg. "Thanks, I guess I got carried away." The act revealed the shields behind her. Thunderfury's excitement shot up and he quickly levitated the food to rest on the side of the bench.

"But you're finished right?" he asked as he flew over to inspect her work, only to quietly whine at the state of the shield's paint job. Blitz started biting her hooves as Thunderfury cradled the shield in his forelegs. What used to be a beautiful work of art had been reduced to a befuddled mess of colors. "It's practically destroyed." Blitz whimpered at him while he took the shield full into his magic to test it out.

Thunderfury's scowl slowly turned into a sullen expression as he tested multiple styles of Arcane Wing on the shield. "Well, the paint's trashed, but the shield feels as good as new." He turned to Blitz after putting the shield down and squashed her into a massive hug. Despite his grave displeasure at the ruined paintwork, the shield itself was worth far more. "Thanks for all your work, sis. I'm sure it wasn't easy."

Relief flooded Blitz and she sunk into the loving embrace, even if it was tinted with the bitter spice of irritation. Some of her snarkiness forced its way to the surface. "No, it wasn't. I still haven't had a chance to clean up the mess." He looked around to find the basin of water that sloshed gently to the sway of the ship along the air currents. The mana tunneler still hung low over their heads while electrical wires were wrapped tightly around the basin. His indignation at the melted paint waned as Blitz telekinetically removed the wires from the batteries and placed the glass covers back onto the leads. He could tell just by her weaker love stream that his sister was heavily fatigued.

"So it seems." He detached himself to look at his shield again. "I'm no artist, but I can always have Fresca repaint it. She already agreed to fix it whenever the paint got too mucked up."

 _Whew, that's a load off._ With the most potentially dangerous items stored away, Blitz tore into the meatloaf while Thunderfury tested the mana weight of the restored item.

He took both shields into his mana and move over to a mildly open corner of the machine shop and started practicing various defensive stances. Blitz watched his lithe movements with a smile masked by the heavily salted food she stuffed into her maw. Thunderfury chafed at how little room he had to work with. He was constantly having to curtail his movements to avoid bumping into things, but the smoothness of how his mana flowed through the repaired shield excited him to no end. "It's a lot more responsive now. I love it!"

Gushing with pride, Blitz watched her brother give the best form of flattery her line of work could produce: a client happy with her work. As she ate, a thought occurred to her. _I wonder if I'll have the time to get more in-depth knowledge of embedded mana emitters. I could improve Aegis' armor like that one day._

Such thoughts sailed to the back of her mind as food and her brother's martial exercises resumed the forefront. Getting tired of the cramped space, and not wanting to accidentally hit something fragile, Thunderfury stopped practicing. "Why don't we go to the cargo bay? I can show you some of my moves while also keeping an eye on the talbuks."

The idea of being near those stinky animals made Bitz wrinkle her nose, but the prospect of seeing her brother's lithe movements with the shields was greatly enticing. "I'd love to, right after I finish cleaning up around here."

It was not long before the clutchmates were in the cargo bay again. One enjoying his repaired tools of war, while Blitz was happy just to see him happy. The show lasted until sleep finally beckoned them for the night.

At least that's how it happened with Thunderfury. Before Blitz could bed down for the night, Rainbow Dash's voice bounced in her head. Hey, Blitz, glad I caught ya before you went to sleep. I need to speak with you in my quarters.

Blitz gave Ferrum and his cot a forlorn look. Right away, my queen. She leaned down to whisper to him so she wouldn't bother the hundred other drones in the crew quarters. "Sorry Ferrum, I'll be back later, mother wants me."

He nodded and pulled out a spell book from under the bed. "That's cool, I'll wait for you."

"Thanks." With that, Blitz hurried through the ship as the night shift took over. It wasn't long before she found herself in front of Rainbow's quarters, the two Queens' Guards nodded to her and let her pass.

Despite her history in the Wonderbolts, Rainbow Dash was even more informal than Twilight Sparkle, outside of military action at least. Even so, Blitz entered the queen's quarters and stood at rigid attention near the door as it closed behind her.

Rainbow's quarters were covered in maps of the Jungle and all the surrounding lands around Alliance territory. Several books of military tactics and logistic strategy were piled everywhere with a few trashy romance novels hidden within a few Daring Do books. The blue queen herself was shamelessly guzzling royal tea straight from the pot. She wiped her muzzle dry and faced Blitz with a sly grin. "Come on, is that any way to greet me?"

Blitz's stoic posture melted to bubbling giddiness and she flew over to glomp her mother into a bear hug. Missing an hour or so of sleep was well worth the cost of Rainbow's intoxicating love. Rainbow squashed her daughter right back for a minute before letting go. "Alright, Squirt, I called you up here because I didn't want you freaking out and pissing off the other drones."

Blitz grew heavily concerned and fell into a hover so she'd be slightly below eye level with her queen-mother. That concern shifted into confusion as she spoke. "Freak out about what?"

"Well it's like this," Rainbow started with a steady tone so she betrayed nothing. "Twilight and I've been thinking about a bunch of stuff, namingly Aegis and her future hive."

Rainbow fixed Blitz with a knowing smirk. "I gotta say first though, this is not an order, nor is it a request. I am simply giving you an offer." Rainbow purposely trailed off to leave Blitz hanging in suspense. "How would you like to enter the running to be my first royal daughter and counterpart to Aegis?"


	44. Chapter 44

Double O Ling

The world around Blitz narrowed to a single point, her mother's reptilian eyes. It took her half a minute to process the question. "…You want _me_ to be a royal daughter?" she asked with reserved confusion. Rainbow gave her, her signature snarky snort and nod. "W-what makes you think I'd be any good at that? I'm just a fifth level engineer, there's got to be better picks."

"Pah," Rainbow huffed dismissively as she returned to her pot of royal jelly tea. "If I did everything that looked good on paper, I'd be some lame-o back in Cloudsdale with some desk job." Her brain decided to remind her that quite a few of her drones had such 'lame-o' jobs. _Well, whatever. They're my kids so their natural awesomeness makes up for it ten times over._

"Look, Blitz, I think you'd make a good queen." Rainbow's smirk soured a little at the drone's panicky expression. "Really." Rainbow's horn lit up and she pulled a folder off her desk and started reading. "As strange as it may sound, I'm not looking for an athlete or capable warrior here. You practically aced your Ldog test, Ratchet personally vouched for you since it was you who came up with the more efficient thumb design for Aegis' gauntlets," Rainbow was going to continue, but an excited gasp escaped Blitz.

"R-Ratchet actually vouched for me!?"

"Damn right he did," Rainbow chuckled as if it should have been expected. "He doesn't like to show excessive pride to his underlings, but he was crazy impressed."

Blitz had to take a moment to squeal in delight and spin in circled while dancing on her hoof tips. "Yes, yes, yes, yeeeeess!"

Rainbow Dash allowed her daughter to enjoy the moment for a little bit before speaking again. "Twi, Aegis, Ratchet, and I have all drawn up a list of my kids who we think would make good queens, and you were the first."

"Why ask Aegis?" Blitz replied with slight confusion while spinning back around to face her mother. "I sorta thought older people should decide that."

 _There's that brain of hers._ Rainbow nodded with approval. "Normally, yeah. But since this decision directly affects her…" She trailed off to let Blitz come to her own conclusion. When understanding dawned on her daughter, Rainbow continued. "But the biggest thing, is that you have that…" Rainbow tried her best to think of the proper wording. Years ago, she might have been poorly equipped for such a task, but her time as an officer in the Wonderbolts, and Twilight's assistance later in life, helped Rainbow formulate a half decent pep talk that wasn't directed at soldiers. "You're smart, competent, and you have a good strong heart, but more importantly, you have that rare unnamable quality that my old CO, Spitfire, saw in me."

Blitz listened in rapt attention as Rainbow scrunched her muzzle in miffed confusion. "Something you'd think _all_ of my unaltered kids would have, but whatever." She affixed her gaze on Blitz, exuding calm motherly warmth. "Apparently having an awesome possum mom isn't enough for somepony to have the right clay to be shaped into a ruler. I think you have right stuff, and if you want, we can see if I'm right together."

Blitz sat flat on her rump with her mind going a million miles an hour. Truth be told, Blitz was quite happy with her lot in life as a drone and engineer. A contentedness Aegis seemed to be born without. _Sure I planned to one day be chief of the robotics division, if not the whole Engineers' Corps, but to be remade into a royal!? This isn't just some job promotion. She's offering me a chance to be a queen-mother. I don't think I can do that. I don't even know how mom does it!_

Rainbow Dash sensed her daughter's mounting panic as the drone's thoughts threatened to drive her into an anxiety attack. She spoke slightly louder than normal to cut through to Blitz. "Why don't you give it some thought? Sleep on it, give it a week while I spread the word to the other candidates, and then come back to me on it."

"Thank you, my queen. I will." Blitz saw the kind dismissive nod from Rainbow and turned to leave.

Blitz opened the door only for Rainbow to speak up, giving the drone pause. "Before you go," Blitz turned back to face her mother and saw wisdom in her eyes that Rainbow lacked in her early years. "Just remember one thing: you never know what you're capable of unless you try. Spitfire and Twilight taught me that, and I'd like to pass that on to all my kids, you included."

Something sparked in Blitz's mind. Whether it was a flash of her mother's own brashness or a lapse in judgment, potentially both, Blitz looked her mother dead in the eye with a determined half-smile. "Yeah, okay. I'll do it! Aegis won't have nothing on me!"

Rainbow snorted with a wide approving grin. "Good to hear. We'll start the competition once we return to the hive. I'll have spread the word to the other candidates by then. For now, get some sleep, you'll need it."

"Yes, my queen." Blitz bowed her head, an act she scolded herself for forgetting when she entered the room in the first place. Ignoring her embarrassment, she departed for Ferrum's bunk.

With the matter closed and Blitz leaving, Rainbow turned to her gallon sized stein of royal jelly tea. _Now, back to feeding those hungry hungry eggs of mine,_ she mused while eagerly latching onto the drink.

Blitz was riding high on her mother's intense pride until halfway to the crew quarters when what she had agreed to finally sunk in and her irises shrunk to pinpricks. " _Lingbeans,_ what have I done!?"

* * *

The following morning, Blitz sat at the end of one mess hall table surrounded by her fellow drones, yet she was lost in her own thoughts. She barely got any sleep that night between her romp with Ferrum and being lost in her thoughts about a possible royal rebirth. Blitz's tired gaze was centered on the bowl of cold cereal she was idly stirring. Every so often she would take a small bite. _What am I going to do now? I had the perfect life of an engineer all set for me. Impressed the royalty with my work on the princess' armor, might have even gotten a chance to be a full on apprentice to Ratchet, maybe even be chief engineer one day._

The spoon clattered out of her magic and into the milk, splashing a little bit around the bowl, but no one else noticed that nor the growing panic in the young drones' face. _Now they think I'm good enough to be a_ royal?! _How can that be? I'm just a fifth level engineer! What if they DO select me and I fail horribly? It wouldn't just be a machine or two that would act up, I would doom a whole hive! What if my failure is so bad both mothers decide to abandon elevating drones to royals?_ Blitz started to hyperventilate. _What if they only catch my failure after I'm turned into a royal? They'd have to turn me back into a drone, but that would mean losing all my memories! I like my memories! I don't wanna become a cautionary taaaale!_ she wailed helplessly, just barely stopping herself from collapsing onto the table. A few of her siblings were about to ask what's wrong, but were interrupted by a newcomer.

"Mind if I sit here?" a voice called out just loud enough to break through Blitz's out of control train of thoughts.

The blue engineer looked up with half-mad eyes to see Aegis standing beside her with a warm smile. The princess was standing on her hindlegs with enough stability to look comfortable. Oddly enough, Aegis had no idea what to do with her forelegs, or arms as she liked to call them now, when she wasn't holding something or on all fours. As a result she opted to just cross them in front of her chest. Aegis still kept her food tray aloft in her magic because she wasn't too keen on testing her balance with food in hand, though she kept that to herself.

Blitz fumbled to reply after shaking her head. "A-ah- sure," she waved at the empty seat in front of her, "be my guest."

While the long bench that serviced the table were built to allow a changeling to rest on their bellies, the design didn't hamper a biped's sitting posture. As a result, Aegis took the opportunity to practice sitting like a minotaur. The act caused her to appear much taller than anyone else at the table, only causing Blitz's panic to rise as she saw the princess as a monument which she had little chance of living up to.

Aegis on the other hand, was a model of giddiness at being able to talk to Blitz away from the machine shop, and spoke while stuffing her maw with jam toast. I gotta say, Blitz, I'm a little surprised you actually took our mothers' offer to become a princess.

Yeah… me too. _Stupid bug! Why couldn't you keep your mouth shut and just tell momma you're not cut out for this? Wait, I got it. If I ask the princess why they chose me, then I can debunk them so they'll spend more time on better candidates!_ She had to suppress the urge to clap her hooves in victory.

By the time Blitz looked up to Aegis, the princess was giving her an amused look. "You alright there?"

"I… don't know." Blitz started wringing her hooves under the table. "Why did you pick me of all people to be your partner? It's not because I made your gauntlets is it?"

Aegis paused to look at the spoon in her metallic fingers. Her grip was badly flawed and it forced too much wrist movement to get the food to her mouth, but it was _there._ "I'd be lying if I said that had nothing to do with it." Aegis took a more relaxed posture and tone. "But the biggest part is two things: I think we mesh well together, and you're crazy smart. Like, momma smart." _And I'm just crazy,_ she added with no small amount of good humor.

"But that's like saying I'm the reddest apple in the tree," Blitz countered. "There's plenty of super smart drones other than me."

Aegis' smile started to falter. "Well, yeah, but you had the presence of mind to customize the bonding process between my legs and the gauntlets to allow for greater neural activity. Uncle Ratchet didn't even think of that. He just assumed attaching my nerves to the boots would have been enough."

Blitz's frown wavered a little. "That was just an accident. I didn't really plan that."

Aegis shrugged while swallowing a bite. "That just means I'll have to add mad good luck to your resume." Blitz just rolled her eyes at the smirking princess. "Besides, I'm a soldier, through and through. I need a civilian minded partner to make my future hive more efficient, and you're perfect for it. Our mommas want to follow Celestia and Luna's diarchy example of rule, and I gotta agree. Splitting the work is better than a solo job. Not to mention that our hive can grow twice as fast with two queens instead of one."

And, not gonna lie, Aegis continued with a quick switch to the hive mind as she took the last bite of her toast. But your love tastes like heaven, and I hear Intel constantly telling me my love got even better after my rebirth.

Blitz leaned back with a sour scowl. "And so the other shoe drops."

Hey, come on now, Aegis replied with a lopsided grin. You're a top notch engineer for your age, who both mommas know you're only going to get better. You've got a level head… when given a non social problem, at least. That earned Aegis a harmless scowl. You're like the coolest blue sister I know, I mean it. Who else could get to a fifth class engineer within a year? You're a natural! Not only that, since I'm a soldier, I need somepony like you to be at my side. Just like our mothers: one to be the sword and the other the shield.

Aegis resumed eating to give Blitz a few moments to think about it all. "The love flavor's just a bonus."

After hearing all of that straight from her possible royal counterpart, Blitz felt her spirits lifted, if only just. She looked up from her cereal and deeply into Aegis' slitted eyes. "You really want me to be your partner, and your shield?"

By now, most of the crowd around them had drifted off to their duty stations, leaving the pair alone. Aegis flew around the end of the table and squashed Blitz in a hug. "If it came down to the wire, there's no pony I'd rather have than you to be my life long partner."

Moved to tears, Blitz returned the hug as hard as she could. "Okay, Aegis. I'll give it my best shot. I, ah, kind of owe you since I forgot to give you the anesthetics when bonding you to your gauntlets."

Rather than spoil the moment, Aegis let the comment slide. _Damn right you do._

* * *

Much later that day, the changeling spy within Stripped Gear slunk through the narrow confining passageways to the underground crystal factory. The main access point was too crowded to risk, and the cargo tunnel had been magnetically sealed and warded.

The maintenance tunnel the spy crawled through had exposed pipes and gearworks everywhere along the poorly lit walls and floor. The spy's abnormally soft hooves allowed it to slink quietly along the metal grated floor. After creeping along at a snail's pace, the spy at last came upon a door, presumably leading into the factory itself. Unfortunately, there was a drone standing in front, so the spy crouched behind a bend in the passageway.

 _A simple charm spell would allow me to bypass him, but do I risk getting him to open the door for me?_ The controlling queen's magic was subtle enough to gently scan the door for wards, and found two right away. One was to detect forced entry, while the other for detecting telekinetic manipulation. _Cadista's no fool. Those wards are painfully obvious to even a novice spellweaver, it's a trap. She's got to have secondary, maybe even tertiary wards to detect anyone tampering with the door or the obvious wards._

The puppet cast its eyes towards the repair drone again. He had several tools at his side while his attention was fixated on a crankshaft he was servicing. A cursory scan revealed he possessed a few mental screens, but the controlling queen had recently taken one of Cadista's drones, and knew how to pick apart each ward, save the one that kept the spy from totally dominating the intelligent drones. _Deactivating that last one without killing the drone is next to impossible. I'll have to settle for dismantling the others._ Without anyone else coming into the tunnel, and the mechanic's single-mindedness, prying apart each of his protective spells went on uninterrupted. Once she was done, the puppet slipped forward with its horn aglow and moved close enough to whisper in the mechanic's ear. "I am very tired and forgetful."

The drone slowly stopped working and his eyes became vacant. "Sssooo tired."

The puppet weaved a spell to make sure the mechanic vocalized his thoughts. "I can't seem to remember how to open the door."

"Can't remember…" The mechanic droned. The controlling queen loosened her grip on his mind just a bare smidgen. "Oh right… I have to press the button on the ground there," he pointed at a discreet raised plate of steel. "Then pull the lever by the wall so it doesn't lockdown."

The queen was about to release the drone when he absently commented to himself. "I hate that door. The Link always goes silent."

The puppet froze in shock. _None of my captives ever spoke of Link silencing doors. No wonder all my other infiltrations past the wall failed. I always thought my puppets were getting picked off by some hidden guard or possible mechanical defense weapon._ She refocused on the pliable drone. "I can't remember, is it the whole factory that cuts off the Link or not."

The engineer's eyes slowly blinked separately. "No… only the doors do when both are closed. But long enough to screw up any of those idiotic rival queens." The mechanic had a superior grin. "As if dumb drones were better than us." He spat on the ground in disgust. The act also proved to strengthen his will, loosening the puppeting queen's charm over him.

Fearing that she might trip the dead-switch ward on the mechanic's mind, the queen gave him one last minor suggestion. "I think you forgot to finish up further back. You better check on it to be sure."

"Hey, that's right." The drone said with mild worry. "If I had reconnected this shaft without section 58-b in working order, the resulting damage would take all week to fix."

The puppet side stepped to allow the mechanic to gather his tools and depart. _The problem with intelligent minds is that they tend to ramble on and volunteer information when put under the correct charm._ A snide grin crossed the queen's muzzle. _The most you can ever truly get from a normal drone is their alchemical secrets. I warned Cadista that these intelligent drones would be the death of her._

Turning her attention to the door, the queen contemplated how she was going to circumvent a momentary breakage in the Link. _It's been a while since I've had to implant a series of commands and let a drone act independent of normal instinct._ The controlling queen smirked and popped a few joints at the challenge. _I better hurry before that drone returns._

It did not take long before the puppet was programmed with a number of actions. The queen released it, allowing the drone to press the correct buttons, and walked inside the doorway, which led straight into a very small room with a second door on the other side. The instant the first set of doors closed the queen's connection with the spy cut off abruptly. For a being who counted her lifetime in centuries instead of years, the delay felt entirely too long.

 _My allies are in position, the pawns are in place, but none of it will matter if Cadista isn't distracted. Her toys of machine and steel are pitiful on offense, but defensively? Any victory would be a hollow one. And she_ knows _it._

The queen's attention was partially drawn to a battle going on to Stripped Gear's northern territory next to the road between the hive and its railroad outpost. _…Polybia. So she's on the move as well? Or is it just a probing attack? I don't think she's ever attacked Cadista with so many drones before._

The various eyes and ears the queen had in the field showed just how quick the two gunships in the area annihilated the contingent of drones. The queen was unmoved by the two hundred dying drones, their lives were cheap in the Jungle. Even so, the queen was rather disappointed in Polybia as the raiding party was cut down to the last drone. _Still, such a paltry amount of information is not worth the cost she paid._

One of her closer scouts was near enough to the carnage to be within spitting distance of the broken changeling corpses. Something about the spilled blood tickled her scout's magical senses in a disturbing way, but the reappearance of the infiltrator upon the hive mind pulled her attention away.

The queen immediately resumed complete control over her puppet. The infiltrator was standing on a catwalk just inside the crystal factory itself. The very air churned and roiled from the immense heat wafting from the dozens of large water and steam pipes. The largest pipes sank into a hole in the center of the football field sized chamber where an orange hot glow emanated from the lava chamber below.

The room had machinery everywhere, from turbines, heat exchangers, and most intriguingly, the crystal farm. Ten huge vats of Borosilicate heat resistant glass filled with dense semi-opaque brown liquid held the growing future cloaking crystals within. The infiltrator counted twenty two workers who tended the various machinery. _No guards, as expected. Time to get to work._

Spotting the first isolated worker, the spy moved in for the kill.

* * *

Cadista bore a humorless grin as the titanic hangar doors groaned open upon massive hinges. The brand new flat decked ship was pulled out by a smaller tugboat. The grey queen stood above the hangar doors along the edge so she could watch from above as her latest weapon of war was birthed into the violent world of the changeling jungle.

Those dark thoughts weighed heavily on Cadista. _Twilight, I'm glad you did not try to settle your hive here in the jungle. You and your progeny will lead our species along a better path. Of that I am certain. But that will only happen so long as you outlive the old guard, and every day that I hold the other queens here, the better your odds._

By now, the warship had been fully removed from the air dry-dock with the tugboat uncoupling itself from the vessel. The warship was so new, so radically different than anything she had masterminded before, Cadista had been at a loss as to what to classify it as, let alone name it.

Cadista furrowed her brow in mild irritation at the thought. _Gah, I've been using Equestrian naval classes for so long I didn't really think that I'd ever have to come up with a new one._

She watched the vessel start to lazily orbit the palace, more to live test the onboard systems than anything else, but the ship still drew many eyes towards it. Cadista didn't care if any spies managed to sneak a peek at the warship now. It was something new. Something strange and unknown, and that made queens hesitant. "Even with their disdain for my technology, they're not stupid enough to underestimate it. Not since the incident. They'll spend months if not years figuring out if this is a new weapon or some odd looking freighter. That should buy more than enough time to work out the remaining errors and install the cloak crystals.

"The only thing it needs at the moment is a name and classification." Thus far, Cadista had been thinking aloud mostly for her own benefit, but also for the two Queen's Guard at her side. Unlike Twilight and Rainbow's guards, Cadista's were bred to be paranoid. They suspected everyone and everything, including their siblings to be spies unless they could speak to them over the hive mind.

Watchful Eye, her Guard Captain and the drone to Cadista's right side, hummed while sweeping his gaze for incoming threats. "It's supposed to carry smaller aircraft into battle right? Those mini-airships?" He received an affirmative grunt from his queen. "Why not classify it as a carrier?"

This time, Cadista actually turned to face him, causing Watchful to shrug. "Keep it simple, stupid. That's what I always say, er, no offense, my queen."

Cadista received no response from the other guard, making her scowl. "I _was_ thinking of 'long range power projection platform', but… I suppose _carrier_ is easier to say in conversation."

"It'll save on ink and page space, that's for sure," the thus far silent guard chirped in.

Heaving an exasperated sigh, Cadista conceded. "Very well. Any future ships of this type shall be henceforth known as carriers. Now, to think of a proper name."

Their brainstorming session didn't last long before a highly agitated foreman barely waited for Cadista to register his ping before speaking. My queen, I think we have a problem. No pony down in the crystal factory is responding. If there was an accident down there, we'll lose power throughout the entire hive!

The hair stood up on the back of Cadista's neck at the warning. She hastily scanned the hive mind for those who were on shift down there, and quickly discovered none of their voices were present. _Damn, Polybia's forces must have been a distraction! The timing is too perfect._ Gather a response team with an A-2 loadout! A spy managed to work his way down to the crystal factory.

Despite the gravity of the situation, the dispatcher was calm and collected. Received and acknowledged, my queen. A short pause elapsed. The team is on its way.

Watchful Eye and his counterpart shared in their queen's agitation. "What's wrong, my queen?"

Cadista began giving out rapid fire commands to the various overseers and foremen. "A spy or even a team of them have somehow broken into the crystal factory. If they damage the wrong pipes, they could cause a wildcat steam buildup that could cause ruptures all over the hive!"

Watchful buzzed into a low hover. "We should evacuate immediately! There's no way a spy got their way down there without knowing how much damage they could do."

Cadista's face was marred with hate. "I've lived here for thousands of years, over more lifetimes than I know. I will _not_ abandon it now!" She saw the fearful gaze of her drones, only making her angrier. "Besides, we have contingencies in place if the magma chamber ever got out of our control. Even if the damage is done, the mountain won't erupt for months."

"But, my queen, if Chrysalis is on the move, all she has to do is besiege us and wait for the volcano to blow. If we try to evacuate immediately, it might throw her timetable off."

"Or maybe they want us to panic," piped up Watchful's counterpart. "I say we tighten the airship cordon around the hive, prepare to evacuate, and wait to see what the response team finds. If worst comes to worse, we can always relocate to Phoenix's Roost."

"As much as I hate imposing on my daughters, it is sound advice." _Everything is secondary to safeguarding Twilight and Rainbow Dash, even my pride._

* * *

A few minutes ago, the last surviving drone within the crystal factory had been so absorbed in the read outs of his console that he completely missed the silencing of his coworkers due to the background white noise of the rest of the hive mind. In fact, he didn't even notice anything out of the ordinary until he felt like something bit him in the back of the neck and a foreleg wrapped around his neck, pulling him away from his work and into the cold embrace of the changeling spy's poisonous fangs. Within the space of a few seconds, the spy's toxin cut off the hive mind, effectively blocking any chance the worker could raise an alarm and ended his life a moment later.

With no further need for subtlety, the spy released its camouflage and studied the maze of machines and steam pipes. _That's the problem with cold metal technology. When the drones die, there's no one left to protect so much vulnerable equipment._

The spy remembered the biggest console it had come across during its elimination of the workers and flew over to it. The mass of dials, levers, readouts, knobs, and switches might have baffled the controlling queen if she cared at all to try and decipher it. _I know nothing of these things, but I_ do _know steam can be quite destructive. While I took the time to splash some acid on the smaller turn wheels I came across, these look even more important._ If the puppeting queen could put her pride aside, she'd admit she knew nothing of the machine in front of her; however, she knew that everything could break. _These red zones along the knobs and levers look dangerous. How careless of me to pull them all. I think it's time to signal my allies to attack._

The spy started pulling levers, twisting knobs, and moving any control to whatever maximum value it possessed. With startling rapidity, the dials and readouts started redlining and the pipes started banging so loud it forced the spy to cover its ears.

A callous grin marred the controlling queen. "Such is the folly of metal technology."

 **"Alert! Magma dampening field compromised,"** boomed a synthetic feminine voice across the chamber, drawing the puppet's gaze along the ceiling in an effort to locate the source. **"Steam pressure exceeding safety limits. Lockdown protocols in progress."** The spy witnessed several robotic arms folding out from the floor with large orange crystals at the ends. It didn't take the puppeting queen long to detect the charging frost magic within each of them.

Before any of them could reach their intended position, the infiltrator rushed over to the closest one and spat vicus green globs of acid at the biggest looking piston. The queen had the presence of mind to back off, saving the puppet from the blast of pressurized steam when the acid ate through the piston, causing the arm to collapse and fracturing the delicate crystal in the process. The spy repeated the process to each arm. **"Warning, automated failsafe protocol inoperable. Steam production exceeding normal levels. Manual secession of water supply required to prevent cascade failure. Please enact emergency venting and shutdown procedures without delay."**

What the spy couldn't know was that same warnings were being broadcast all over the hive. Within the crystal factory itself, the white lighting was joined by strobing red warning lights. Yet most alarmingly was the large black crystal appearing from an opening in the center of the room. It started glowing an angry dark purple before flooding the room in the same twisting mana. **"Intruder alert,"** began repeating itself constantly, though the banging and hissing pipes threatened to drown it out.

The puppet's horn was in agony as the crystal's magic burned the spy's stored mana. The controlling queen severed her sensation of pain from the puppet so she wouldn't be burdened by it. _So you found a way for the machine to defend itself, Cadista? What a shame you didn't have it react to the possibility of sabotage earlier._

The muffled clank of metal announced the doors opening with pounding hooves and buzzing wings heralding the arrival of two squads of guards from the cargo and main entrances with rifles at the ready. The spy barely had time to notice the protective helmets covering the soldiers' horns, keeping the mana-burning crystal from affecting them.

"It looks like I've worn out my welcome." The spy turned around and started bucking the control console, smashing it to pieces by the time the fastest soldiers got within weapon's range, and fired upon the spy.

The puppet managed to slide away with a quick green-fire portal spell. Though successful, the feedback from the crystal exploded the puppet's horn, leaving its vision swimming and awash with blood. The controlling queen had placed the spy at the second largest control board it had seen and started spitting up large globules of highly acidic salve that dripped in between the levers and knobs, ruining the control mechanisms.

The teleport spell was hardly inconspicuous, and the soldiers saw the destination. The spy barely managed to spit up three globs of acid before two riflelings sprinted the distance and peppered the puppet with five bullets, finally ending its life.

Blood and acid dripped from the corpse, causing further damage to the machinery below.

Cadista watched through the eyes of the last soldier to enter the factory. Good work, Bravo team, keep searching, there might be more of them. She switched perspective to the engineers moving in behind the soldiers, and fully took control of one. Time was too critical to leave in the hooves of anyone else. "Repair the damage, and bring the power plant back under control!" she commanded to the other drones as the group stormed into the hellish heat that was wafting up from the magma chamber and the warning klaxons only adding to the chaos.

Cadista's ire mounted as she started getting warning pings from drones all over the hive with one voice giving her serious pause. My queen, we have seriously delicate instruments here. We need to vent the steam immediately before the whole lab is ruined!

Another voice only compounded her fear. My queen, factory 1-A was already operating above rated levels to make the ship launch deadline. We need to vent immediately or the whole factory could blow!

It was a sad truth. With the upcoming war, there were mounting concerns that the constant high pressure on the pipes hive-wide would eventually give out. Now with the geothermal plant dumping far too much steam into the rest of the pipes, blow outs were inevitable. _If we blow the release valves, it'll take hours to bring power back to the turrets along the walls, and days to restore everything, assuming the damage to the plant is minimal._

Still standing upon her perch above the airship dry-dock, Cadista heard metal bangs coming from the pipework beneath her hooves when she heard news from the geothermal engineers. All of which spurned her own puppet on to hurry. Yet all it took was a single look at the smoking and half slagged primary control board to see there was no hope there. Fuming with rage, Cadista's consciousness invaded the drone who was just arriving at the secondary board only to find all but one dial to be non-functional. **"Damn her!"** she raged louder than the banging steam pipes. "Both primary control boards have been ruined, it'll take days, _weeks_ to repair this!

"There's no other choice," she growled grimly once she learned of the broken status of the stabilization crystals. To all damage control teams, vent all steam pipes and bring the backup coal plant online!

Cadista left the engineer's body to allow him to follow her orders as her consciousness returned to her body. Her escorts looked upon the hive in horror as steam started to fill the air. Within an hour, the hive would be totally obscured in a dense fog of steam. Watchful Eye's fearful gaze shifted up to the shield tower and the masking dome above. The constant din of the tower's machines, a symbol of the hive's power as old and venerated as Cadista herself shuddered to a halt. Cracks spread rapidly all throughout the orange dome above before it shattered in one massive crack of escaping mana.

Both escorts looked to Cadista with terror gripping their hearts. "My queen, with the steam pipes vented, we won't be able to lift any of our artillery and wall mounted weapons into firing position! All we have are small arms and the gunships!"

Cadista gritted her teeth and tried to calm herself to think rationally on how to fix everything. A scouts' report coming in did nothing to help her. My Queen, there's a truly massive army coming in from the west eighty kilometers out! They must have tunneled their way in! There's even three- The informant was suddenly silenced by one of the invaders' advance scouts.

Fear and panic started spreading rapidly throughout Stripped Gear with equally worried communications coming in from Phoenix's Roost, Twilight and Rainbow Dash chief among them. Her daughters' voices gave Cadista exactly what she needed most: support. Twilight, Cadista barked just harshly enough to get her daughter to listen. Help organize the civilians and do your best to get power back up in the hive. Rainbow Dash, my forces are yours to command, Get my new warship out of here and into Equestrian lands. It's not ready for the battlefield yet. I know neither one of you will let me down.

Rainbow Dash shared her sister's rising worry. Why me? You've got like hundreds of years of command experience.

True, but they know most of my tricks and tactics. The other queens have studied me for an equal number of centuries. But they will not expect you, Rainbow Dash. You know of my army and its capabilities. I put my trust in you to lead them.

Yeah… you got it, but what will you be doing? Don't tell me you're going on the front lines!

Cadista turned westward to face the general direction of the oncoming swarms and sat on her haunches. The setting sun baked the sky a dark red as it slipped below the horizon, giving the invading army some measure of cover in the coming darkness. No. I will be calling upon my allies for aid, but primarily, I will use my hive meditation to give my children the strength they need to fight.

Twilight and Rainbow knew full well from experience that meditating like that made you nearly deaf to the world and unable to act, save to end the meditation. I won't let you down mother, just promise me one thing.

Cadista prepared herself to open herself fully to the hive mind as she sent word to her various ambassadors to the allied hives. If it is within my power.

Come out of this alive, mother. Twilight's demanding tone was laced with profound worry and love. I can't stand to lose you.

Everything dies, Twilight, Cadista replied sagely even as she sent off commands to her drones to prepare for battle. But I don't plan to today. Cadista's thoughts and tone darkened. I still have unfinished business.

The conversation faded as time forced everyone to act. Panic was sweeping through her hive with terror hot on the heels of news on the invading swarms. Thousands of souls looked to her for guidance and hope. If there was one thing that Twilight had instilled into Cadista through the years, was the power of music. Pulling upon old memories of a time when Yumia still lit up her life, Cadista expanded herself to every single grey drone, and sang an old song Yumia used to sing to her when times were bleak. Cadista sang now it now to give her children the strength to weather the coming storm.


	45. Chapter 45

Muster for Battle

Aboard the _Deception_ within her guest cabin, Rasua was kneeling at the foot of her bed. It was close to nightfall and she was wearing a simple white nightgown, praying with her hands clasped and head bowed to the north (courtesy of the compass she brought with her). The simplistic circular device was a gift from a priest in her childhood as a tool that would guide her in the physical world just as the Maiden of the Great Cycle guided her morality.

The blacksmith was eternally grateful for the strictly electric, if harsh, lighting the ship possessed. Rasua made it a point to introduce the changelings to the concept of lampshades. With the overabundance of fire-based technology, Rasua feared the changelings resorted to candle and torchlight alone.

After clearing her mind, Rasua took the compass into her hands and prayed. There was no set principles of communion with the sphinx patron deity, as dogma was extremely sparse. Not even the compass had any real connection, save for what Rasua set for herself.

The deity's only purpose was twofold: to watch over and protect the Eternal Cycle of the universe, and to guide the morality of all. Everything else from the workings of nature to the afterlife was left to mortals to figure out entirely on their own. In accordance to her family's tradition, Rasua had two pungent sticks of incense burning at either side of her. The lack of a visible flame was enough to placate the species-wide pyrophobia that the sphinxes suffered from. Whether that fear was part of their racial psyche, or a product of their culture would leave Twilight in scholarly delight for years, if she had the time.

Rasua would have preferred her old phonograph to fill the air with chanting monks, but she had to settle for the rhythmic (and admittedly calming) churning of gears and steam. It was reminiscent of her blacksmithing apprenticeship.

 _Blessed and eternal Cyrkle. This daughter of the skies beseeches you for the strength to endure and flow with the waxing of this new cycle upon which I am bound to, the courage to face its inevitable waning, and the wisdom to never stray from the Great Cycle._

Rasua would have continued for several minutes were it not for heavy urgent knocking on her door. The fire conscious sphinx extinguished her incense with a finger and thumb before speaking out, the sound of scuffing metal instantly told her who was at the door. "Yes, Princess Aegis?"

The royal all but burst through the door with the look of a soldier with troubling news, and looking unsteady on two legs. "Pack your things, you need to move to the _Crystal Blue_ for the rest of the voyage into Alliance territory." She would have had others assist, but the cabin was so small that having more people would have made things clumsy.

The hasty worried look upon Aegis' face got the sphinx to bolt up onto all fours to face her fully. "Why, did I incur some form of insult?"

Aegis waved her off. "No, but we just received word from an ally of ours to the south that her hive is under siege," Aegis blurted out with just enough self-control to keep the words from running into each other. Her tone grew even heavier. "We're heading to war." Rasua's face grew dark. "The _Deception'll_ be moving off at full steam as soon as you're relocated. The _Crystal Blue_ will take you to Canterlot and Princess Luna will arrange transit from there to Phoenix's Roost for you."

A number of things ran through Rasua's mind, with personal pride chief among them. _War? That must be why they only brought a single warship to Stratholme. The rest must be on deployment. This will be the perfect chance to see these changelings in real combat and get a measure of their strengths and weaknesses._ Her mind made up, Rasua affixed Aegis with a determined gaze. "I may be a smith, but I am a daughter of the Federation, and a decent warrior in my own right. I made an oath to serve you, and I won't-"

Aegis cut her off with a quick swipe of a hoof and an impatient buzz of her wings. "You don't understand. This isn't just some skirmish, this is going to be a full on _war_ with armies in the hundreds of thousands, and this ship is going right into the middle of it."

Rasua was just barely too young to have participated in the war that ended up forging the Federation ten years prior, and it chafed her badly to have missed such a chance to win honor and prestige for her family and nation. "In the off chance you forgot our earlier conversation, my people are no strangers to war." That put a damper on Aegis' argument, causing her to give a scrunched frown.

Sensing she had taken the initiative, Rasua pressed on. "If I may be so bold, you act to protect me out of ignorance about my people's customs and history. For the moment, I am a servant to your house, and it would a grievous dishonor to my name and my family's honor to simply sit out of a conflict when I am fit and able to serve."

It wasn't the whole truth, but there was enough of it there to make it sound convincing. Even then, Aegis was dubious. "Look, this fight's just been us changelings. We don't even want to get Equestria involved in this if we can help it. Besides, what do you think your father and country would say if you died in _our_ war?"

Rasua gave a harmless yet determined scowl. "He would hope I died with distinction and that I proved to this new world that a sphinx's word is honorable. My service to your house was not given lightly, nor do I wish it to be taken lightly either. To do otherwise would be insulting to us both."

As much as Aegis wished she could pass the buck to either queen-mother, Twilight had given her full discretion on how to handle Rasua for the foreseeable future. While it was not stated directly, Aegis knew it was just one more test her mother presented her on her road to becoming queen.

Aegis gave her a hard look, but eventually gave an approving snort and slight grin. "Alright, have it your way. I suggest writing your father to let him know. We're not too far from Stratholme, so mother can get it delivered."

"Thank you. You'll have my letter within the hour."

Giving a curt nod, Aegis left Rasua to her thoughts. Most of those centered on her family and the stories of war that were still fresh in the minds of the entire Federation.

As those thoughts turned to the prospect of battle, Rasua moved to her chest of drawers. She pulled it open to reveal a long gold inlaid box that took up the entire length of the drawer. Sphinx calligraphy covered its surface in a way that it looked like a painting instead of inscription. She popped the simple latch to reveal a collection of spherical cut gems that would have left Spike salivating. To even someone as magically talented as Twilight Sparkle, anyone would have seen only that. Yet to a sphinx, they were so much more.

 _I was hoping I wouldn't have to use these while I remained in service to these bugs. But it looks like I have little option. Father would kill me for not taking every precaution against an unknown enemy._

* * *

Luna was taking advantage of a rare thing aboard luxury yachts, especially those of Equestrian make, a workout room. The dark mare loved chocolate as much as her sister loved cake, and as a result, she had to hit the weights to keep her slim figure. At the moment however, Luna was enjoying one of the overlooked inventions to come out of Phoenix's Roost: the treadmill; or more accurately, a powered treadmill designed solely for personal exercise.

At present, Luna was running at a comfortable gallop while several guards joined in on their daily workout routine. The Lunar Guard captain was not about to let a milk run back to Canterlot be an excuse for slouching. As such, a full squad of both Equestrian and former imperial thestrals were working out alongside their princess.

Luna had been greatly honored by how many imperials who wished to join her personal guard. Unfortunately, the number of requests was so great she had to turn most of them away.

Slippery Shadow stood beside Luna's treadmill bearing a water bottle on his back and two towels hanging on his outstretched wings. "While I'm honored that both you and the queens came all this way to rescue me, isn't there somepony else who could do this?"

Luna gave him a humored toothy smile. The timer on the treadmill started ringing, signaling her to slow down to cool off. "Perhaps, *huff* but the servants are quite busy, *puff* Plus you're a scout and spy. *huff* There's not much you can do with *puff* your skill set until you can be properly *huff* debriefed at the castle."

His ears wilted while trying carefully to stay on Luna's amused side. He offered her the bottle which was gladly taken. "I'm a world renowned storyteller… This is what I get for filling the sphinxes' heads with my homeland's epic tales. Isn't it?"

A couple of the guards within earshot gave Slippery the stink eye, while Luna made an effort to be less than miffed. "I probably learned more about the Moonlit Empire's folklore in Stratholme than even exists on paper. I had to spend twelve hours with Thaddeus correcting all the misinformation between the Empire and Equestria that might have caused issues later on."

Slippery shrugged and gave an innocent lopsided grin. "Well, _I_ thought it was a good idea."

"Don't misunderstand," Luna reassured after guzzling half the water and trading the bottle for the towel. She took a few moments to get her breathing under control. "It was smart of you, and most likely saved your life, but it still gave me a migraine. So you get to be my workout assistant." She let him sulk a little before continuing with a sly grin, "and then get a pay-grade increase once we get back to the castle."

The prospect of more money causes his ears to perk straight up and smoothed away much of Slippery's irritation, giving way to a self-satisfied grin. His dreams of what he could do with more bits fell away when a bright lavender-orange flash heralded Twilight Sparkle's arrival via teleport.

The queen was beset with a badly worried expression with a curious distracted look. "Princess Luna, Stripped Gear's under siege by the other queens. The fighting will start in less than half an hour."

The room's atmosphere heated up in an instant with Luna forgetting her workout. "Do you know who it is, is it Chrysalis' doing?"

"It's possible, but mother's not jumping to conclusions just yet," Twilight replied with a head shake.

Luna turned to the Guard captain who was standing at attention between her and the queen. "Sure Aim, gather everypony except squad three and prepare to be teleported over to the _Deception._ Don't bother equipping everything, just pile it up to be teleported all at once. You've got five minutes."

Snapping a curt salute, Aim barked a reply. "Yes, ma'am!" He did not need to order the rest of the guards to move as they repeated his salute before everyone stormed out to the passenger quarters.

Slippery Shadow put the bottle down with shaky nerves. His lackluster brave front failed to hide the stress he still felt at being surrounded by prideful predators for a week, where one wrong move could have ended his life over a cooking fire. "What do you require of me, your majesty?"

"Stay here and guard our feline guest with the rest of the Lunar Guard. The _Crystal Blue_ will still be headed back to Canterlot, but I'm sure there are some rival changelings who might attack the yacht. No doubt they expect the _Deception_ to break off shortly."

"My thoughts exactly," Twilight piped in. "I've already sent word to Celestia via my ambassadors, and sent a letter to Spike in case Chrysalis tries another assassination to stir up more trouble."

"Good thinking," Luna replied with an approving nod. "I had hoped this would not have happened while I was away from Canterlot, but I brought my arms and armor to be safe. Allow me to retrieve them before your warship breaks off."

"Of course," Twilight said with thinly veiled worry, "I'll get RD to teleport the guards over." _I'm pretty sure she can manage that if she aims for the wide open space of the cargo bay._ Being reminded of the cargo bay also brought the talbuks to the forefront of her mind. The prospect of bringing animals into a warzone didn't sit well with her in the slightest. Thunderfury, she barked, just barely waiting long enough for him to respond. Pack up the animals and their supplies. I'm teleporting them and all of it to the _Crystal Blue_ before we head off.

Reluctant understanding and painful woe at the loss of his pet project tinted the bodyguard's tone. At once, my queen.

Returning to the here and now, Twilight gave Luna a gracious smile. "Thank you for helping. I don't know how much my ship will be able to accomplish though. Even at full steam we're more than two days away from my mother's hive."

Luna's form dispersed into an inky starry mist the moved rapidly through the ship to her quarters. She arrived in time to witness Twilight teleport into the adjacent hallway and walk inside. "We'll only know that when we get there, Twilight Sparkle." Luna removed a large chest from her closet and started peeling off the wards so it could be safely teleported. "I'm sure you will do what you can over the hive mind. I only hope that will give us a chance to arrive in time to lend military aid."

It was a prospect that Twilight quietly fumed over, but could do little about save to order the warship to proceed with all due haste. However, she was filled with hope that Luna jumped to her aid without a second thought. "I know we're allies on paper, and that most ponies are still iffy about us changelings," Twilight began yet was interrupted by Luna raising a hoof for silence.

"I know where you're going with this Twilight Sparkle, and the holier-than-thou games the nobility and media play are of no concern to me when a good friend is involved." She would have paused to give Twilight a reassuring look, but time was of the essence. "You saved me from the Nightmare and granted a priceless boon to my theserals. I don't need a treaty to come to your aid."

Twilight's heart swelled with hope and pride for the ironclad friendship between them. For longer than she wanted to admit, there had always been a thin thread of fear that Celestia and Luna might share the hesitation of the aristocracy if only to placate them. As Luna gathered her equipment, Twilight filled her in on the dire situation unfolding over Cadista's ancient home.

* * *

The overcast night skies just west of Stripped Gear rumbled and buzzed as an aging gunship chugged through the air, blasting its way towards the hive. Its side mounted flak cannons were firing behind it at the wall of drones scarcely twenty meters behind it. A sickly green shield powered by the horde deflected nearly everything the gunship threw at them.

Individual stormtroopers pushed out from behind the moving shield wall, only to get cut down from flak shrapnel. The shipmaster grimaced at the sheer mass of the enemy trying to envelop his gunship in the shield so the hostile drones could tear the ship apart with impunity. The gunship's very limited supply of void stone laced rounds had been depleted all too rapidly, leaving the shield free to protect its casters.

Cadista's hive meditation pounded in the back of the crews' heads, honing their reflexes and surging their courage to face the countless mass. More often than not, it caused a mad touch of mania.

"Come on you mindless bunch of savages!" The two gunners on either side of the cabin cackled manically as their guns chugged away. The throng of shield drones couldn't keep a perfect shield-front with the mad twists and jinks the gunship forced them to follow. The airship banked left as hard as its engines could muster, causing a break in formation. With their mother's efforts surging their response time, both gunners barely took a moment to adjust to the thinned shield as the formation attempted to adapt.

Knowing this moment was coming, the gunners switched modes and fired all four barrels of their flak canons at once, busting through the shield and mauling dozens of drones each. "Die, _die,_ **die!** " the gunners howled with hive meditation induced bloodlust.

The swarm reformed with all the speed that a unified mind allowed, sealing the breaches as fast as they formed, repelling the gunship's firepower once more.

Rainbow Dash's voice resounded in his mind. Hoof Grease, you're headed too far out from your assigned area. Change course to 77 mark two three eight, I'll have GB-194 move in behind that shield and give you some breathing room.

Aye aye, Admiral, the shipmaster replied with a savage grin. "You heard the queen, turbines to full!"

The helmsman put the gunship into a steep dive. The forward view of the bridge was lit up by the burning farmlands below as more drones continued to skirmish on the ground. All to buy Twilight as much time as possible to repair the hive's defenses. Rifle fire and streaming flamethrowers were met by the organic living war machine of the enemy.

Manic induced bloodlust faced up against savage fang and spell blow, causing the battlefield to be awash with fire, blood, and mana so thick it evaporated as a glowing blue mist in the full moon night. There were no clean front lines here. Tunnels between the fields and Stripped Gear allowed commandos to appear deep behind enemies lines to bury them in burning oil and musket fire.

Yet the enemy cared nothing for psychological warfare that would have turned the other races. Even as they were being perforated by rifle fire and burned alive as oil seeped in through the cracks of their chitin, the hostile drones carved a bloody swath across the countryside.

For every ten savage blood soaked drones the hostile queens threw at the military might of Stripped Gear, higher magi drones, wielded directly by the queens themselves, churned the earth and sky. Tunnel networks were destroyed as the very soil itself burst forth, exposing the tunnelers to their would be victims.

Small tornados made fortified positions all but impossible to hold. Only the combined efforts of Cadista's own magi or the passage of an airship's artificial pegasi magic calmed the skies.

"We're not making a dent in that shield so long as we're going straight." The shipmaster grumbled as they passed through one such tornado before it could properly form. Gunners, turn the weapons forward. Let's give our brothers and sisters on the ground some close air support.

Both flak cannons turned and started raking the ground with lead, tearing away at even the toughest shock troopers embattled below. However, as the gunship started to level off, the drones giving chase behind them stopped casting the shield and switched to firing hundreds of kinetic bolts.

A virtual hailstorm of acidic green bolts of mana tore at the gunship, shattering glass, and denting armor to the breaking point. Before the gunners could return fire, one of the engines was torn from its mounting, sending the gunship down in flames. It crashed into a grain silo, prompting most of the chasing drones to face the second gunship that had arrived too late. Some of those drones fired off a few small fireballs, just enough to ignite the powdered grain. The resulting explosion killed the remaining crew, and flattened most of the nearby combatants.

However, the second gunship had longer range than the swarm anticipated and it rained flak down on them from afar, decimating the attackers before they could reform their shield. Each time the drones attempted to get close enough to reform the collective shield, the gunship would fire on them, dropping broken bodies and chunks to the dirt. With the situation untenable, the controlling queen dispersed the survivors to flee into the foothills to reform later.

 _Damn it!_ Rainbow cursed from within the _Deception_ at the gunship's loss. GB-194, you're isolated out there. Fall back to the inner defensive cordon. Sis finally got a few of the long range AA guns up and running.

With the lowlands around Stripped Gear's south and western lands lost, the defenders performed an organized retreat under Rainbow's direction. As small groups pulled back, the assaulting ground troops attempted to push the advantage, only to run into the waiting guns, flamethrowers, and clockwerks hiding in ambush. Once the first group set up a new ambush, the second group fell back. It took the assaulting queen three ambushes before finally pulling most of her forces back to switch to long range spell casting.

Ultimately though, the ground forces and the swarming clouds of drones giving her gunships a run for their money was not the biggest of Rainbow's worries. Thrashing about just inside the battlespace were three gigantic burrowing behemoth drones that nearly reached a fourth the size of Stripped Gear alone. The lava chambers and heated rock kept them from burrowing any closer to Stripped Gear. Even so, thousands of enemy drones blanketed the chittering and crawling town sized drones as more constantly poured out from within the leviathans.

From the dozens of aerial scouts serving as Rainbow's eyes, she saw that for every inch of ground Cadista's drones gave up to the enemy, hundreds of worker drones were crawling over the dead. Each worker picked up the broken bodies of the dead and flew back to the closest leviathan. _I don't get it, why are they taking the bodies back? They can't rebirth the dead, right?_

There was a lull in the battle thanks to the invaders holding back their forces. As Rainbow took stock of the battlefield, she discovered there were four points where the enemy was within a kilometer of the caldera. The swarms of shield drones were gathering in those areas. GB-109, bombard section 2 oh 8.

Aye aye, admiral.

Rainbow Dash watched closely as the gunboat moved in and started shelling the region. As she expected, the thousand drones cast their massed shields before the gunboat reached optimal firing position. The shelling rippled across the combined magical might of the drones, forming cracks every time the high explosive shells hit their mark. Yet with so many drones powering the barrier, the cracks were repaired before the cannons could be reloaded.

A new swarm poured out of the nearest leviathan, and charged straight at the gunship. Back off for now. You're not going to punch through that.

Unlike her sister, who was able to sit still while communing with so many drones at once, Rainbow Dash was pacing around the bridge of the _Deception_. While Captain Rourke was able to keep the bridge crew focused on their duties, she couldn't help but to share in their uneasiness at the battle to come. _I don't get it. Everything Granny Caddy said about typical Ling tactics is that they swarm en masse to quickly overwhelm the opponent. So why are they using different strategies?_

Rainbow briefly thought to ask Cadista for advice. _That won't work, she's still doing Hive Med._ Her next instinct was to ask her sister. Hey, Twi, what do you make of this? Rainbow sent Twilight a brief recap of the situation.

The former unicorn was brainstorming ways to speed up the activation of the coal power plant and any way to get the heavy guns out of their enclosures. As such, she couldn't give Rainbow any more than a few moments. I don't know. Most queens want fast, bloody wars so they can safely replenish their numbers later.

Twilight reluctantly left Rainbow to her own council. She came to a halt and started hovering in place. _Fast and bloody. Well it's already bloody, but since they're bunkering down into a siege, they're expecting this to be a long fight. If things go like it did at the Battle for Razor Gorge, the besiegers lost almost no pony while the defenders were completely wiped out. Wait…_

 _That's gotta be it! They don't think this is going to be a short war. Granny has allies, and I bet the guys attacking us have even more enemies. They must be saving their drones for future battles…or…_

Luna barged into the bridge with a series of rolled up maps she had taken from Rainbow's chambers. "I thought you might need these if we plan on flying straight into the jungle."

Even though she didn't have as much practice with high level multitasking, Rainbow gave Luna all the attention she could spare. "Thanks. I'll need your help figuring out the enemy's battle strategy."

Three of Luna's thestral aides came in behind the princess and set up a fold out table, allowing Luna to unfurl the most relevant map detailing the terrain around Stripped Gear. Rainbow sent orders to her infantry to fall back to the walls with some staying behind to wait in ambush or to set up teleport beacons. Numerous small field artillery was being set up along the ramparts and were already firing on the unshielded targets, hoping to intercept anyone before reaching the shields.

Rainbow moved over to the map and took several offered green and red flags from an aide. "The enemy has taken up positions along the west and southern farmlands. Granny's been stockpiling ammo ever since my first Summit pow-wow, so I'm not worried about running out."

Rainbow marked the the road between the hive proper and the rail outpost to the north. "The new ship Cadista just built is being escorted out by two gunships and should be clear of the battlefield shortly. It looks like the attackers don't care about it enough to pursue."

Luna tried to wrap her head around the alien form of warfare. She was used to Equestrian, minotaur, and Griffin technology and tactics, but the stark differences between the technophilic changelings, and the living weapons of the other queens left her with little useful advice to give.

With a menacing frown, Rainbow planted three flags around the skirmish with Polybia's force earlier, which was uncomfortably close to that same northerly road. "That nut Polybia used the blood of her own kids to act as a portal. I had to station granny's only corvette-destroyer, the _Dagger_ to plug the hole."

While she had poor abilities with teleportation, portal magic was something of a hobby for Luna. "Blood magic or not, using rock salt and ground mandrake root will destabilize any portal."

"Really?" Rainbow replied with confusion that was mirrored by Rourke. "Granny should have some at hive. I'll get a team to deliver it."

"It takes time however, and would have been more effective if the materials were already present, but it'll work."

"I'll take what I can get," Rainbow snorted with approval. "Hopefully they can get it done with one of the corvettes Cadista still has."

Luna's eyes followed the red flags and long wooden blocks showing trooper positions as Rainbow took the time to finish placing the rest. The situation looked grim, but unfortunately, the flags and wooden colored blocks only painted half the picture. "What about troop strength? How big of a force are we facing?"

"Granny's advisors are telling me we're looking at three maybe four hives worth of drones. Though I'm going to assume five just to be safe." The ordinarily boisterous mare was beset by heavy worry lines and more than a little nervous sweat. "There's no telling who or how many might be waiting in reserve."

"That could be well over half a million drones," Luna gasped with true fear. The armies of old and even modern times rarely numbered over one hundred thousand at any one battlefield. The prospect of half a million bearing down on Stripped Gear was all too telling.

"Yeah," Rainbow commented irritability. "So I'm trying to wear them down to a more manageable level." She momentarily closed her eyes to focus more intently on directing Stripped Gear's defenses. "At least it's pretty obvious who's fighting us. Since Granny ID'd Polybia as the one who created the blood portal, its gotta be Chrysalis and her cronies."

Luna was lost in thought while Captain Rourke fly over to hover above the map. The shipmaster used a baton to point at the northeastern portion of the map with just enough noise to rouse both royals. "What about around here? Are they intentionally leaving an escape route?"

Rainbow took several seconds to respond as she tried to bring herself to the present. "No idea. The few scouts I have in the area haven't reported anything so far, but we're stretched thin. I've have the majority of Granny's assets facing the enemy." Rainbow took a small airship figurine and slid it across the map in a curved line through the empty section. "That's where I'm going to have the _Deception_ move in to slide up to those big bloated drones under cloak and take them down. I bet if we trash them, the other queens will bug out."

Rainbow Dash slipped back to her command while Luna studied the map, with a changeling occasionally moving flags around so Rainbow could focus. However, the more Luna tried to read the battlefield, the darker her thoughts became. She waited for Rainbow Dash to be more aware of the present before speaking in a grim tone. "What if flying in to Cadista's rescue is a mistake?"

Just about everybody within earshot did a double take. Were it not for their friendship, Rainbow might have slugged Luna for even saying that. "What do you mean a _mistake_?" she growled. "We can't just abandon Granny!"

Luna gave her a critically contemplative look and fully turned to face the fretful queen. "Think about it, Rainbow Dash. The three of us are all in one ship, and Cadista is isolated in a siege. This situation rings too strongly with how Sombra attempted to eliminate both Celestia, myself, and half of our army at the last battle of Red Snow. His forces had General Star Field completely surrounded with the Equestrian army's backs against a canyon. Celestia and I planned to run ahead of our reinforcing army to create a light bridge for Star Field to cross.

"The canyon looked completely empty until we created the bridge." Rainbow wished she could cut the story short, but Twilight was able to get a few of the heavier guns into position, allowing Rainbow's forces to open fire on the artillery positions outside. The concentration to coordinate that effort mean Rainbow could only continue to listen to Luna.

"As soon as the majority of Star Field's troops were on the bridge, Sombra sprung his trap. He had three dozen gargoyles attack us, ripping our personal guards apart, and tearing my sister and I from the sky. The bridge collapsed without us to keep it intact, and every non-pegasus fell to their deaths. Between the fall and the gargoyles, my sister sustained wounds that would have killed a lesser pony, and I wasn't much better.

"We would have died there were it not for the pegasi throwing themselves at the gargoyles and bodily intercepting Sombra's spell to give their companions time to grab us and flee."

Luna stepped around the table to be face to face with an irate Rainbow Dash, while giving a stern yet respectful expression of her own. "We go into that warzone, we could most assuredly cause massive damage, but we'd be walking straight into a trap."

Rainbow Dash was silent for a full minute. Luna assumed she was warring between her steadfast loyalty, an attribute Luna respected greatly, and the military mind that Rainbow had been gifted with by the Wonderbolts and queenhood. Strategically, Luna saw little hope against such numbers arrayed against Stripped Gear, made even worse with the hive's crippled defenses.

What Luna couldn't know, is that that Rainbow's internal conflict lasted all of two seconds. She spent that minute devising a plan so bold that few sound minded people would even contemplate. "…Yes. It is a trap." She turned her gaze from the map up to Luna. "It's a honeypot trap. If anything they'll expect us to do one of two things: reveal ourselves early along here," she pointed at the empty northwestern section. "Or that we'll decloak right above those three big crawling drones."

A predatory smirk marred Rainbow's muzzle as she stamped the ship figurine right on top of the two closest land crawlers. "Let them spring their trap! We'll strike them with such shock and awe that even those miserable queens will give pause. Even if we can't save the hive, we can still save Granny along with my aunts and uncles."

"With nothing but this ship and its crew?" Luna cautioned with a deep frown. "You don't have enough ammunition!"

Rainbow Dash moved around to Luna's side of the table and brought over a baton that had been sitting unused on the side of the table. A calculating mischievous sneer creased her muzzle. "We don't need a victory to _win_."

"And what may I ask, could give you that idea?" Luna replied with a grim tone. Her concern mounted when Rainbow's gaze glanced at the horizon, but Luna thought Rainbow's gaze was fixed on the bright full moon. "You know full well Tia and I have forbidden ourselves to use the sun or moon for any purpose outside of maintaining the day and night. Even if we hadn't, it is a slippery slope I dare not follow twice."

Rainbow Dash only scoffed in reply, entirely missing Luna's rapidly dropping mood at the bad memories. "The only thing I want the sun and moon to do-," Rainbow paused as her plan took shape in her mind. Her personally redesigned wings buzzing with power and excitement enough to cause a heavy draft in the darkened bridge. "-is to _watch_."


	46. Chapter 46

Sword of the Skies

Cargo bay two was dark save for deep red lights across the walls. Two rows of Jevruun Vrunningee tensed for the battle they'd spent the last fifty hours preparing for. Luna's Royal Guard remained hidden within the ship as a reserve for the time being. Thunderfury, Ferrum, and Rasua stood in contemplative silence directly in front of the large bay doors, waiting for them to open. The thrum of the great propeller engines would have been almost overpowering this close to the edge were it not for the protective earmuffs everyone possessed. The ship rocked against some turbulence, sending a thrill of nerves across the thirty gathered warriors. The rest of the infantry waited with Intel in cargo bay one on the other side of the ship.

The queens had been too busy for anyone to inquire on the state of their grandmother's hive, so the soldiers sat in pensive anticipation. The only thing they could pick up was constant chatter from their aunts and uncles, oddly distorted by some unknown force on the battlefield. Many double checked their weapons and armor. Most of it was a light aluminum alloy scale weave that still allowed flight over heavier steel. It was one thing both Twilight and Rainbow had all but demanded after the massive casualties in Rookhaven.

Thunderfury was checking over Aegis' twin spare fuel canisters while silently wishing she would stay out of the fighting. _Aegis has got to remember she's a princess now. She's too valuable to be out in front anymore. But it's a bit late to try and talk her out of it now._

Ignorant of Thunderfury's mounting worry, Rasua stood by the others in tight quarters, yet still felt very much apart from them. Not that she dwelled on it very much since she was busy with her own preparations and fearful musings. _I don't know if Queen Rainbow Dash is crazy or a genius. I give her the short list of spells I can replicate, and she jumps on three of them._ A massive weight of responsibility and fear pressed down on her. _Now she's basing the whole attack on me of all people. Just because the other changeling nations would never expect sphinx magic, let alone know how to counter it._

Casting such thoughts aside, Rasua held four out of twelve precious stone orbs in her hands, and spoke words of power that were lost to the winds for most. _"With my serenade, I call upon your aid."_

Those who were not otherwise distracted watched the lone sphinx with curiosity as she breathed a gentle green mist onto the four orbs, which started glowing the same color. Ultimately the changelings forewent asking her about it due to the ear protection. Rasua deposited the glowing gems in a tightly fastened satchel and locked each orb in place with a socket. She took another set of spherical gems into her hands.

 _"Censored, silenced, rebuked, denied."_ This time, Rasua's breath took on a bluish purple, as did the jewels shortly after.

She repeated the process with the second set before pulling out the last of her gems. This time, the words of power left an oily, dark touch on all nearby, making their skin crawl. _"Demons of shadow, hate, and death, I bring your terror upon my breath."_ An inky black miasma heaved its way out of Rasua's mouth and greedily sank into the four awaiting gems. An extremely unwanted side effect of the spell was horrid breath that could curdle milk.

Some of the unnerved changelings might have asked why Rasua was apparently wielding dark magic, were they not under strict orders from Rainbow Dash to leave the sphinx to her spells. Aegis gritted her teeth at the prospect of working side by side with a dark magic user. _I know Aunty closely examined Rasua's list of spells and asked for_ that _one specifically. So why did she ask for dark magic of all things?_ Any investigation was cut short when the cargo bay doors clanged loudly before yawning open into the skies beyond.

Everyone moved to look down at the burning battlefield almost two kilometers below. It was just past midnight so the raging firestorms charring the once bountiful farmlands below lit up the whole area around the caldera in harsh orange and reds. The hive itself was also ablaze in many places. The great shield tower, which had stood since long before Cadista's current incarnation, was completely gone. Only a wreck of steel remained of it.

Sporadic fires across multiple other sections of the hive burned within heavy, blue, mana-rich mists. Seven large globs of blue mana lurched up and over the caldera wall to hit the hive within. Large orange shields were brought up, and intercepted all of them, though the massive magical artillery shot on the far west side busted through the shield, yet destabilized in the process, spilling caustic mana below.

The skies above Stripped Gear itself were awash with small black clouds and tracer rounds as the hive's anti-air defenses focused on the latest assault trying to run the gauntlet. The hive's own artillery still thundered in answer, but were far too few for Aegis' liking who still remembered walking along Stripped Gear's walls which once bristled with more guns than she could count.

As the _Deception_ slinked its way through the skies, what was left of the south and eastern face of the caldera came into view. Fury and lust for revenge surged after the gathered soldiers saw how whole sections of Stripped Gear were in ruins and a huge area of the walls had been demolished all the way down to the forest floor. Even the corvette-destroyer, _Dagger,_ had been brought down, and crashed near the palace. Yet the ship's single dorsal turret was still active, and adding its voice to the remaining defenses.

The only thing that gave Aegis and her soldiers any sense of satisfaction was the virtual carpet of chitin bound corpses that covered the battlefield both in and out of the caldera. A humorless smirk marred Aegis' muzzle at how the number of grey bodies were by far the vast minority of the dead.

The bombardment against the wall had been so heavy that the whole area was almost fully obscured by dense clouds of loose blue mana, a hallmark to the titanic magical forces levied against Stripped Gear. _From what little I was able to pick up from momma's filtering of grandma's defense chatter, those giant crawlers double as biological artillery platforms._

A snaking green shield wormed its way from the farmlands to the breach in the wall, protecting the mass drone assault all the way up to the last few seconds before reaching the remaining infantry along the walls and inner courtyard. Principal among the defenders were flamethrowers, which, while effective at keeping the enemy back, could do nothing about the shield beyond due to their short range.

Spears of burning mana bolts spilled forth from behind the shield, answering the defender's rifle fire. Aegis had to clamp down on all four legs to keep the wind from sucking her out of the doors. The propellers were louder than ever, but even they couldn't drown out all of the sounds of battle below.

Boom Team, prepare to jump! Rainbow Dash's voice cut through the shock of such a battlefield.

Aegis stepped aside to let five sky blue drones perch at the lip of the bay doors. Their wings unfurled, revealing they actually had four, with the second pair of wings behind the first. None of the Queens' Guard had paid much attention to Rainbow Dash's pet wing project, only knowing that these five drones had opted to be rebirthed to have them.

Thunderfury cocked his head in curiosity at his unique brothers and sisters. They had two sets of wings. The front pair looked like normal changeling wings, while the second pair was angled backwards and more akin to a dragonfly. As the group waited for Rainbow's command, the four wings were held very close together, far too close to flap without hitting each other. Thunderfury had seen this strain in action before only once, and knew full well those wings were the strangest in the world for one reason: they didn't flap.

 _Momma's secret weapon,_ he mused with dark anticipation, _and to think Aunty Twilight said bringing them for first contact was overkill._ His eyes wandered down their lean frames to see there were no holes in their legs, wings, or anywhere else.

Boom Team, launch in five.

A humorless smirk crossed their faces as each of their wings started glowing bright cerise. Their wings didn't buzz at all, they simply stayed rigid as they pulled in more mana.

Jump!

A blast of magic from the gap between their wings sent the drones behind them reeling as the Boom Team blasted out of the cargo bay.

Aegis and the others barely had time to recover when Rainbow spoke again. We're nearly in position. All combat personnel prepare to engage!

Aegis shoved her way towards Rasua. Knowing she'd never be able to hear her, Aegis opted to use simplistic sign language to get Rasua ready to go.

The sphinx held her shield close to her chest. It was the only item in the changeling armory she was moderately proficient with, or dared to use.

Up on the bridge, Rainbow Dash used what was left of her scouts in the field to identify the best targets. _Twilight assures me Cadista's crew can hold the walls for at least another hour. So I can focus on the big meaty targets. You take out the logistics, you kill the army; warfare 101._

The three big crawler drones were much closer to the walls now. A dense acid green shield blanketed each one as they inched ever closer to the hive walls. "Captain, I think our targets have already marked themselves." She gave a toothy smirk at the prospect of revenge for her fallen aunts and uncles. "You may fire when ready."

Captain Rourke adjusted the naval hat of her predecessor as she made sure void stone shells were loaded. Several more seconds later, all main gunners reported they finished zeroing in. Commencing bombardment, my queen.

With the _Deception_ tilted at an angle, the four main deck turrets lined up at a single crawler. The first salvo of void stone shells roared, disrupting the cloaking field. Poor luck saw only three of them striking home. Even so, the green shield collapsed almost instantly with most of the casters either dead or soon to be.

The thunderclap of fire and detonation focused a million eyes upon the flagship of Phoenix's Roost hanging above the western wall of the hive below. No one had a chance to respond before the next salvo cracked the sky, and implanted themselves in the nearest crawler. The massive drone peeled off an unholy screech of incomparable pain before it exploded in a mountain of blood and broken bodies.

As one, the massive throng of changelings that had been waiting for Twilight Sparkle to reveal herself answered back with a deafening unsettling howl before surging through the air. Yet the _Deception's_ gunners were faster. They quickly cycled targets and destroyed the second crawling behemoth before most of the enemy could get off the ground.

Each one of the hostile drones answered by bringing up a blackish purple shield around them, giving the impression that the very earth itself was awash with black magic and was rising to greet the warship.

Through her eyes within Stripped Gear, Twilight was too paralyzed in awe and terror to stop her ship's gunners from loading the next round of void shells. Rainbow Dash only huffed at the sight. "They're making this too easy." All batteries at the ready… Open fire!

The four deck guns spoke, launching shells so fast the waiting infantry in the cargo bays could see the contrails. The shells exploded several meters short of the target area, throwing void powder in all directions. The _Deception's_ crew watched, eagerly awaiting the mass to plummet back down. However, not a single hostile drone even flinched, and sped right past the void stone. Only the smaller AA cannons inflicted mild casualties due to the shield.

Rainbow's jaw gaped in stunned silence as the black magic shields kept closing in. With the voice of a hundred thousand drones, the controlling queen behind them jeered. **"As predictable as ever,** Queen **Rainbow Dash. You should have stayed in Equestria!"**

Rausa freaked at the same voice coming out of tens of thousands of mouths at once, and scurried closer to Aegis.

"Wait… that sounded like Silandrus! Why is she here?" Rainbow Dash growled. _And to think my original plan was to bombard Sticky Spit's hive._

Dark magic is empowered by void stones! Twilight barked to the gunners and her sister.

Rainbow Dash cursed, but wasted no time. Crew, clear the ammo and switch to standard flak! Aegis, that's your cue, get your plot in position now!

The gunners had already been on the move since Twilight's warning. Aye, my queen!

Rainbow Dash angrily kicked the railing around the bridge's windows. "You think you know me, Silandrus? Think you read my file do you?" _Gotta buy time for my gunners to get the void stones out._ Raptor, punch it, show these hollow drones what it means to be a _true_ changeling!

Raptor stood up on the small tuft of black cloud with a malicious smirk as he warmed up his wings. For the glory of the _hive._ Charging headlong into the carpet of hostile drones, Raptor and his four squadmates dove down from above the warship, blitzing past it as Aegis' troopers started to blanket the frigate.

Rainbow Dash saw them pass, yet her pride was crushed by the weight of the enemy ahead of them. All batteries on my mark!

Raptor saw the black cloud rushing towards him with such speed that he howled at the thrill of it. The all encompassing Weave of the World started to warp around him. Yet his strength alone was not enough, which is why his squad formed up around him in wedge formation to combine their efforts.

By now, the rival drones saw them, and saw the radical build up in mana pressure. Silandrus had a number of the closest drones drop their shields to launch spells, but they barely got a shot off before it was too late. Raptor's squad broke the mana-barrier barely ten meters in front of the enemy.

A massive conical shock wave cracked near the center of the enemy formation, plowing through the swarm like a scythe through so much wheat. The collective shield collapsed almost in its entirety as the rippling wave of mana swept through the battlefield, giving pause to the battle on the ground and rocking the _Deception._

The glass on the frigate's bridge shuddered within its frame, but held firm. Rainbow's two personal bodyguards stood closer to her, wary of the glass breaking as it did in Rookhaven. "Have a little more faith in my refit, guys." Rainbow relished the familiar magical tidal wave that had earned her cutie mark all those years ago. Yet she only gave herself an instant of satisfaction before giving the order. Open up, all batteries hot!

Knowing Raptor's team had fled the kill zone, the gunners let loose with a storm of lead rain. From her perch near the cargo bay doors, Rasua watched in fascinated horror as distant drones fell by the dozens, then the hundreds. Even the smaller, close in, anti-air guns started chattering, barely bothering to aim at any target along the port side because it was nearly impossible to miss, such was the number of their enemy. Every casualty took two more with them as the injured struck their kin on the way down.

The lone sphinx fully expected the forces arrayed against them to flee in the face of such fury. _They have no airships of their own, no weapons that can reach us, or they'd have used it already. No one would throw themselves against such an imbalance of force. It is folly._

Aegis suffered no such misconception, and tightened her grip on Burny. _Now's the time._ She turned to Rasua and motioned for her to remove her earmuffs. "All hands," she yelled both vocally and over the hive mind, "Spread out along the surface deck, and stay out of the heavy cannons' way!"

Both Aegis and Intel's platoons flew out to blanket the _Deception._ Intel's solely changeling platoon latched themselves to the ventral section of the ship, staying clear of the propellers. Aegis took her troops along with Rasua to the dorsal side. After settling into her position, Aegis watched the living cloud get torn to pieces and yet none of it riled her like the others nearby. _Stop toying with us, Silandrus. Show your true strength._

As if answering Aegis' challenge, dozens of dense tendrils of black smoke jabbed up from the broken remains of the crawlers and sped through the mass of dying changelings. The heavy firepower from both the warship and the remaining anti-air artillery from Stripped Gear below switched focus onto the frighteningly fast spires of smoke, but they took much more damage to bring down. Even the few that were blow from the sky were quickly replaced by more screaming out of the pulped crawlers.

Aegis lit her horn fully expecting Twilight's next order. Shield teams, assist me. We're not letting this ship go down again!

"Oorah!" the infantry cheered back. From within a specially modified spell augmentation room, Twilight Sparkle leveraged her pony lineage to bring forth a bright orange-tinted purple shield, springing to life barely two meters away from the hull, forcing Aegis to remain on all fours. Well over a dozen drones added their strength to the queen's spell. Scant second later, the shadowy tendrils collided with the barrier to reveal hissing furnaces of primordial rage. Furnaces of rage that were packed inside the shells of bulky muscle bound drones bearing slitted eyes. Even as the drones started flying around the shield to evade the platoon's defensive fire, their chitin bulked up and hardened, allow them to take several rounds before finally being felled.

One of them impacted almost in front of Rasua, causing her to stumble backwards at the sight of it. These black chitin clad chittering insects were exactly what Rasua feared most in coming here, causing her to shuffle backwards. Only her pride as a predator kept Rasua on her feet.

Aegis watched as the smoky drones started encircling the warship, completely blanketing it in an inky black cloud making it impossible to see beyond the shield.

Aegis! Twilight shouted after several tried futile to shoot the drones. I'm lending my power to the shield, forget the smokescreen, just attack, before the mass reaches us!

Thanks to her gauntlets leaving the bottom of her hooves free, Aegis used her wall-walking to keep standing as the warship under her hooves banked to move north. The shield itself started flickering as hostile changelings started to ram it. All squads, I don't care if you can see a target or not, open fire!

Gunfire and flamethrowers joined the mounted batteries, hoping to hit something. Rasua shuffled to the side of the smaller mounted AA gun that was chattering as fast as it could be reloaded. _This is madness! What kind of enemy just throws themselves against such power?_

The shield impacts were happening faster and faster as more hostile drones reached the blinded warship. Aegis had to stop channeling the shield before her grip on Burny failed entirely. "I will _not_ die here! I still have a hive to make!" She screamed in rage while adjusting Burny to a wide spray and charring a dozen drones in seconds.

 **"For every one you kill, ten more will take its place,"** Silandrus scoffed almost patronizingly. **"Cadista has failed to teach you discretion, Twilight Sparkle. A shame my lesson will not be have time to be taken to heart."**

Rasua saw more and more of Aegis' squad begin to give out on the shield and the impacts were only increasing. _I hope this works on changeling magic. I don't have enough spell-gems to test it earlier._ Focusing on four of her imbued orbs, Rasua lifted a hand to the sky and a chorus of ghostly sphinx ancestors materialized at her side. _"With our song of heavenly aid, none of you shall be afraid!"_

The chorus of Rasua's ancestors sang a divine hymn that pierced the din of war like butter, bringing pause to everyone who heard it. Loose mana from the Weave itself was pulled in by the chorus with Rasua's outstretched hand being the focus. Two of the linked orbs dimmed and shattered into dust as Rasua directed that mana to Twilight and the friendly changelings, bolstering their spent energies.

Aegis snorted approvingly, and started lending her renewed strength to the shield while pouring on more ribbons of fire from Burny. Her actions spurred the others to do the same, yet their progress was still hampered by the deep black smokescreen.

The shield itself reformed completely with Twilight's full might backed by the seemingly depthless well of mana the serenade offered. It almost looked like the shield would hold forever, yet as fast as the wellspring of magic appeared, it vanished once the last of Rasua's orbs blackened and fractured. The ghostly sphinxes disappeared as quickly as they came, taking their bounty of mana with them.

 **"A fascinating spell,"** Silandrus bellowed from thousands of voices. **"I'll have to take you alive to learn how it works."**

Silandrus' gloating was cut short by the blast wave of a second pseudo-rainboom tearing through the gathered mass of changelings once more. The magical nature of the shockwave cleared the smokescreen and obliterated half of the shadowy drones along with them.

Rainbow Dash cheered loudly. "Did you forget about them already, you old hag!"

Raptor and the others struggled to change course, and all but careened through the dazed enemy to crash back into the cargo bay close to death's door from mana exhaustion. Their magic was spent, having been too far away to benefit from Rasua's spell.

Rainbow ordered the medics to tend to them after getting her bearings. Her pride for the Boom team was without measure for the sacrifice they fully volunteered for. _Good thing the medics know to put them on life support after making a rainboom._ The battle forced Rainbow Dash to pull her thoughts away from her children. _So we made it over the northern face of SG. I hope we were enough of a distraction for Granny to evacuate._

Twilight Sparkle all but barged into her sister's mind. Rainbow! Mother stopped channeling her hive meditation! The enemy ground forces broke through and are pouring into the city! The hangar for the last gunship was just destroyed by a mana-bomb. She'll never escape without us!

Rut! With the hive med gone, her drones' morale is going to plummet. I knew we were cutting it close, but I was hoping I'd have more time. Rainbow paused to think of a plan. We'd never get a shuttle down there without it getting torn apart. We need a distraction for Granny to evacuate into the northern jungle. We can always pick her up later.

Twilight grimaced at the odds of success. She felt there was little purpose stating their poor chances. I'll relay the new plan.

Alright, good. Tell Luna to get ready for the knockout punch! She switched over to Aegis. Alright, girl, let them get in close and tell Rasua to get the big one ready.

Rainbow Dash leaned on the railing with mounting anticipation as the ship's ventral weapons as they turned their might upon the shielded ground forces. Silandrus saw the blunder when the firepower against her was cut in half. _Seems my allies have forced Rainbow's hoof. Now to break that shield and end Cadista's bloodline!_

Lifting up the battered remnants of her air force, Silandrus still had nearly fifty thousand drones on the battlefield. _Since Rainbow Dash was kind enough to eliminate the rest of my outdated drones, it's time to reveal the fruits of my research._

Scattered among the remaining air force, hundreds of Silandrus' dedicated spellweavers cast an enchantment all across the rest of her army. Once the enchantment took hold, the long range shelling from the _Deception_ and scant few remaining AA batteries from Stripped Gear found nothing but ethereal targets.

It didn't matter if it was explosive or magical; none of the shells or flak touched Silandrus' air force. The mass sped through the air as fast as their wings could take them in a giant spear formation. Rainbow Dash and Aegis stared as the living weapons charged headlong, completely unaffected by their defensive firepower.

Despite the heavy modifications to the ancient enchantment, Twilight knew what it was the instant the warship's firepower proved useless. Thinking quickly, she altered the shield, giving it a pale yellow light. _Thank the First Mother for Celestia's tutelage._

Rasua and all the others on top of the _Deception_ flinched the moment the spear of ethereal drones collided with the shield. Silandrus had fully expected to pass right through, but recovered from the failure all too quickly. **"Clever, Queen Twilight Sparkle, but I still expected more from you."**

Aegis' infantry resumed their attacks, only to find their bullets passed right through the ethereal swarm eating away at the shield. Only the flamethrowers managed to bring them down, but even Burny took several seconds to bring down a single drone. It wasn't long before Silandrus' brood fully blanketed the barrier, and started draining the shield via their horns. To make matters worse, they used the stolen mana to repair their bodies, making the flamethrowers even less effective.

 **"It's a shame really. I saw so much potential in your bloodline, and you threw it all away to protect an outdated queen. Such soft Equestrian values have gotten you killed."**

"Says the queen with cobwebs in her holes!" Rainbow Dash growled at the insult. _If there's one thing I hate it's being ignored!_ "Don't act like I'm not here you old hag!" she yelled at the nearest puppeted drone, but got no response.

 _That'll change reeeal quick!_ Aegis, get Rasua to start casting _that_ spell. I'm going in. Rainbow Dash dug her hooves into the wooden deck of the bridge right as Twilight spoke from within her chambers.

Luna's ready to go and waiting on you. Twilight's tone grew frightfully worried. Be careful, sis, Silandrus is far older than any one of us, except Luna, and you're going into her domain.

You just worry about keeping the shield up, Twi, all I gotta do is keep that old nag focused on me.

Ending the conversation, Rainbow Dash jumped out of the bridge's hatch and started spreading her royal pheromones, using her wings to push them towards the drones. Rainbow Dash hoped the pheromones would work on a being able to pass through bullets, but for several agonizing seconds it seemed that would not be the case. Right before Rainbow Dash was about to give up the pheromones in lieu of brute psychic invasion, the four closest puppets began to lose their slitted eyes as Silandrus' grip on them loosened. "Gotcha!" _I bet sis would kill to figure out how my personal perfume worked on these guys._

Rainbow Dash sneered as she spun back around to face her victims, and made sure her side of the hive mind was heavily filtered. Acting quickly, she pointed her horn at the nearest one and forced her psychic will upon the drone.

Being so close to the drone who was already being compromised by Rainbow's pheromones, it was almost trivial to break into Silandrus' hive mind. What awaited her on the other side, however, was nigh horrifying. Instead of the welcoming subtle forum of Rainbow's native hive mind, Silandrus' Link was completely monotone. There was no deviation in the hundred thousand voices echoing the singular dominating voice which Rainbow Dash immediately assumed was Silandrus herself. Okay, Twilight, I'm in, but I don't know how long I can remain hidden here.

You impudent gnat! Silandrus growled so loudly it burst a blood vessel in Rainbow Dash's horn. Silandrus latched onto Rainbow's mind, keeping her from disconnecting. You think you can sneak into my hive mind during battle?!

Rainbow Dash nearly fell off the side of the ship after Silandrus pressed down on her with such force she incapacitated the upstart queen. It worked didn't it? Rainbow prodded, only infuriating the old queen even further.

Twilight Sparkle was respectable, but you… My hive mind is sacred, perfect, you defile it with your presence. To think someone had the gall to invade me. _Me!_ Not even that upstart Chrysalis was such a monumental fool. Silandrus imposed so much psychic pressure on Rainbow's mind, she couldn't even think of a retort. I was actually planning to allow you and Twilight to live, just so our species had at least one strain of love producers. But now I think I'll just kill you first, and then destroy your miserable ship!

Meanwhile, Aegis was shaking a shell shocked Rasua violently to break through to her. She ripped off the jane's ear muffs to yell at her. "Hey, you signed up for this, now snap out of it! We need that spell pronto!"

Rasua's world seemed to slow to a crawl and sound was muffled like someone shoved a pillow into her ears. The snarling teenager sized insects coupled with the deafening buzzing of their wings finally caused Rasua's brain to overload. Even Aegis' shaking didn't fully register, only a blurry blob roughly shaped like a changeling. Rasua absently felt something grip her head and forced her to look Aegis in the face. The panicking princess held up a brown satchel and waved it in front of her. _Satchel?... My satchel. The spell!_

The noise of war returned as Rasua's vision snapped back into focus just in time to hear Aegis screaming at her. "Cast the spell! Do it now before my Aunt dies, or so help me I'll toss you out to the wolves!"

"M-my apologies, Princess." Burning with shame and purpose, Rasua snapped the satchel back and shoved one paw inside to touch the spherical jewels. Aegis let her go so Rasua could lift her other paw out. Even before she called upon the words of power, her breath took on the tell-tale color of dark magic. _"Demons of fear, misery, and pain, I call upon you for my personal gain!"_

All four orbs cracked and shattered as dark magic poured from Rasua's mouth to her outstretched hand before flashing forward into the eyes of Silandrus' drones that had been eating away at the dwindling shield directly in front of her.

Meanwhile, deep inside the ship, meditating in a dark room, Luna received her signal from a changeling attendant. Using her power over the Dreamscape, Luna's mind jumped into Rainbow Dash thanks to her hybrid pony/changeling nature and then passed into Silandrus' hive mind. To Luna, the hive mind looked like a barren dreamscape, with a massive bright violet light surrounded by extremely dim motes of light. Each one was tethered to the center by a tight cord. Rainbow Dash's presence was flickering wildly as Silandrus assaulted her with all manner of psychic attacks. Rainbow's mental defenses had been brushed aside in a matter of seconds by the elder queen. Currently, Silandrus was taking her time in punishing the upstart queen for the grave insult of invading her hive mind.

Luna was subtle in her trespass, and went unnoticed by Silandrus thanks to the battle and Rainbow Dash serving as crucial distractions. The Princess of Dreams saw the effects of Rasua's spell as shadowy demons eating away at the fading lights they were latched onto.

With her own version of shadow magic, Luna's horn darkened to pitch black. She took those waking nightmares and with a wide sweeping arc of her horn, spread them across every single point of light within the vast hive mind, flooding it with countless illusions that fed on fear.

The ancient queen wasn't even the slightest bit affected when the nightmares were only attacking a handful of her drones. The illusionary demons were simply drowned out by the unified voice of the Link and diminished by the simple minds of the drones. Silandrus might have even shrugged off a few thousand. However, when every last one of her puppets was hit by Rasua's terrors, their combined might quickly sped down the connection and straight at Silandrus herself. Well over a hundred thousand demonic nightmares hit her like a freight train, and the unequine scream of absolute terror shattered her mind like so much glass.

Silandrus' hive mind became unstable as she fell into a fear induced seizure. Knowing the dangers of staying in the mindscape of a broken mind, Luna hurried towards Rainbow Dash and severed her connection to Silandrus' drones. The Princess of the Night returned to her body which was just outside Twilight's spell-amplification chamber. She could already see the lavender mare was near collapse herself from keeping the shield up, but her slow recovering breath revealed Rainbow's trick worked. "Stay and rest, Twilight Sparkle, I will tend to your sister's wounds."

"T-thank you," Twilight wheezed with a nod as she finally let go of the shield spell. _If anypony could heal psychic injuries, Luna would be the one._

Aegis watched in morbid fascination as the hostile drones writhed, yelling in agony, while clawing at their heads trying to rid themselves of the waking nightmares. Without a unifying purpose, the panic-riddled, link-severed drones fell from the skies, thrashing helplessly before colliding with the ground. Those few who managed to survive the crash, or retained enough sanity to glide down, scattered to the four winds. _If they somehow survive long enough for the illusions to fade, they'll probably end up going feral,_ Aegis mused darkly.

Rasua was shaky on her paws and wheezing breath. _Holy piss, how am I still alive?_ Images of the frightfully violent and revolting insectoids flashed in her mind's eye, chilling her to the bone. She had to hold her hands together to keep them shivering. Yet despite that fear, she was gravely suspicious at the unanticipated reach of her fear spell. _That was a very weak spell. I can only conjure illusions to afflict one or two targets, four at the very most. Even then it should only last a few seconds. How in blazes did it spread to every last one of them?_

Queen Rainbow Dash had omitted how, exactly, her illusion spell would be useful. Only that Rasua was to cast it when commanded. Leveraging the clout her fear spell surely earned her, Rasua forced herself to stop shaking, and failed. She marched over to Aegis fully ready to demand an explanation. "There is something about your kind that you have failed to enlighten me about, isn't there?"

Aegis was not cheering the victory like many of her kin, and looked up from adjusting Burny to find a trembling yet accusatory sphinx glaring at her. "We all have our secrets, Rasua. Now's not the time. We haven't won yet."

The sphinx couldn't argue with that after the distance sounds of battle caught her ears. During the course of Silandrus' attack, the _Deception_ had drifted almost two kilometers northeast. Aegis pointed at the burning hive below where the fires were getting out of control and the distant crump of explosions still resounded through the caldera. "If you can hold yourself together this time," Aegis had to bite her tongue to keep from venting on Rasua. "We're moving out as soon as we rearm."

Even with Rasua's spell being the keystone to Rainbow Dash's plan, Aegis was furious that Rasua froze at the critical moment while her aunt was being assailed by Silandrus' vastly superior psychic prowess. _Is that all the vaunted predatory species is capable of? Whimpering in the corner? I've seen rookie ponies with more bravery._ Biting down on her disgust, Aegis kept her tone neutral. "Now get back inside, the main guns need the deck clear so they can bombard the enemy positions outside the hive without having to worry about us getting in the way."

Aegis spread the same order to the rest of the infantry. Rasua wrestled with her desire for answers, and the shame she felt at choking at the worst time possible. _Thaddeus would never let me live this down if he found out, and I'd be a laughingstock for years in the colony._

Determined to prove herself, and earn those answers, Rasua followed after the irate princess. _I bet if I personally save their allied queen down there, I'd earn her respect._

Twilight teleported up to the bridge to find a crowd gathered around Luna and Rainbow Dash. The princess's horn was aglow as her magic sank into Rainbow Dash. Had Rainbow Dash been in anyone else's care, Twilight would be traumatizing herself at the prospect of losing her sister. Thankfully, Luna's calm exterior soothed much of the gathered changelings' worries.

"Fear not, everypony," Luna said after a long silence. "It seems Rainbow Dash's mind is far stronger than I remember. The damage was bad, but repairable. She only needs a few hours sleep."

Sighing in relief, Twilight laid down on her belly next to her sister and Luna. "That's probably her royal blood talking. Mother always said I would never last more than a few minutes against an older queen. Rainbow must have taken that as a sign that she could last at least that long too."

"As brave as she is reckless," Luna remarked with a head shake, "but sometimes that's what it takes to win."

"We're only half way there," Twilight replied darkly. "Mother's had to retreat to the palace and hatchery. Stripped Gear is overrun everywhere else."

A few medics arrived and the two royals allowed them to take Rainbow Dash away on a stretcher. Luna didn't wait to watch them leave. "There is no time to be lost. We have to move on Stripped Gear as soon as we are able."

The thundering rattle of cannon fire informed Twilight that Aegis had already moved her platoon off the surface of the ship as the gunners began shelling the remaining invader's positions outside of the hive. With Silandrus' defeat, her forces were melting back into the jungle, yet the other queens remained inside the city.

The damage had been dealt, Stripped Gear was in flames, and the besiegers at the palace were expendable. Twilight tried to spy on the enemy positions via what remained of her mother's personal guard, but most of them were busy barricading the interior of the palace to buy time for Twilight's troops to arrive. Hang on, mother, we're coming.


	47. Chapter 47

Old Friend

Deep within Stripped Gear's royal palace, Cadista remained in her hive-trance. She was being carried on a stretcher through the timeless brass hallways of her ancient home to a panic room at the far north end of the palace.

Watchful Eye guided the party of twenty one Queen's Guard and civilians to their destination. The power was completely out through most of the hive, causing the weakening wall lights to cast whole sections in dancing flickering shadows. The building shuddered with rivulets of dust falling upon the fleeing drones.

Flexi Lawnder, an engineer who was caught in the palace fighting, struggled to keep her half of Cadista's stretcher off the ground. Her ears were cast backwards at the seemingly omnipresent sounds of battle. Deep groaning cracks, gunfire, and explosions rang in her ears. The grating baritone of clockwerks echoed behind the group as the invaders fought their way through the rear guard.

Squad, halt! Watchful barked as the group made it into the grand throne room just south of the castle's center. Flexi carefully put her queen's stretcher down as the soldiers raced throughout the room at Watchful's orders.

Even with Cadista's hive meditation bolstering her spirits, Flexi was no soldier. She only partially watched as more of her siblings ran in through the primary grand entry doors and the three service entrances along all but the northern face of the chamber. The throne room itself was extremely large and empty, save for the throne itself and the necessary support pillars. Most of the walls were adorned with brass with Stripped Gear's flag draped along the walls and pillars at regular intervals.

For a brief moment, Flexi had hoped the arriving drones were more soldiers, reinforcements coming in from the breached city beyond. Yet the lion's share of the new arrivals were cooks, engineers, and everything in between. None of them carried anything save for the clothes on their backs. As far as Flexi could see, there was only one armored soldier for every thirty civilians.

Still remaining near her queen, Flexi saw a brother buzz over to Watchful Eye and salute. "Sir, these are all we could save from the shelter at D section. Bayonet says there's no hope for the other shelters along the southern districts. The enemy is pushing to surround the palace before trying to break in."

Watchful ground his teeth in cool rage. "That's no longer the case. Queen Thereena's drones have already broken into the upper levels, thinking mother would have been holed up in her chambers. It's all we can do to stall them." Watchful held up a bandaged hoof up for the officer to wait when he noticed the last of the civilians were being pulled inside by what was left of Stripped Gear's once two thousand strong Hive Guard. Get the doors sealed, and prime the throne's defenses. Use your own mana, the remaining steam pressure's been redirected to the hatchery.

After waiting for a series of acknowledgements, Watchful tried to inquire the status of the _Deception_ through the hive mind. _This is bad. Not only is the ship blinded by a smokescreen, it's Silandrus of all lings who's attacking them. It'll kill morale, but we have to wake mother up._

He turned to Flexi who was trying to pass the minutes by making sure Cadista was in a comfortable prone position. "Flexi Lawnder," the mare eeped at the address, "assist us in waking her."

"Y-yes, sir!" Thirty changelings closed in behind the two drones and combined their meager psychic power. It wasn't much, given the communication oriented nature of a drone's abilities. Outside of normal Link communication, the gathered changelings were only capable of causing a small psychic blip, but it was enough for Cadista's horn to detect, causing her to awaken with a start.

Within the span of a second, Cadista could feel just how much quieter the background noise of her side of the hive mind was. Leveraging her centuries of rule, Cadista shoved her grief aside. _I knew this was coming for decades._

The drones as one gave a collective gasp, feeling as if their fighting spirit fled them as their queen's benediction gave way. Cadista took a few moments to sift through the Link to discover what had happened since beginning her meditation. For two days, Twilight and Rainbow's coordination had kept the rival queens at bay. _Granted my meditation assisted greatly in the defense, but the actions of the other queens don't make sense. Were they stalling just long enough to wait for the Deception to arrive?_

Catching up to the present, Cadista looked through what few remaining scouts she still had to find the _Deception_ being cleared of the smokescreen by a pseudo-rainboom. _Heh, looks like Twilight and Rainbow can handle themselves just fine without me distracting them. Not that I'm in any position to render aid. The best thing I can do for them now is give them a reason to fall back to Phoenix's Roost._

The current battlescape within the hive itself was too chaotic to get a proper picture. Luckily, Watchful had been keeping himself appraised of the situation. '"Captain Watchful Eye, you ordered a general evacuation?"

"Yes, my queen," he replied curtly while snapping a salute. "The enemy hives arrayed against us consists of Thereena and Nubile," Cadista's breath quickened at the news, "they've been the ones attacking us for the past two days, but they fell back an hour before Twilight and Rainbow arrived. Silandrus is the one assaulting the _Deception_ as we speak. As for who's sieging us on the ground is currently unknown."

Cadista's ears fell flat and she scowled deeply. "I knew it was only a matter of time before the other queens attacked me, but I was so sure it would have been Chrysalis and her allies first."

Watchful idly surveyed his troops bringing up several old clockwerks from hidden alcoves in the walls. "Speaking of Chrysalis, one of my scouts spotted some of Chrysalis' drones along what's left of the Buler Ranch. She's watching us, but hasn't acted yet."

"Pah, she's probably eating popcorn as she watches my hive burn." Cadista stood up to her full height. All remaining soldiers in the palace, keep a cordon open to the throne room and the other escape tunnels. Survive, so we can reclaim our home another day!

Several Queen's Guard moved over to the raised dais bearing the throne and pressed down a secret switch under the chair itself. Luckily, Cadista's previous incarnation had the foresight to use mana engines rather than steam driven gears, which allowed the dais to lift two meters up while the floor three meters in front of the throne slid away to reveal stairs. Faint lights crackled to life within the painfully narrow tunnel that could only take refugees in single file. Dust and stagnant air wafted out, but the sense of safety flowed with it.

"Watchful, Gather a small team to lead the way for the civilians. Just enough troops to push back any beasts that might have nested on the other side."

"At once, my queen." He pointed at seven riflelings and one flammenwerfer. "Form up on the flamer and secure the exit."

Deciding to stay as a part of the rear guard, Cadista waited for the civilians to follow the squad, giving her one last chance to look upon her throne room. Memories and ghosts, both new and old passed through her eyes. _Yumia. First I lost you, and now I'm losing our home._ Watchful Eye tensed when he saw Cadista silently weeping.

Cadista's heart sunk even lower as her scouts revealed the ethereal drone attack on the _Deception_ was looking grim. _My soul, my hive, and now I'm about to lose my purpose in life. And there's not a damn thing I can do to save any of it!_

The whole room jumped as three of the sealed southern doors banged in their frames with such force all three dented inwards. The civilians panicked and left whatever belongings they had with them to try and cram their way into the tunnel. The soldiers surrounded Cadista while the active clockwerks took position near the doors along the ground and in the air.

Watchful Eye barked orders to his troops. "Everypony, form ranks on me!"

Soldiers raced over to Watchful with rifles in their magic. Cadista flew over to get behind the three rows of riflelings as they formed up. The doors boomed again, with two of them warping badly, but still remaining fully closed.

We have to hold their attention here, Cadista commanded with regal authority. There are still other teams out there recovering books, blueprints, and other critical information. The more time we buy them, the less they have to burn. Even if the other queens care nothing for our technology, that information could give them insight into weaknesses.

The soldiers were shaping up the formation poorly. Fatigue after fighting for two days, and the aftershock of the hive meditation made them sluggish, and they were not alone. Those few remaining survivors found themselves needing time to catch their breath and focus on the task at hand. Those directly engaged with the enemy didn't have that luxury, and were either in full retreat, or being overrun.

The same was not true for the hostiles swarming through the streets. The last few artillery and anti air emplacements laid abandoned or destroyed along all but the far northern wall. Only the fact that their queen was still alive gave the scattered army some will to keep fighting.

The third crash on the doors caused the primary doors directly in front of the rifle formation to buckle with the center iris torn open. Cadista could see the massive battering drone's horn poking through the opening. Its deep grumbling breath was nearly lost to the din of her riflelings finally getting into formation with the front rank standing at the ready with bayonets fixed.

They waited for the final crash to bring down the doors, but instead, a stone wrapped in magic came flying through the hole landing in front of the infantry. The closest drone identified it immediately, picked it up and presented it to Cadista. "My queen, it is the Stone of Parlay!"

As soon as the soldier picked up the stone, the attacking swarm pulled back and halted their assault hive wide. In the few places where Cadista's drones were still putting up resistance, the hostiles ducked behind whatever cover they could find.

Watchful and Cadista quickly noticed this as reports started flooding them of the strange activity. Jumping at the unexpected lifeline for her children, Cadista bounded over the soldiers and took the stone in her magic. _Everypony,_ hold your fire and positions. The enemy has declared parlay.

Confusion and hundreds of questions flooded the Link, so Cadista delegated it to Watchful Eye. Cadista shared many of those questions herself as she walked over to the hole in the warped door. _The rules are clear. No one is to move or fight within the battlefield until parlay is concluded. At the very least this will give my children time to recover._

Cadista stopped twenty paces from the broken door when a smallish red drone squeezed through the rent doors. Once inside, it flew over to hover in front of Cadista where it's monocolored eyes shifted to bare the slitted eyes of its queen. Cadista's heart caught in her throat, but she didn't betray her surprise. "Kreesus…?" Cadista managed to say evenly towards the seething puppet. "So you've turned against me as well?"

"Did you honestly expect anything else, Cadista?" Kreesus growled, making no effort to maintain a regal image. "How was I supposed to act after Twilight Sparkle revealed her ability to produce love?"

"To be honest, I thought you'd be thrilled, if jealous."

"Jealousy," Kreesus fumed with disgust. "There is no word that can adequately describe how it felt to have my oldest friend crush everything I've ever worked on with what should have been nothing more than a fool's errand." The puppet started to pace in front of Cadista. "Evolve, adapt, and thrive. This is the code our species lives by. We see a trait we want, and we change ourselves to possess it. That is how it has always been. It is our power, the First Mother's gift to us all."

Cadista despaired at the three hundred year friendship being torn to pieces in front of her. "I told you all along what I was planning. You rebuked every request to assist me on my _fool's errand,_ until I stopped bothering to ask. Even after Yumia's death when I needed help in the project more than ever, you flat out refused to aid me. We shared a mutual defense pact. We agreed to defend each other, not share all of our alchemical secrets. So you'll just have to forgive me if I require at least _some_ measure of compensation for the knowledge both Yumia and I spent two lifetimes _alone_ to acquire, old friend. Even if all I'd ever require from you would be but a token. Some modicum of payment for my life's work."

"A token?" Kreesus scoffed incredulously. "And what could I possibly offer to equal love production?" Kreesus barked back, barely containing her fury and depression. "Love is something we've never been able to produce. No matter what I tried these past few years. Alchemy, cloning Twilight's drones, even _mating_ with one of her consorts," Cadista recoiled at the last comment while Kreesus shuddered with revulsion. It was a well-known fact that mating with another queen's consort was considered a loathsome act, no matter what was to be gained. The fact that Twilight and Rainbow Dash shared consorts regularly was a constant source of rude gossip within the jungle.

"I spent everything... everything I had on the four princesses I gained from that… _pairing,_ " the puppet spat. "And every last one of them lost the ability to love within a year. And the worst of it is that Twilight Sparkle and her sister let it happen!"

Cadista was planning on reprimanding Twilight about her apparent lax security, when Kreesus' words made her stop short. "She _what?"_

"You didn't know?" Kreesus huffed dismissively. "It doesn't matter now. Whether Twilight was taunting us by making it too easy, or she knew trying to stop us was folly is irrelevant now. Silandrus has promised me and several others that she could give us the secret to a love producing daughter, if we helped her with this invasion, and so here I am."

"We used to be allies, Kreesus, and I dare say honorable friends as well." Cadista could see the conflicted doubt and determination in the puppets' eyes which mirrored her own. "We could have arranged something for the secret if you had just asked."

Kreesus was so taken aback by the statement that the puppet stumbled a little. It spoke with blatant surprise. "You insult me. I would think even now, you'd be honest with me."

"I _am_ being honest, Kreesus, I would have gladly traded with you. I've been sitting on an honorable exchange with you for the past seven years, waiting for you to ask." Cadista looked through the eyes of her scattered children at the broken and burning ruins of Stripped Gear. _Could she have been the one who sabotaged the geothermal plant, or did she tell the real infiltrator how to bypass the wall?_ "So why didn't you? Did your pride stop you, or was it your honor as a queen?"

The puppet's ears fell back as a snarl marred its lips. "And what could possibly be an honorable exchange for the secret of love production? Food, protection, alchemical secrets?" The wings of Kreesus' puppet buzzed angrily. **"Nothing,** not a damn thing compares to love production. No matter what your offer would request of me, it could never be enough, not for this. I would be honor-bound to become little more than your servant, but not just me, but my royal children as well, and countless generations afterwards for so valuable a gift. My bloodline would become your vassal for an eternity!"

Cadista said nothing as Kreesus vented. In her heart, she knew her old friend spoke the truth. _It would be like discovering a way to no longer need food or water, Kreesus' pride and honor as queen would demand no less of her. Even so, she just doesn't understand what it means to love… Just like all the other queens._

"So no," Kreesus said after giving herself a moment to calm down. "I choose to side with Silandrus. We've tried going directly for Twilight's bloodline, but that always ends in failure. So," she said with forced neutrality, "we decided that going after you, the architect of love production, would be easier.

"As for my agreement with Silandrus, the payment between us is simple. I use my knowledge of your defenses to capture you, and she will be the one to extract the information from you. I'll have my love producing daughter, without being made a slave neither by my honor nor to you."

Cadista affixed the puppet with a cold stare. "…So you traded the disgrace of obsoletion for the dishonor of betrayal?"

The puppet snorted disapprovingly. "Such is our world. I would rather live with tarnished honor, than to exist with none at all. I dare you to say you wouldn't do the same."

Cadista said nothing, she couldn't, without some degree of a lie. A brief check over the hive mind showed that the _Deception_ was still surrounded by Silandrus' drones, and the ship's shield was fading fast. "What are your terms for parlay?"

Taking a moment to shore up enough poise to adopt a regal stance. "Surrender yourself to me, and I will allow the rest of your drones to live, since I know you care far too much for them. Silandrus has also agreed to effectively hold your old flagship hostage, once she finishes dealing with its shield. Give yourself up, and she will allow your daughters to go free."

Cadista couldn't help but to hesitate at the offer. _If I agree, I'd save Twilight and Rainbow, but in doing so, I would still put their lives at risk. They'd no doubt try to rescue me, no matter how much I tell them not to._

She barely had half a minute to think before Rainbow Dash's presence within the Link started fluctuating badly from Silandrus' psychic assault. Since Hive Meditation left the practitioner nearly dead to the world, Cadista was wholly ignorant of Rainbow's plan. Cadista panicked. _What? Did Rainbow Dash actually try to invade Silandrus' hive mind? What a reckless child!_

Rainbow's voiceless agony was palpable to Cadista. As if every pulse of pain was caused by her hesitation. Yet the answer to Kreesus' offer proved elusive. _To think Kreesus just handed me the reigns of our species' future. Can I trust Twilight and Rainbow to save themselves, and let them be the sole face of the next generation, or do I give up and start the whole cycle all over again. The other queens would create a whole new generation, and our species would continue to stagnate…_ Cadista wrestled with herself, against time and Rainbow's increasing agony. _Forgive me, Twilight, for forcing you to inherit our species' problems anew._ "I'll do it, Kreesus," Cadista forcibly held in a choked sob as she took her crown off and presented it to the puppet.

Before Kreesus could register the acceptance, let alone take the crown, Watchful Eye and every remaining changeling present yelled their protests. "You can't do this, my queen," he raced over to interpose himself between Cadista and the puppet. "It looks dire, but have faith in your daughters!" Having served at his queen's side for decades, he knew exactly what she was thinking. Don't be fooled by Rainbow Dash's plight, she's got a plan!

"Time is running out, Cadista," Kreesus' puppet barked impatiently. "I have more than enough forces inside Stripped Gear to take you by force, if need be. Our old friendship is the only reason I'm extending you the offer of saving your daughters."

A war raged within Cadista with the rising panic of Rainbow Dash's wildly flickering presence within the Link, and the absurd prospect that her daughters were more in control than she realized. She brushed Twilight's mind, though she was too distracted to notice Cadista's slight touch, the elder queen realized something. _She's not in panic mode about RD…_

"I grow tired of asking, Cadista, so this will be the last time." Kreesus said with an almost hostile tone, snapping Cadista out of her reverie. "Surrender, or both of your daughters will die, and I will capture you regardless."

Watchful studied his queen's absent gaze, searching for what course she would take. "Please," he hissed in a whisper. "You have raised them well, have faith."

Cadista closed her eyes and took a quick deep breath. When she opened them again, she cast the puppet in an ironclad gaze of conviction. "No." She pulled her crown away and placed it back upon her brow. "My daughters no longer need my protection. At least for today," she added with no small amount of sass. The words had barely left her lips when Silandrus' drones fell away from the _Deception_ like an avalanche.

The surge of jubilation across the hive mind renewed Cadista's faith in her daughters and shot Kreesus a superior smirk as the puppet's eyes went vacant as its master tried to figure why Silandrus was backing off prematurely.

"Your offer is now void, Kreesus," Cadista sneered with immense satisfaction. "My daughters have beaten Silandrus quite handedly. If you want to save any of your drones, I suggest you retreat immediately…" The puppet cast a baleful glare at a smirking Cadista. "Given our old friendship, I'll even go so far as to tell the warship's gunners to give your forces a safe corridor to retreat through."

Within Fluffy, Kreesus was violently shaking Silandrus' emissary drone, but all she was getting out of it was insane screaming and thrashing. She backed off when she saw the exterior effects of Rasua's spell, dark blobs of ink darting across the drones' eyes. With no knowledge of Rasua or Luna's part in Silandrus' downfall, Kreesus' thoughts went wild with speculation. _No! Twilight must have gotten an agent within Silandrus' hive! Cadista must have been planning counter infiltration like this for decades if she got to her!_

With Silandrus seemingly gone insane thanks to a spell, and her friendship with Cadista ruined, Kreesus' hopes and dreams of a loving royal daughter crashed and burned. Her visions of a good future fell apart. She was irrevocably obsolete, and now the secret to creating a loving royal daughter would never be hers, and she knew it.

Pure absolute despair made both Kreesus and her puppet in the palace throne room collapse. It feebly raised its head to face Cadista. "W-why did you have to create Twilight Sparkle? Why did you have to do the impossible?"

Cadista assumed her former friend was referring to Twilight for what she was, rather than who she was. She gave Kreesus a firm look of disapproval. "Because, for all the changing our species does, we were unbelievably stagnant in our ways. Twilight's my answer to that problem."

She would have said more, but Kreesus' puppet shot up to its hooves. "So that's all I ever was to you? A _problem to correct!?_ "

Choking on her own words, Cadista blustered to reply. "Our ways, yes, not you. I would have given you the secret once I was sure-"

"Forget it!" Kreesus screamed in a fit of rage. "Forget you, forget your precious future, and forget your love production! We've lived without it since our race began." Kreesus' boiling fury came to a head when she telekinetically yanked the Stone of Parly from Cadista's magic and flung it back through the hole in the door. "Do your precious daughter a favor and die!"

With Parley technically concluded the moment the stone left the room, the civilians were quick to flee down the escape tunnel while the soldiers moved in to attack the puppet. "I will see you dead and buried, _old friend._ " The puppet's horn started glowing as mana began leaking out of it.

Not one to risk a hostile spell, Watchful waved a hoof at the puppet right as Cadista was taking to the air to flee. "Fire, kill it now!"

Two dozen rounds perforated the puppet where it fell dead on the spot. Yet the spell's light only grew. Taking what remained of the corpse's mana, the spell devoured the puppet and converted the mass into unstable mana.

Cadista's heart dropped as the sphere of mana started to thrash about within its weakening confines. Everypony, get to cover now!

Seeing there was no time, Watchful telekinetically grabbed his queen and flung her over and clear through the crowded opening into the escape tunnel. Between trying to recover from the toss and the tangle of limbs she was now mired in, Cadista tried to get back on her hooves only to see Watchful's magic ensnare the door lever and close it.

His actions caused the fleeing civilians to pause, giving the door the clearance it needed to seal shut right as the mana bomb exploded, killing Watchful and all those nearby. Cadista finally climbed back to her hooves in time to feel the ground rumble deeply as if an earthquake struck the hive.

Each and every one of Kreesus' invaders within the castle resumed the assault with all of the manic fury of their queen, yet Cadista and her drones were no longer the primary target.

Several of Cadista's drones started pelting her with warnings from all over the palace with one driving the point home. My queen, the enemy's attacking the support arches! If they fall, the entire western hangar will collapse!

The other reports told Cadista the same thing was happening all over the palace, including the massive load bearing pillars that flanked the throne room. _Kreesus is trying to bring the castle right down on top of me!_ She finished struggling to her hooves and jabbed a leg down the tunnel. "Move it, we have to get out from under the palace before it falls!"

From her perch on the bridge, Twilight Sparkle and the rest of the _Deception's_ crew could only listen on in horror as the hive mind exploded with chatter from all of the changelings still within the palace. They didn't listen for long when the whole southern face of the castle started to groan and break under its own weight. Aegis was madly running her fingers through her mane, carelessly pulling strands out as they got caught in the joints. "Isn't there anything we can do?"

Aegis looked to Twilight for answers, and luckily for her sanity, her mother had some. "We can't stop the collapse, but we can secure the exit points along the northern road."

Nodding quickly, Aegis raced off to the armory to better equip herself for the task. Resta, prep a med team, there's going to be a lot of injured coming our way!

Captain Rourke also took the initiative and barked a command at the helmsman. "Bring the ship around bearing zero one seven point two. Descend to seven hundred meters."

The ceiling of Cadista's tunnel rattled and broke as the weight of the castle crashed down on top of it, threatening to crush all of them. "Damn you, Kreesus!" she screamed as both she and the five closest drones sprinted down the tunnel. The passageway was so short that Cadista had to lean her head down to keep her horn from scraping the ceiling. _Did we royals used to be shorter when this was built?_

Flexi Lawnder was directly in front of her queen, and couldn't stop herself from glancing behind her at every boom and crash from above. A monumental shuddering from above sundered the ceiling, collapsing the passageway behind them. She yelped in panic as the raining stones crushed one of her brothers.

"You want that to be you?" Cadista berated Flexi when she unwittingly slowed down a little. "Keep running!"

Flexi poured on as much speed as she could. The tunnel was starting to snake to the east. Several lights along the way were shattered by the collapsing castle above, spilling glass along the floor. Dust was now constantly falling with several small gears toppling in from above. Cadista cursed her height at trying to avoid the debris and loose stone above.

Within her hive, Kreesus watched the last few remaining pillars buckle and collapse, finally causing the castle to give up the ghost and fully collapse in on itself. Her fury was too great to care one wit about the drones she lost in the destruction. "Damn you and your ambition, Cadista. We had such a good thing going until you ruined it all with Twilight Sparkle."

A chunk of stone fell on Cadista, ripping her left wing, yet she was too hopped up on adrenaline to feel it. Flexi started to slow down again, her legs unable to handle it, so Cadista scooped her up in her magic and kept pushing on.

The collapsing tunnel behind them sped up and finally overtook the changelings. The weight of the castle caught up to the group with a calamitous thunder of falling stone and screeching metal. Cadista instinctively reacted by flinging Flexi forward as far as her magic could throw her.

Flexi rolled with the toss before getting back on her hooves. Even with her heart booming in her chest, she noticed the tunnel had finally stopped falling in on them. She checked over her body for injury, and side from a few abrasions and cuts, she was whole. "We're… we're alive? Ha ha, we're aaaalive!"

One of her fellow survivors screamed in panic and jump over her back towards the castle. Confused, Flexi looked back to gape in horror at the sight of her mother stuck under tons of rock.

"W-we have to free her!" Flexi yelled back at the others, "Go get help!" The rest of the drones hesitated just a moment, but continued down the narrow tunnel, giving Flexi and the other drone enough room to work with.

Cadista's breathing was heavy, but luckily it didn't look like any ribs were broken. A slab of stone was kept from crushing her hip thanks to a steel strut, but her hind legs seemed to be pinned in the rubble. The queen herself was barely conscious after a small rock hit her in the head, where blood had started to seep from the wound. As Flexi administered salve to whatever cuts she could reach, Twilight Sparkle tried and failed to get any meaningful information out of the barely lucid queen, so she switched to the drone.

Flexi, what's mother's condition, is she alright? Though she tried to keep her voice stable, there was a deep undercurrent of fear and panic in her tone.

It's bad, your majesty, really really bad. Mother's left foreleg was completely crushed by a stone, and she's bleeding all over the place. We're trying to patch her up and move the stone from her leg, but she's completely pinned. I can't even see if her back legs are okay or not. Please send help, I don't know how long she'll last! Flexi was glad her mind's voice was moderately stable as she couldn't stop from sobbing at her mother's state.

Help's already on it's way, just keep her alive until we get there.

Twilight Sparkle wrung her hooves with bits of her mane starting to frizzle at how long it was taking for the ship to move on station above the disguised tunnel exits. Sure enough, her scouts reported a large number of Kreesus' forces waiting for the sealed doors to open. _To think mother trusted Kreesus with so much, just to get betrayed like this._ Word of Cadista's plight had nearly sent Twilight over the edge on her panic-o-meter.

Luna watched the purple mare pace back and forth in the air. An attaché had been keeping Luna apprised of all relevant Link chatter. "I know what you're thinking, Twilight Sparkle. But you're the only queen left who's fit and active, with your sister recovering. You need to stay on the ship and in command."

Little did she know, Luna was saying the same thing Twilight had been repeating in her mind ever since the castle started to collapse. Twilight needed to keep saying it over and over again, just to keep herself on the bridge. "Believe me, Luna, I know," she heaved a heavy breath to keep her emotions under control for a while longer. "I want to pull mother out of there, but somepony needs to to stay in command."

Aegis, we're going to be shelling the five exit points in two minutes, I want you airborne and en route pronto! Twilight commanded with all of her sense of urgency.

Already on it, my queen. Aegis was already back from the armory and standing at the lip of cargo bay two's outer doors.

Discharging what was left of the _Deception's_ heavy flak munitions in a single volley for each entrance, the terrain surrounding the tunnel exits were blasted clean of life, changeling or not. By the time the dust cleared around Cadista's exit point, Aegis' squad had already descended upon Kreesus' bewildered troops, spreading musket shot and burning oil at everything that moved.

Believing Cadista was dead or dying, Kreesus pulled back most of her surviving soldiers, but kept a few behind to act as scouts. Just in the off chance that Cadista somehow survived.

Aegis took a hard landing on a boulder around the rocky nook where the tunnel exit was hidden. Fan out and engage any red bastards you see.

The skirmish was short lived, only Thunderfury and three other soldiers managed to catch or find any of the enemy. Only a few scattered broken bodies from the earlier salvo remained as the Queen's Guard set up a perimeter.

By now, the early morning sun was peeking over the horizon. The whole area reeked of fire and ash from the hive to the south. Everypony in the tunnel, the path's clear, open up.

The large boulder rolled aside painfully slow on ungreased screeching gears. A flood of grey drones swarmed out as soon as the opening was wide enough to accommodate them. Aegis stood by the entrance, waving the flux of drones out while others directed them to the waiting airship above.

Exit point three is still occupied by hostiles, Intel reported from half a kilometer away in the deep jungle. We need naval support!

That is a no-go, Captain Rourke returned calmly. That last salvo took what was left of our flak munitions, and anything else could collapse the tunnels. There was a tense pause. Hold fast, Princess Luna is personally leading her Night Guard to reinforce your position.

Aegis hummed at the exchange. _Kreesus might have known about the tunnel exits, but wasn't sure which one was granny's?_ Rasua caught Aegis' attention by coming in for a landing.

"Princess Aegis," the sphinx said from above. Rasua landed beside her and gave a hasty bow. "I heard from Princess Luna's aide that your allied queen is pinned under a metal bar." Rasua pulled her runed smithing hammer out and presented it. "It may not be much, but if I can momentarily strengthen or remove it, that could make the difference in pulling the queen out without as much risk for a second collapse."

Aegis remembered Rausa's admiration for that hammer, and some of its abilities. "Alright, we move as soon as the last refugee exits the tunnel." Aegis briefly looked at the darkened passageway before turning back to Rasua. "And she's my grandmother, not just an ally."

"…Ah."

The last drone ran out right as one of Aegis' platoon officers flew in and saluted. 'We'll keep the area clear enough to bring a shuttle down for the wounded."

"Good, send Resta down in here too for granny, I'm going on ahead." Leaving Burny with the platoon sergeant, Aegis ran into the catastrophically narrow passageway with Rasua in tow. The mad dash down two and a half kilometers of dark snaking tunnels took its toll on Aegis thanks to her gauntlets, but she didn't care. She carried every bit of her mother's desire to save Cadista, and a little thing like muscle fatigue meant nothing compared to the task at hand.

Rasua found keeping pace with Aegis rather easy if a bit cramped, given her larger size, but her mind wandered back to her moment of cognitive paralysis in the battle. _I will redeem my honor as a predator, I swear it!_

The sound of labored work and cursing met the pair's ears, signaling they were nearing the collapse. Orange horn light lit the otherwise darkened chamber where Flexi and one other drone were arguing on how to extract their queen-mother. As for herself, Cadista was only semi-lucid since she kept trying to go to sleep, but Flexi was afraid she'd never wake up again.

"You two, out of the way," Aegis commanded curtly, "we'll handle it from here."

Not wanting to argue with a princess, Flexi and her counterpart walked along the walls to get above Aegis and Rasua. Flexi stopped before leaving. "Please save her, she's all we have left now."

"That's not true," Aegis called back. "You have us."

Aegis didn't see Flexi pause at that and nodded in thanks before leaving. "Okay, Granny, just hold tight. We'll get you out of here and into a warm bed before you know it."

Royal bug and sphinx alike inspected the damage. Cadista was pinned between a metal strut on top of her, and several large rocks below. It was only the shape of the strut itself that saved her life however, as it gave her barrel just enough room to keep the tons of rock above from crushing her.

The metal was bent in the front where a stone had deformed it to bend downward. Had Cadista's neck been an inch to the left when she fell, the steel would have cut straight through.

The stone around Cadista's belly was lodged in tight, and had proved too much for Flexi to remove. The queen herself had more patches of salve covered wounds than visible fur, but it was clear that there were some open wounds that Flexi couldn't reach, due to the pooling blood.

Leveraging her mother's breathing technique to calm down, Aegis turned to Rasua. "Okay, first off, we need to get that metal beam bent back up so we can move her. Can you do that without harming her?"

Aegis let Rasua climb over her so she could be up close with the metal. She placed the edge of her hammer on the metal strut, causing one of the runes to reshape itself into a symbol Aegis didn't recognize. "This is ordinary steel. A bit too much carbon, but workable. It will take all of my hammer's power to keep the metal cold so it doesn't scald her."

Giving the sphinx ample room, Aegis watched as Rasua fished for a pouch and poured white powder all over her right hand and the smithing hammer's grip. The runes came alive as she struck the offending metal bar with a resounding crack. The steel snapped cleanly off, just above her neck, while leaving the rest of the strut intact. Aegis and Rasua froze as the rocks above let small pebbles rain down on them, but otherwise held fast. Letting go of a breath she didn't know she was holding, Rasua holstered her tool. "It'll take days for my hammer to recharge, but that got the job done."

Rasua fell back to allow Aegis in close again. With the steel now only acting to hold the debris up, all that was left was to remove the stones under Cadista. Aegis recalled the stones she had to jump over to get here, assuming they were signs of Flexi's previous efforts.

All of the loose stones had been thrown further down the hallway, with two large irregular rocks keeping Cadista firmly pinned. "If I pull the one on the left, the other should fall just enough to get granny out of here."

"How many times have I told you not to call me that?" Cadista wheezed as she slowly became more lucid. She hissed in agony, refusing to cry out.

"You can be mad at me later, Granny," Aegis quipped as she latched her magic onto the stone, "right now I have to save you."

Cadista only partially saw the two beings in front of her. With her blood loss increasing, her vision was still swimming, and her side of the hive mind was starting to darken.

Tugging with all her might, the offending stone refused to budge even one inch. A minute passed with Aegis fervently trying to remove the stone, even going so far as to try and wiggle it free.

"I am no earthmover," Rasua commented from behind Aegis. The princess looked behind her to see Rasua had shifted her paws into hands. "But perhaps I can lend my strength as well?"

Aegis sat there and blinked at the blacksmith before smacking herself. "Duh!" Ignoring Rasua's confusion, Aegis opened her gauntlet's fingers and grabbed onto the offending stone. "I may not have fine motor skills like you," she grunted as Aegis leveraged both her magic and hand strength against the stone, "But I have a good bit of strength at least."

With a loud grinding noise, the rock started to come loose. With Rasua grabbing Aegis' barrel and adding to her efforts, the two finally pulled the stone out, causing the injured queen to slide free.

Not even giving herself a moment's rest, Aegis carefully picked Cadista up in her magic and levitated the feebly protesting queen in front of the pair for salve patch inspection. Both changeling and sphinx alike were stunned in horror when one of Cadista's hind legs was completely missing, having been completely torn off by a second metal beam. Thus far the metal had been slowing the bleeding, but now that the leg stump was exposed, the hemorrhaging restarted in earnest. "No, _no,_ **NO!** " Aegis slipped under Cadista and spat a large glob of salve over the wound while Rasua ripped a sleeve off her shirt and grabbed the steel bar she had broken off to form a tourniquet.

"You're not going to die, you hear me, gramma!" Aegis screamed between spitting more salve on the stump.

Cadista was limp during the whole thing. She was about to fall unconscious when she looked further down the hallway's flicking lights. But she didn't see a barely lit tunnel, instead she saw a glimmering silver light with a familiar figure in the distance beckoning her forward.

 _Yumia? Is that really you?_

Oblivious to her impromptu medics, she thought she saw the figure start running towards her. _Have I done enough, Yumia? Can I finally be at your side again?_

Tears of profound relief and joy flowed down her cheeks as Cadista tried to reach forward with her good leg. In her ailing mind, the figure finally resolved itself to be her long dead soul mate. Yumia wore a proud smile, making Cadista sob the long deep scars away and tried even harder to reach forward. All she wanted at that moment was to touch her, to feel Yumia's embrace once more.

 _Have I made you proud, mother?_

Yumia was close enough to touch now, and silently nodded to the question. The specter reached forward and grasped Cadista's outstretched hoof.

* * *

"Princess, Blacksmith Rasua, make way," Resta called out as she stepped over the stones between her and the group. Aegis was shakily staring at the leg stump. The hemorrhaging had been so bad it kept rupturing the salve before Aegis could get a thick enough covering. Several tense moments passed with each second surging Aegis' panic, but thanks to the the tightly bound tourniquet, the blood loss finally abated enough to be sealed.

Resta found Rausa awkwardly propping herself up on the wall with her foreleg elbows and wings while carefully trying to find a way to keep the tourniquet from unraveling. As for Aegis, she had her mechanical hands hovering around the salve drenched stump and manically eyeing it in the thin hope that her salve will hold.

Cadista's section of the Link was far too quiet, but seemed stable for the moment. The blood loss was taking its toll on Cadista. "I did it, Yumia. We, we won. I'm ready to j… join," she muttered before falling unconscious.

Aegis' frightful panic was only getting worse at Cadista's deteriorating mental state which was mirrored by the wavering chatter on her section of the hive mind. Resta's timely arrival with two blood packs and a med-kit gave the princess something else to focus on with her nervous energy.

With her work done for the moment, Rasua let go of the tourniquet and shimmied as high up the wall as she could go to allow the medic access to Cadista. With professional alacrity, Resta implanted two needles into the now unconscious queen, and got the packs flowing into her patient. "She's going into shock, we need to find and treat all remaining open wounds." She nodded in clinical approval at how many patches of salve were already on Cadista. "I'll hold the queen now, but I need you to keep the blood packs up high, princess."

"On it." Aegis obeyed quickly, letting Resta take Cadista into her telekinesis.

"We need to move her further down the tunnel so the ceiling is safe enough for you to walk on and patch anything on her back. The tunnel's too narrow to flip her over safely.

With Rausa feeling she was no longer needed, she backed off. "I'll leave to get out of your way."

Neither changeling noticed as they carefully moved Cadista on down until Aegis could latch onto the ceiling. From there, she could see Cadista's wings were completely ruined, but thankfully, most of the wounds had clotted over on their own accord. That didn't stop her from spitting the last of her salve on anything that looked like flowing blood.

"Can't we just get mother to teleport her back to the ship?" Aegis asked frantically. "We should be well clear of the anti-teleportation field Kreesus blanketed the hive with."

Grunting in mild disapproval, Resta focused on moving Cadista carefully down the tunnel. "Teleporting an injured person is highly dangerous, and can worsen the wounds considerably in the process."

Resta's professional disposition was made even worse by the mere mention of teleporting at all. "Stupid mages and their stupid magic. 'Teleporting solves _everything._ ' Let's just teleport here and there and everywhere."

She risked glancing back at her princess. "Do you have any idea the stresses teleporting puts on the body? It'd be healthier being drunk for a week then to teleport even once!"

"Okay, sorry I asked, can we please focus on saving granny's life!?"

* * *

The pair found a shuttle and more medical staff waiting for them. The _Deception_ was now hanging very close to the entrance, waiting to take Cadista away.

Creeping in the underbrush, a red drone watched with keen interest. _She might die yet,_ Kreesus mused darkly. _My old friend always said she'd never agree to rebirthing herself anymore._

Content to simply wait and see Cadista's eventual fate, Kreesus turned her attention to a different jungle hive. _I wonder if Chrysalis would be willing to… part with a loving daughter of hers._


	48. Chapter 48

Refugees

Unconsciousness was never quiet for most changelings. The hive mind, a part of their self-identity, was always audible. Yet as one particular changeling awoke, the Link's morning greeting was accompanied by bodily pain, both sore and deep, and abrasive stiffness.

Cadista cracked her eyes open and blinked a few times to find herself staring at a hospital ceiling. The worst part about that ceiling was it was definitely not part of the Silver City. "No… I'm back here."

"Mother!" Cadista struggled to turn her head to the voice. Twilight surged forward to dominate Cadista's field of view. The purple mare's face was stained by old tears and her eyes had mostly recovered from being bloodshot. "You're awake!"

"Granny!" Rainbow Dash's face partially shoved Twilight's aside, making both young queens smush each other. "I knew an old crone like you would pull through."

"As kind as ever, Rainbow Dash," Cadista choked out dryly. Twilight pressed some buttons on the bed to help lift Cadista's head up. Rainbow Dash fetched a cup of water and helped the old queen sip it down.

"I thought I was going to go bald from the thought of losing you," Twilight said as she called over the link for the doctors attention.

Rainbow Dash refilled Cadista's drink and gave it back. "That's when I told sis your presence in the Link was only faint, not fading away like we feared. After that it was just a matter of waiting for you to wake up."

Now that Cadista's vision was clearing, she could see the meticulously clean hospital room was actually a whole ward with her area curtained off. White neon lights cast her space into semi-harsh brightness. She was laying on her side with two of her legs suspended by cables and covered in casts. By the feel of it, her body was covered in gauze, but the distinct lack of a fourth leg was painfully clear. The news her senses brought back worried Cadista greatly. "How long have I been out?"

"A week and a half," Twilight replied while trying to wipe her tears away.

Cadista nodded slowly, or at least tried to without wincing in pain. She could sift through the hive mind to catch back up from the lost time, but the pounding migraine creeping up on her stayed her hoof. She couldn't even summon the willpower to use magic to scratch an itch. "How many of my children survived?" she croaked out.

Twilight was silent, unable to speak without her voice cracking. Rainbow Dash however, had always been the one to deliver next-of-kin letters to the families of all Wonderbolts in her command. "We only saved five hundred and twenty three," she said, barely holding onto her composure. The loss of so many voices upon the Link was painfully apparent to all within the hive mind. "Including the fifty nymphs you had. We'll be holding a Day of Mourning when you're well enough to attend."

"So many survived?" Cadista's heart soared a little. "Even with your assistance, I was sure I would have lost so much more."

"It would have been more if it wasn't for…" Twilight grit her teeth and quieted. She averted her gaze in burning shame. Cadista looked to Rainbow Dash, assuming she would finish her sister's sentence, but she too remained silent. The flash of anger in both of them was palpable.

"If it wasn't for what?" Cadista demanded weakly, trying to add some edge to her voice. Pain shot through her body, making her grunt in agony.

"…Chrysalis," Rainbow Dash said at length. "Right as we were trying to get all your drones to the train depot for evacuation, Thereena and Nubile had been lying in wait between Stripped Gear and the train outpost for us. The ground and air was filled with your kids, so our ship couldn't open fire on their drones as they were converging on us, but Chrysalis and her sisters' goon squad came in and wrecked face. They left us alone, and just focused on Thereena and Nubile."

"The five of them fought it out while we made our escape," Twilight finished. "We never bothered to find out who won."

Cadista was caught between stunned surprise and a flash of anger that agitated her wounds. "Why would she help us?! You didn't cut a deal with her I hope."

Rainbow Dash made a sound of disgust and stuck her tongue out. "No way! I'd rather go a year without eggs before asking Sticky Spit for a favor."

"Doesn't matter now," Twilight said bitterly. "Even if she doesn't try to press for a favor, she'll hang this over our heads for decades."

Cadista couldn't think of anything to say. With tired eyes, she let her head fall back to the pillow. Even with more survivors than Cadista had hoped for, the loss of the hive, and Kreesus' betrayal bore down like a crushing vice. Yet the worst of it all was Yumia's absence.

 _You were holding me close for the first time in forever. Why did you send me back? Haven't I suffered long enough without you?_ Cadista's silence was deafening to Twilight and Rainbow. Even her voice on the Link was diminished. She let out a long weary sigh.

Wanting to break the silence, Twilight scooted closer to the bed. "We thought the strain of the hive mind was keeping you in a coma, so we… sort of…" She clapped her hooves nervously, but Cadista didn't seem to break from her blank stare at the ceiling. "RD and I started severing some of your drones and linking them to us for the time being."

Even then, the elder queen was lost in emotional turmoil. Cadista's link presence had shriveled down to what it had been while she was unconscious, making those drones still linked to her nigh impossible to hear. "Leave me, please."

Twilight started to get choked up, but Rainbow Dash had seen it before. _It's the same with all the families I've delivered the bad news to. Even I can tell this is a pain deeper than the loss of her hive and kids._ She walked over and laid a hoof on Twilight. Come on, sis, let's give granny some space.

Twilight lingered by her mother's bedside a while longer before acquiescing to Rainbow's suggestion, but not before giving Cadista a long loving nuzzle. The pair solemnly departed through the privacy screen to find Resta and a few of other medical staff. "Take care of Granny, she's in a bad way."

 _I'd have never guessed,_ Resta mused darkly. All that played on her face and aura was a subdued clinical smile. "I understand, my queen." She started going over the chart on her clipboard. "However, before you go," she called out to Twilight and Rainbow Dash before they could leave earshot.

The ward's nearby patients, all twenty of them, were some of the less lucky survivors of Stripped Gear. Most of them were in stable condition, but none of those in this ward were fortunate enough to escape with all limbs intact, or attached. Twilight whispered into Rainbow's ear, before the blue queen continued on. Twilight turned back around to face the Chief Resident. "Yes?"

"I must insist that while her return to consciousness is a good sign," she paused as two nurses flew overhead to attend to Cadista, "she's not out of the woods yet."

Twilight saw her nearby brothers and sisters' originally uplifted faces sink back down. "Perhaps we should continue this conversation elsewhere."

As you wish, Resta took to the air and made for her private office down at the far end of the building, stopping only sporadically to offer quick advice to the nurses who came up to her. Twilight patiently followed after her, knowing Resta's workload was still immense. The pair made it to Resta's office, which was as much a paragon of organization as Twilight herself.

Resta briefly searched for Cadista's file from a cabinet before restarting. I'll be blunt, Cadista may be conscious, but that's only because a queen's nervous system is designed for rapid regeneration to keep the Link intact. Aside from that and her reproductive system, her other regenerative capabilities barely match that of the average drone. I don't know if she'll ever fully recover from the organ damage without allowing herself to be rebirthed.

The setting sun bathed the office in rich oranges and reds. Twilight frowned at the diagnosis, and from having to lift a hoof up to shield her eyes. You know full well your grandmother would never agree to a rebirth. Resta grumbled in supreme disapproval, and chewed on her quill to keep from voicing a barb. So tell me what _can_ we do about my mother's condition?

"That's where it can become tricky," Resta commented after lapsing to vocalized speech since they were alone. "In all honesty, with the amount of damage she sustained, I want to put her in a life support pod to heal. Buuut," she added with dry irritation, "That's only one step away from rebirthing, and we know she'll shoot that one down."

"I'll try to convince her otherwise," Twilight offered with dismal hope of success.

"Mmm, wouldn't that be a nice surprise. You cave into her wishes too easily, my queen." Twilight scowled at her, but couldn't deny the truth of it.

Resta only sighed in exasperation. "Unfortunately, even if you dragged her to a pod, it will only serve to accelerate healing. The process won't heal organ scarring nor replace the missing leg. Plus any bones we couldn't set right wouldn't miraculously be perfect again either." Resta rattled off numerous other injuries that Twilight was already familiar with. Even so, her mood lifted slightly at the doctor mentioning various improvements, or at least stable conditions.

"How soon can she be up and about?" Twilight added with a bit of regal authority. "If she doesn't use a pod?"

Resta huffed in mild exasperation as she poured over her clipboard. "I'm guessing maybe two months bed rest at the most before trying to walk around, with some serious time off for fitting a prosthetic and physical therapy after that."

Twilight absorbed it all silently. If she was honest with herself, she was just happy her mother's life wasn't in danger anymore. "I'll have Ratchet commission one for her since Blitz is currently testing for a new career path."

Resta nodded slowly to signal a slight switch in topics. She closed her file and tucked it inside a pocket of her doctor's coat. "The other thing I must mention, even if it should be obvious, is that Cadista is going to go through mental shock and undoubtedly depression as well. Her loss of life, home, and limbs is going to be difficult to bear. I strongly suggest you and Auntie-momma to spend as much time with her as you can spare."

"Of course we will," Twilight replied with mild surprise that Resta needed to voice that concern at all. "But for now, mother wants some space."

"Not exactly what I expected…" Resta rubbed her chin contemplatively. "But I'm a surgeon, not a psychiatrist. I'll post a nurse to her in the event that she needs somepony, and doesn't call out for one. You can never be too sure when it comes to depression."

Twilight grimaced and couldn't help but to look back at the door to the ward. "You don't think she'd do anything to hurt herself, do you?" The icy cold touch of terror gripped her heart.

"I don't know, but I'd rather not take any chances, hence the nurse." Resta took a moment to give the ward staff several orders. "In the meantime, leave her to my care."

"…Very well." Swallowing her fear, Twilight pinged her mother, but Cadista only desired to be left alone with her thoughts. _I hope she gets better._

* * *

The renovations to turn Phoenix Roost's old colony ship into a proper castle were well nearly complete. While it may have been local civic engineers and immigrated ones from Stripped Gear that got everything into shape, it was Rarity's keen eye for style and fashion that brought tactful color and cheer to the ship turned castle. She was also the primary reason the castle conversion was _still_ unfinished.

The room where Aegis and Blitz currently resided in was one such example. A banner bearing the same phoenix and storm cloud design that was borne on Thunderfury's shields hung beside two windows with the lounge furniture matching the color scheme. Rarity was beyond delighted that her color patterns were meshing so well with the drones and the furniture they used.

Sadly, this was entirely lost on Blitz who was sitting on a blue couch while Aegis paced back and forth on her back legs. The blue drone had to admit Aegis was becoming rather adept at walking upright. "We're starting testing now of all times? What if the war reaches us here?"

Aegis stopped pacing and gave Blitz a reassuring small half-smile. "The queenly duo and I don't think the other hives will risk striking us here. Luna's got eyes on every single infiltrator and love collector in the alliance, and Celestia made sure the griffins and minotaurs are only a few steps behind us. If an army sets one hoof in our territory, they all get booted out. Besides, from what our scouts report, the other queens are more interested in fighting each other right now." Aegis glanced at the closed door and windows conspiratorially. "Look, you're not exactly cleared to know this, but since you're in the princess running, I'll let you in on this one. Granny's generals and Aunty both agree that the attack on Stripped Gear was as much about kidnapping grandma as it was about getting Equestrian interests out of the jungle."

"I suppose that makes sense. But they'll keep trying to get love production."

"True," Aegis conceded with a shrug. "Nevertheless though, we can't put everything on hold just because we have enemies."

"Oh, alright." Blitz suppressed a nervous shudder and pulled her legs in closer to her barrel.

"Now, as you know, I'll be making my own hive in five or six years thereabouts." _Damn I wish somepony could figure out an exact timeline for this. Maybe one of the mathematicians?_ "I also agree with both our mothers' idea of making my hive a diarchy. So…" she gave Blitz a come-hither look just to get a blush out of the blue mare. "Here we are."

"Okay," Blitz's muzzle scrunched at the princess' teasing under such a serious meeting. "So what do you need me to do?"

"Just a few questions. First off, now that you've had some time to think on it, do you want to be my partner for the next thousand or more years?"

Blitz turned away and looked down at the sofa cushion. "I don't know. Neither one of us can claim to be even ten years old yet. I mean, I love you, but I love everypony in the hive. This sort of thing is crazy big to think about."

"Well you got one up on me." Blitz gave Aegis a confused look while the princess shrugged helplessly. "Back when momma was testing me, I didn't really think about the long run. I had eggs on the mind and little else."

"Oh yeah? At least now you've expanded to pyrophilia and nymphomania," Blitz smirked while looking up contemplatively. "Oh wait…"

Aegis gave her a sardonic smirk and eyebrow. "You say that like it's a bad thing."

Blitz gave her a deadpan scowl.

Aegis couldn't hide the bubbling laughter pushing its way to the surface. _My future partner needs a sense of humor._ "Anyway," she said slightly dismissively. "Here's a scenario. If you had full say on what alchemical enhancements you wanted for a royal rebirth, what would you want? Generally I mean."

Blitz perked up and pulled one of Aegis' forelegs in close to admire her handiwork. "To be honest, I think it would be a good idea to mirror you. If we both had upright walking, then we could just modify everything we build to accommodate for it. This is a pretty big change, so we'd be better off if everypony's working with the same arms and legs, right?"

"Interesting." Blitz let go of Aegis' hoof so she could flex her fingers. The joints hissed and whirred quietly as she thought. _Floria suggested having no alterations done to her, to counterbalance my more radical alterations. A tried and true method, sure, but unimaginative. Gaia Waltz said roughly the same thing as Floria, just with auntie's sonic rainboom wings added in. Those wings are great in low numbers, but I don't think that'd be that good for half the hive. Momma said it's a frivolous adaptation to anypony outside of special forces. Especially since I would be the military arm of the hive._

 _Synergera had it in her head to rebirth herself into a semi-aquatic form of all things. I_ guess _that'd work for a coastal hive location like she suggested, but that wouldn't really compliment my alterations. She'd be better off waiting for the next set of royal daughters to push that idea. Lastly there was Rusty Hammer and her crazy of idea of retooling the salve gland to produce crude oil._ She shuddered at the last thought and tried to rub the taste off her tongue with her teeth.

In an exercise in improving hand dexterity, Aegis walked over to the desk and wrote down Blitz's response by hoof, or actually hand this time. The purple mare scowled at her abysmal penmanship which made chicken scratch look like it came from a printing press. She tried rewriting Blitz's answers over and over again while muttering curses at the unwieldy digits. Blitz was starting to get antsy from the long silence before remembering she brought a book with her and started reading up on the latest developments her grey aunts and uncles had managed to save from Stripped Gear. Miffed by her difficulty, Aegis pulled a chair over to continue working.

Half an inkpot and four pages later, Aegis finally pieced together enough of Blitz's response to paper. _I'll just have to write it again later by horn before putting it to file._ "Okay," she said with a cheery smile and slightly disheveled mane after spinning around in her chair towards Blitz. The blue drone winced at the irritated eye tick Aegis was suffering and coughed while pointing at the lukewarm glass of cider. "Ooo good idea!" Aegis took half the beverage in one gulp and slammed it back down on the desk with a satisfied smile. "Thanks." She stood back up to begin pacing. "Right, so…" Aegis ran a hand through her mane in an unconscious effort to smooth it back out. "If we became partners, where would you prefer to colonize?"

Blitz moved a bookmark in place before closing her tome. She fixed Aegis with a thoughtful look. "That's easy. We should put ourselves along the Steamrunner River."

"You mean the one mother named on our way over to Stratholme?" Aegis tapped her chin, and hummed in thought. "Why's that? So we can keep a check on Federation expansion?"

Blitz smiled happily at being able to go into detail. "It would create a definitive western border, to be sure, but the river itself is key." _Wish this room had a map to work with._ "That river runs only twenty kilometers from Ponyville, so a short land route is possible between the river and Ponyville. Not to mention it's calm in most places, so it would be excellent for non-airship trade until a railroad is made." Blitz started falling into an excited lecture mode. "Not only that, but it would put us in closer contact with sphinxes, and more importantly, their hands."

Now she had Aegis' real attention, causing her to stop pacing with both ears angled forward. Blitz smirked at being able to reacquire Aegis' undivided attention during a lecture. "Since Rasua morphs her hands and paws back and forth so completely, that means their bones must be able to shift along with the muscle and skin."

Aegis recalled the numerous hand lessons Rasua gave her with a growing smile. "Yeah… that's right! Her hands don't even have the cat claws, just something she called 'nails'. Even granny was shocked when I told her about that."

Blitz's beaming smile mirrored that of her princess. "To think natural evolution is still teaching us so many fascinating designs. If we could incorporate that limited form of shapeshifting into ourselves, we wouldn't need gauntlets! We could keep our hooves for wall walking and quadruped movement, and have organic hands and maybe even toes too!"

A predatory grin slowly crept over Aegis muzzle the more she thought about it. "Yeah… Yeah. Yeah! That's not a bad plan at all." _Blitz may just be an engineer, but she's got some damn good ideas on alchemical possibilities that even I didn't think about. Hell, I should have, since the whole biped thing was my shtick._

A voice over the Link jarred both changelings out of their scheming. Princess Aegis, there is an urgent matter that requires your attention, Thunderfury butted in without a ping. Rasua's been skulking around the hive and is currently at the eating area just west of Hot Spice's diner.

Aegis gave Blitz a troubled brow furrow. Skulking in what way?

Ever since this morning, she's been trying to eavesdrop on the conversations of our siblings without making herself noticeable. I've been relaying to these groups to keep their conversations vocalized while she's around, but we haven't exactly been able to keep eyes on her twenty-four seven since our mothers didn't want to make her paranoid.

And you think your warnings are only making her even worse, Aegis tsked irritably. _Guess we'll have to air out the fact we're a psychic species then._ "Blitz, I gotta say, I am mighty impressed. I'll get back with you later today or tonight to finish up."

Nodding in agreement, Blitz buzzed around the room to gather her belongings. "Okay. I have to go over some things with my department anyway. I'll see you then."

* * *

With Thunderfury and several other soldiers keeping an eye on Rasua, Aegis found the lone sphinx had moved away from the diner. Instead, Thunderfury directed Aegis towards the Clover Library. The library was a bibliophile's dream and one of the grandest buildings in the hive, complete with matching flags of Phoenix's Roost and Equestria. It even rivaled Ratchet's manufactorium just four blocks away. The primary reading room was filled with drones of grey, blue, and purple in a five story spiraling tower. Aegis came in from the open skylight to find Rasua on a second story balcony chair. A gaggle of drones were researching at the table next to the fidgeting sphinx.

Aegis raced down to stop in a hover next to the blacksmith's table. "Afternoon, Rasua. I take it you've finished settling in."

Rasua closed her book with a loud clap. "I have." She gave Aegis a neutral expression, but her eyes darted to the two Queen's Guard hiding by a bookshelf and a table across the room. _There's a thin line between being among friends, and a nest of vipers._ "A very impressive home you've built for yourselves. A far cry from the…" Rasua twirled a paw in the air while try to word it properly. "The pulsating organic mass of an insect hive I was expecting."

"So glad we defied expectations," Aegis replied sardonically with an amused raised eyebrow.

Shifting uncomfortably, Rasua shrugged off her embarrassment. "I doubt you're here for small chat. What can I do for you, Princess?" she asked in a calm and respectful tone.

Aegis crossed her forelegs and gave her guest a knowing scowl. "You can tell me why you're spying on my siblings."

All of the drones nearby quieted and slunk away from the confrontation. The quick evacuation put Rasua on edge, but she tried not to show it. Even with that attempt at self-control, Rasua couldn't hide that edge of fear. "I may be here to pay a blood debt, but I will return home one day. Can you truly blame me for wanting to learn more about your kind? Especially since you always seem evasive about my questions of the existence of psykers among you."

Aegis landed and took a chair at Rasua's table. "Fine then. You want the whole truth?"

"It'd be refreshing change of pace." Rasua leaned back in her seat. "Not that our little game of 'Hide the Cheese' hasn't been fun."

 _I know Momma's prepping me for rule with all these stupid royal tests, but damn I wish she'd let somepony else handle this._ Aegis worked her jaw while her lips were in a pressed line. "You asked me if there were any 'psykers' among my species after we fled from Stripped Gear." Rasua nodded curtly. "Yes," Aegis stated flatly. "Every last changeling is psychic."

Rasua's heart went cold. Everything seemed to slow down, and while her eyes were entirely focused on Aegis, Rasua's other senses seemed to work overtime to locate the remaining changelings in the room. As her brain finished processing the declaration, her predatory pride wrestled with her fight or flight instinct. "Y-your _entire_ race?!"

"Yyyuupp." Aegis deadpanned. "After hearing how much you sphinxes love psychics from that Order priest, you can imagine why we were wary about telling you."

"The Order likes to exaggerate the dangers, but there is reason for my people's need to… regulate psykers." Rasua didn't bother trying to hide her breathing exercises in her attempt to stop hyperventilating and to get her heart rate back down. Images of Silandrus' drones speaking with one voice sent chills down her spine.

"Well there's no need for that with us," Aegis stated flatly. "Aside from royals like myself, the only thing changelings can do on the psi front is some empathy along with communication, but even then, we can only communicate with each other. No mind reading. We also passively feed on love. Even with a royal's expanded abilities, much of it is mirrored by unicorn styled magic anyway so we've never seen a problem."

"But it _is_ a problem," Rasua banged the table for emphasis. "Maybe not for you, but what about the other races of the world? The ponies, those tree… things, and all the others you've told me about. Do they have psykers or defenses against them?"

"I say again," Aegis bit back with weakening patience, "only royals like myself have anything outside of intra-hive communication and some empathy. The other races have no more reason to fear us than any other sentient being. Why do _you_ have such a phobia against it?"

 _Trading answers for answers? Very well._ With her breathing more or less under control, Rasua adopted a normal sitting posture. "The people from my province, unlike everyone else, have never had a problem with psykers as a whole. I think they are a great boon, **but** it requires a paragon of morality to be welcomed by me. So after seeing your once strong ally betray you," Rasua pointed a finger at Aegis, "And other _royals_ sending thousands of their own citizens off to die by your guns, and then spiting Queen Cadista by razing her city state to the ground, your species doesn't strike me as one with a strong moral fabric.

"That reminds me far more of the debased royal families of old kingdoms. You commit incest on a disgustingly grand scale, and I doubt your queens don't partake in it either. _Then_ you tell me just yesterday that your queens toy with the genetics of the drones to force them into a single defined role."

"Oh get off your moral high," Aegis rebuked, cutting Rasua's growling tirade short. "You're going to sit there and impose your sense of morality on a culture that developed on an entirely different continent? You know next to nothing of us." Aegis' scowl deepened to match Rasua's stubborn look. "I'm not going to bother lecturing you on why incest is practically a necessity for our species because I don't have the patience to educate yet another species where love is only an emotion to you."

Aegis' glare hardened to the point of making Rasua instinctively uncomfortable. "But let me smack you with some knowledge. It's every queen's _moral obligation_ to design each drone to fit whatever role they need to fill." Rasua moved to speak but Aegis leaned forward and jabbed a gauntleted hoof at her. "And even then, if a drone wants to choose a different career, they _can_!" she added while wrapping her gauntleted hoof on the table. "Just ask Gear Ratio!"

Rasua moved a hand forward and was about to retort when Aegis cut her off. "I don't want to hear _one word_ about hypocrisy, because I used to be a drone myself. If my queen had asked it of me, I'd have gladly been redesigned to anything the hive required. Without question, because they _deserve_ such loyalty.

"And don't you dare lump my queens in with scum like Kreesus and the rest of them. Between the four of us, my fellow royals allow any drone to have individuality, and sapience like any other civilization. My aunt is the embodiment of _loyalty itself!_ So shut up about morality before you dig yourself into a hole you can't fly out of."

Rasua felt like she was forced to reevaluate her stance since Aegis was too furious to give her a word in edgewise. Thankfully, Aegis' silence gave her time to think. Rasua's face went through a range of emotions before settling on troubled before she muffled a gasp of inspiration. "My most sincere apologies, Princess Aegis. I spoke out of ignorance." She glanced out of a window and spied a few thestrals and Tea'la. "You surprise me to be sure. I suppose the sheer number of refugees you've accumulated between those bat ponies, tree things, and now the grey changelings can attest to that."

Aegis' face went from angry to confusion. "We're still trying to find places for them in the alliance, since we can't properly house them all here. What of it?"

"If you were speaking with the Order, then you must know what my people do with Psykers. I have never truly agreed with that doctrine. Morality is a psykers' saving grace. If they use that power for the good of the people, than it is no different than blacksmithing or any other tool or technology.

"You say you're moral people, then I challenge you to prove it, by offering asylum to any and all Psykira." Seeing the confusion on Aegis' face, Rasua clarified. "It's my homeland's word for moral psykers. I feel it would be better that they live outside of the Federation, than…" Rasua caught herself before finishing. "Well, better than what irrational fear causes my kin to do."

"That's not something I can offer," Aegis countered. "Even if we did, we simply don't have room here in PR. We're going to need to send well over half of Granny's drones to settle in Equestria."

"If that map I saw of Equestria was accurate, your alliance is quite expansive. All the Psykira would require is somewhere to live without persecution. A sad fact of life within the Federation, I grant you, but my people have been harmed badly by psykers who abused their power." Rasua picked at her left paw. "I want to believe you, my friend, can show the rest of my kin how to properly conduct themselves."

Aegis cast a triumphant smirk at the blacksmith. "I'll pass it on to my queens so they can discuss it with the Princesses. Although I doubt they'd fall into the same trap your people did. But I gotta ask, how are you going to get those, Psykira?" She asked, Rasua giving a nod at her pronunciation. "Over here?"

"You just concern yourself about accommodating them, I'll worry about helping them immigrate here," Rasua said with all the guile of a used car salesman. "I just need to write a letter for my colleagues, assuming your queens really are that generous and agree."

"Well I know we will!" Aegis shot back strongly.

Nodding submissively, Rasua left her seat. "I concede to your superiority, Princess." With a deep bow, the blacksmith departed the library through a nearby window.

Feeling smug, Aegis leaned back in her chair feeling rather good with the defense of her people. At least for half a minute until her ears fell along with her smile. "Wait, what? …I think I just got played."

Unbeknownst to Aegis, Rasua made a beeline straight to her quarters to finally give in to her panic attack. She wrapped her blanket around herself and started rocking back and forth on the bed. Rasua held her smithing hammer close for comfort. "A whole race of psykers!? Damn it all to Futhnar! What did I do to deserve this?"

She skipped meals for the rest of the day to hide in her room.

* * *

In the wee hours of the following morning, Cadista awoke to a world of throbbing pain and phantom aches. Gentle snoring made her look over to find Twilight Sparkle had pulled a second bed over and was sleeping next to her. Even Rainbow Dash was snoozing on a cushion with her circlet/crown glowing with a noise nullification spell. The former ponies exuded so much love for their mother, or adopted grandmother, that it brought a tear to Cadista's eye.

With her good hoof, Cadista reached forward and gently rubbed Twilight's mane, causing the sleeping mare to smile lightly. _They nearly got themselves killed trying to save me. That's exactly how Chrysalis took away my…_ She choked up at the thought of it. Even with centuries under her belt, Cadista's emotional control fell apart.

Not even caring if anyone was around to see her in such a miserable state, Cadista wept as quietly as she could. The few on duty nurses who poked their heads in at the muffled sobbing departed quickly to give the old matriarch her space.

Minutes passed like hours as Cadista bled away so much loss and pain, yet more always kept rising up. By the time the early signs of sunrise pouring in from the east side queen sized windows, Cadista had gathered enough of her wits to start thinking. _There's no use in trying to rebuild my hive. It would cost far more than my hidden savings. It doesn't help that Twilight is trying to strengthen her own economy to properly support Aegis when she moves on to found her own hive._

A small part of her mind chose that particular moment to remind her that a non-sapient drone base would be far more capable at rebuilding a hive from complete scratch. _Between housing my children and the cost of medical supplies for healing all the wounded…_

No matter what strategy she could think of, despair was all that met her for every plan she came up with to rebuild Stripped Gear. _Retaking the caldera would be folly with the magma chamber no longer being regulated. Even if it wasn't, that's money that could be pumped into PR or Aegis' hive._

While drones were more than happy to work themselves to death for their queen, a technological society such as theirs was nigh impossible to build without outside materiel assistance.

 _You could always just stay with Phoenix's Roost,_ said a desperate voice within her. Cadista shot it down almost immediately. _Even if it is with Twilight and Rainbow, no hive should ever have three queens. The Bonding between Twi and RD would be broken if I did that._

Just as she was about to cast the idea out the window entirely, a moment of dark genius struck her. _My life as a queen died with my hive._

A loud yawn from Twilight broke off Cadista's musings. The purple mare blearily dragged her head up just in time for Gentle Touch to push her way through the privacy curtain with a platter of steaming coffee mugs in her magic. "A quick pep up for you, your majesties."

"You're too good to me, Gentle." Twilight gave a tired grin to the cup of java presented to her.

"Resta disapproves, but some caffeine can lift anypony's spirits." Noticing Cadista was awake, Twilight's majordomo offered a cup to her as well.

"I could use any lift I can get at this point," Cadista replied dryly. She hissed in pain trying to orient her head so she could drink normally.

With Rainbow stirring as well, Gentle served her too. Seeing her mother awake, Twilight laid a cautiously gentle hoof on the mangled matriarch. What could she say to her tear stained mother? In the face of such profound loss, Twilight had no idea how to begin healing her mother. "...How are you feeling?"

Wanting to lose herself in the cup of coffee, Cadista drained her beverage in tense silence. By the time she finished, Rainbow Dash was more or less awake. "As bad as I look," Cadista deadpanned while trying to gesture at herself with a hoof.

"I know it's bad, Granny, but once you're back on your hooves, we can set you up with a new hive here in Equestria." Rainbow stood up to pop her stiff joints. "I know even the nobles wouldn't complain to have somepony else stand between them and the Chaos Lands."

"It's the best we can do on such short notice," Twilight added forlornly. She snuck in a quick but loving nuzzle.

"Twilight, my child, I am too old for that anymore." Twilight and Rainbow gave each other a mildly terrified look. "There is no scenario where I rebuild my hive."

"Now wait a minute," Rainbow challenged heatedly. "Sure you're injured, but we saved a whole bunch of your kids. There's no reason you can't start rebuilding immediately!"

"You really think PR's struggling economy is going to be able to handle that?" Cadista replied with a hint of deep sadness. Rainbow looked to Twilight who averted her gaze from both of them, knowing full well the budget was in the red now that Cadista's refugees were settling in. Equestrian relief aid was on its way, but it was ultimately a short term solution.

"We'll find a way!" Rainbow declared with spittle flying out. "I mean, you, you, have to! You can't let Kreesus win like this!"

"This isn't about Kressus," Cadista rebuked sternly with anger flashing in her eyes. "We are _Queens._ The welfare of the hive is our top priority. Since mine is _gone,_ " she spat with tears. "We have to look to the future, and that means sacrificing my reconstruction to bolster Phoenix's Roost."

Twilight glanced to Gentle Touch to silently dismiss her before turning back to her sister. "I-I'm sure this is just a temporary measure." Cadista's quiet refusal only heightened Twilight's mounting panic. "You lay just enough to keep yourself sane, we host your current children, and send off who we can to find jobs in Equestria or abroad. Once we get Aegis' hive off the ground, we can refocus on rebuilding Stripped Gear."

Yumia's welcoming smile backdropped by the Silver City flashed in Cadista's mind. "I don't want to rebuild."

The bickering sisters' jaws fell open. "You can't be serious," Rainbow blurted out first. "Weren't you the one who taught us a queen is nothing without the hive?"

"Mother, please, I know we lost a lot recently, but that's no reason-"

"Enough!" Cadista growled. The harshness of the pained fury cowed the sisters. "It is _my_ decision to make." She kept a hard expression long enough to assert her authority. "I am old, and now I am hiveless. If I could produce love, then I would be willing to wait that long, but I am obsolete. Any efforts rebuilding my hive would be better spent on getting a second pairing of royal daughters from you two."

"I don't care if you're _obsolete,_ " Twilight cried. "You always told me there should never be more than two queens per hive because it causes too many problems." Twilight's fear of Cadista's implied plan was threatening to push her over the emotional edge. "But why can't you live out of town, and just use our hatchery? You could take the _Deception_ back as a small temporary hive, just don't k- don't harm yourself, please!" She threw herself on Cadista, eliciting pained yelps out of her.

Cadista was caught between being insulted and touched. She bore Twilight's crushing embrace only because she couldn't physically push her off. "Girl, would you stop with the hysterics. I have no intention of committing suicide."

Twilight was too busy trying to love her mother out of harming herself to really hear her. Rainbow Dash on the other hand stood there confused. "If you don't want to stay in PR, you don't want a temporary hive, or to rebuild in general, then what _are_ you going to do?"

Sniffling, Twilight looked up to her mother's eyes, waiting for an answer. Cadista caved in and nuzzled her back, if only so Twilight would recompose herself. "I don't have any details worked out yet, but I have a general idea." Twilight leaned back onto her bed as Cadista gave both of them a demanding glare. "And don't try to talk me out of it." She waited a bit to make sure each of them wordlessly nodded. Yumia's beckoning face flashed in Cadista's vision. Shaking herself to clear her clouding thoughts, Cadista forced herself to speak evenly.

"Now, since you know we queens have the ability to alter ourselves via alchemy, I know of a way to remain here without disrupting the two-queen rule."

* * *

Ambassadors Rolled Scroll and Blue Flare joined each other at Blue's royal apartment balcony for breakfast. Despite her genetically enhanced grace, Blue was worse than her mother in the morning. Her mane was scraggly and her usually melodious voice matched Rainbow's raspy tone almost to a tee.

Rolled Scroll, by contrast, had woken up an hour earlier, and was impeccably dressed in some of Rarity's finest clothes. If he disapproved of Blue's current appearance, he made no indication of it in either body language or his aura. In fact, he was feeling rather playful today, and Blue Flare snickered at him while toying with her pancakes.

"Going in a dress for today's court? You know how much that bothers Representative Heavyweight. He can't decide if he wants to court you or spit curses behind your back."

Rolled tittered at the thought and pecked at his waffles. "One of these days I'll get him to embarrass himself enough to ruin his credibility, and end his opposition to resolution 49-B."

"Then you should go with the topaz dress clip. I hear he has a thing for that gem," Blue suggested conspiratorially.

Rolled Scroll cooed at the news, but any further discussions were interrupted by a theseral Night Guard who flew in from the lower levels. He looked briefly at Rolled Scroll, yet failed to recognize him, but he knew Blue Flare on sight. With Phoenix Roost's drones becoming a mildly more common sight in Canterlot, he made a mental note of the mystery mare but pressed on. "Ambassador, ma' lady," he said politely while withdrawing a letter from a slot in his armor. "This letter from the Canterlot Reserve arrived for both you and Rolled Scroll."

Only wanting to toy with those in court, Rolled Scroll played the part of a guest, and let Blue Flare speak for them. "Thank you, Corporal Gleaming Blade, I'll be sure to relay it to him."

Taking the letter into her magic, the guard saluted and flew off. Blue found there were actually two identical letters in the envelope and gave one to her counterpart. Both drones hummed with interest. "So," Blue started, "Grandma is transferring all of her trade profits and businesses over to our hive."

"Indeed," Rolled gasped. "Do my eyes deceive me or was she sitting on a thirty million bit bank account?"

"Well, she was trading finished machine goods and salve for coal and steel," Blue commented after her morning sluggishness faded a bit. "It'd make sense she was making a profit."

"Point taken," Rolled conceded. "Either way, if this is used carefully, it could be exactly what the hive needs to be seriously profitable."

"Even with Grandma's drones coming in, this would allow our mothers to continue expanding our industrial base."

"Well isn't that fascinating news," called a trill voice from above.

Both changelings looked up to find an ebony drone with reptilian eyes hanging on the outer wall above them. Blue Flare's mental morning fog evaporated immediately with both drones shoving their chairs away to make ready to fight. Blue Flare fired off a quick bolt of magic to which the chitin clad changeling deflected with an enchanted hoof into the marble wall.

"Is that anyway to greet a friend?" the puppet teased while dropping a rock on top of Blue's pancakes.

The mare was distracted enough to actually look at the rock to find it was the Stone of Parlay. Picking it up in her magic, Blue Flare looked back up at the puppet for ruining her beloved pancakes with her Searing Glare of Aggressive Diplomacy. "What do you want, Chrysalis?"

"Such hostility," Chrysalis purred as the puppet detached from the ceiling and disguised itself as an ordinary pony so the guards wouldn't interrupt them. Both ambassadors backed towards the bedroom to keep the the puppet out and deny it from possibly casting any magical surveillance spells. "I suppose a simple drone wouldn't understand proper manners. It's a wonder you're allowed to play politics."

Letting the insult roll off of him, Rolled Scroll gave the puppet a flat look. "You have called for parlay. State your business and be off with you."

Chrysalis huffed in mocking approval. "I thought you'd like to know that Silandrus is dead. Killed by her own feral drones. Whatever you did to her, I must say bravo, _bravo,_ " she added while clapping her hooves.

"You should take the lesson to heart, Chrysalis," Blue Flare replied with a thinly veiled threat. She cursed not brushing her mane earlier, rendering her attempt at intimidation comical. "Don't screw with us. Now, say your piece and bugger off."

"No time for chit-chat? Or should I wait for your queens to puppet you for small talk?"

Rolled Scroll turned his nose up at the puppet. "We may be bound by the Laws of Parlay, Chrysalis, but the ponies are not. Give me a reason to keep them from tearing you apart when my eight o'clock appointment arrives."

Chrysalis couldn't help but to laugh. "Haven't you guessed yet? I _am_ your eight o'clock."

Blue Flare risked a scathing glare at her counterpart. Why did you tell your appointment to come to _my_ quarters when I look terrible?!

Not the time, Blue, Rolled chided.

Chrysalis' leering smile wanned a little. "Ahh," she cooed wistfully, "I see much of your mothers in both of you, both good and bad." She received a couple of bemused expressions at that. "Either way, I wish to offer your queens a deal."


	49. Chapter 49

Upgrades and Downgrades

Rolled Scroll and Blue Flare stood their ground while giving each other questioning looks before returning their focus to Chrysalis' puppet. "What sort of deal?" they asked in unison.

If Chrysalis had any spite towards the ambassadors' queens not being summoned immediately she didn't show it. "I highly doubt you have any authority to agree or disagree with anything I have to say. So why don't you stop stalling and get their attention?"

Neither drone cared much to humor Chrysalis, but the rules of parley were clear. "Very well," Scroll replied flatly.

With Blue Flare following his lead, the drones communed briefly and closed their eyes. A scant few seconds later, they opened them again to reveal their mothers' eyes. Twilight kept her puppet's stance neutral and poised. Rainbow Dash, however, instantly fell into a combat stance with her horn and wings glowing with lethal intent.

Despite herself, Chrysalis wondered if the blue queen would actually attack her. _With Kreesus' betrayal, I doubt either one of them think there's any use in abiding the Summit's laws._

Thankfully for all involved, the attack never came. Rainbow held herself in check without Twilight's intervention. Chrysalis took a moment to recompose her demeanor before any concern could show through. "Is that any way to greet a _friend_ after I cleared the way for your little evacuation effort?"

"Don't pretend you helped out of the _goodness_ of your heart," Rainbow spat angrily. "You're here to get a favor out of us."

Chrysalis glanced at Twilight who remained unreadable, even going so far as to mask her emotional aura. "It's a bargaining chip, sure, but we are under the laws of parley. I did not lie when I said I had a deal for you, not a demand for recompense."

"Those laws," Twilight butted in with a calculated flat tone, "do not require us to repay you since we never asked for your help."

Chrysalis flashed a toothy smirk of approval. "And my sisters said you were soft." Chrysalis got the satisfaction of getting a faint irritated brow wrinkle from Twilight. "Perhaps you still are, but more out of necessity than anything else I think."

"I can accept being softer than you since I can produce love," Twilight countered with a derisive sneer.

"Ha, I am no stranger to different forms of strength, young one." Chrysalis went so far as to nod in respect. "Silandrus was the very best of the old guard, and look where all that strength got her compared to a little ingenuity from you?"

You don't think she figured out how we swatted that old crone, do you? Rainbow asked her sister while keeping her eyes fixed on Chrysalis.

Don't let anything slip, Twilight warned. She's probing for any information, no matter how small. "We're too busy to play your games, Chrysalis. What do you want?"

Chrysalis snorted in snide amusement. "Undoubtedly." She ran a teasing hoof over her puppet's mane. "I want both of you, and Cadista if she still lives, to never colonize the jungle ever again. Including any of your royal daughters, both present and future. In return, I will stay away from Equestria and its allies. Minus my love collectors of course," she added just slowly enough to not tip her hand.

"You want the jungle all to yourself?" Rainbow growled with grit teeth.

"I knew someone as dense as you could understand if I was blunt enough," Chrysalis sneered. "Although, I'm more than willing to allow you unhindered passage should you wish to enact revenge against Kreesus," she added as if she was giving a supreme gift. For the living embodiment of loyalty itself, it might be just that. "And Summit meetings, of course."

Twilight left her sister to dream up schemes of righteous vengeance and focused more on Chrysalis. "We still have the _Deception,_ gunships, and now a new capital ship. With Equestria behind us, and Luna's guards keeping track of your infiltrators, you can't threaten us with military action or espionage, you have nothing to threaten us with that we can't answer."

"Come now, Queen Twilight Sparkle, there's no need for propaganda between us." Chrysalis' demeanor soured and turned slightly threatening. "You and I both know that none of you could stop all of my infiltrators, let alone detect them all in time should I give the word. In fact…" Chrysalis looked up and to the left as if she was distracted. "It seems as if the dragon matriarch's horde includes some rather volatile gemstones." A look of horror crossed Twilight and Rainbow's faces. "If I recall correctly, those are the same ones a certain green and purple drake gifted her as recompense to keep war between them and Equestria from happening. It would be a horrid tragedy for anything to happen…" Chrysalis created a small firework style explosion of mana to her left.

"Damn your black heart," Rainbow Dash spat venomously.

"You can think what you want of me." Much to the hybrids' surprise, Chrysalis flared with insulted anger of her own. "I do what is necessary! Do we have an accord or not?"

Twilight glowered with rage at her adopted brother basically being held for ransom. Yet with Cadista losing the will to rebuild, it was ultimately not a terrible offer. "I want _all_ of your infiltrators out of Equestria. The collectors can stay, but no more spying. No more sabotage like that!"

"And I want you to defuse those gem bombs!" Rainbow Dash demanded heatedly.

"And anything else you set up as contingencies," Twilight finished.

Smirking all the while, Chrysalis narrowed her eyes in victory. "I need to hear the words. Do you agree? I stay out of the alliance, and you mostly stay away from the jungle."

"Agreed," both former equestrians answered in unison. "Now give us all your sabotage plans!"

The unified speech disturbed Chrysalis greatly, but she was quick to assume it was an intimidation tactic. "So our words are bound by law. I would give all those plans, but they don't exist."

"What are talking about?" Twilight growled heatedly, "under Parley, lying is forbidden."

"And I haven't. Those explosive gems were a contingency plan Silandrus set in motion." Rainbow Dash still didn't believe her, but Twilight held more respect for Parley than her sister. Thus far, she had never heard of Chrysalis ever betraying those laws. "You'd be _surprised_ at all of the schemes and plans our race's late matriarch had written down. I must admit it was quite humbling."

"As if you could feel humility," Rainbow snapped.

"That's rich coming from you," Chrysalis rebuked with a sly grin. "In respect to the thorough account of your investigation into the history of our species, Queen Twilight Sparkle, I will of course give you a full record of all of Silandrus' activities against your alliance. That should square our accounts." _With all of the territory my bloodline will acquire with them out of the picture, I can finally form a true changeling empire._

"We'll need it in writing," Twilight demanded. "Along with your sisters' signatures as well."

"I'll have my people contact yours," Chrysalis replied with mockery more at pony businessmen rather than the queens in front of her.

Chrysalis turned to leave, retrieving her Stone of Parley from where Blue Flare had dropped it. Twilight called out to her with a snide tone of her own. "I hope you're treating my grandchildren properly." Chrysalis turned her head back to the purple puppet wearing a knowing half-smile. "It'd be a tragedy for this accord to be nulled if I catch word they're being mistreated."

Chrysalis glanced at Rainbow Dash who mirrored her sister's smug look. "Give us a reason, _please."_

In spite of the sisters' threats, Chrysalis covered her mouth and started laughing with far too much mirth for her rivals' liking. Twilight and Rainbow's mood soured even further at Chrysalis' apparent flippancy. "You, you know," Chrysalis finally managed between chuckles, "my sisters were so sure that neither of you found out about that. But," she waggled a hoof at Twilight, "I knew, _I knew,_ you were smarter than that."

"Flattery will get you nowhere with me, Chrysalis. I have given you my warning. Our brood will leave the jungle to you, on the condition my grandchildren are properly cared for."

 _Oh, there are so many definitions of 'proper care' these days._ "Humor me, for a moment, won't you, Queen Twilight Sparkle? Why did you let my sisters and I walk in and out unscathed? I have my theories, but it doesn't hurt to ask directly."

"Because we're not going to put in all the security measures it would take to keep you and the others away from our sons," Rainbow Dash answered for the pair. "And even if we did take those measures, one of you was bound to find a way regardless, and our sons' suffering would have been meaningless. Besides…"

The two sisters started speaking as one. "By having our grandchildren, the changeling species as a whole, will either evolve further than you think, or your prize will turn sour." Chrysalis was now fully unnerved by the perfect choirs between her rivals. While she fully believed the two queens were linked to the same hive mind, such matching speech should only be possible with puppets. "We believe our daughters and granddaughters will reshape the changeling species for the better. Provided you don't kill them for failing to produce love."

 _They've wound themselves closer together than a unified hive mind should permit._ Much of Chrysalis' earlier mirth evaporated. _I need time to think on this little wrinkle._ "I will keep that in mind." Donning a pegasus royal guard disguise, the ebony drone fled through the open balcony.

Rainbow Dash would have asked if Chrysalis would be true to her word, but Twilight's contemplative demeanor was all she needed to know her sister thought she would. "So what do we do? Leave our grandkids to Sticky Spit and the rest of them, or try rescuing them?"

Twilight shook her head, but her gaze remained unfocused as she thought. "They'd be as much our children, as they are of the other queens. Aside from the next Summit council, we have no way of knowing who has laid our grandchildren. The others would hide those daughters as much as possible."

"Wait a minute," Rainbow Dash said with alarm, "don't the rules say a queen has to petition the Summit leader for one to be called? But we can't vote on a new one until all the other queens stop fighting each other!"

Twilight nodded, knowing what her sister was going for. "We all played to Chrysalis' benefit, and anypony else who has our grandchildren." She stopped and looked down at herself. _Crap, I forgot I'm still using Scroll's body._ "We'll talk this over in our own bodies."

Giving thanks to their ambassadors, the queens faded from their bodies. Blue Flare shivered with excitement after riding out the feeling of her queen possessing her. "Ahhhh, yeesss!" She started buzzing her wings to cool herself. "Being one with mother like that is utter bliss." Blue Flare rolled around on the floor, hugging herself to get the feeling to last as long as possible.

Typically, Rolled Scroll would join her, but the news worried him greatly. _Mother's playing a dangerous game. I wonder what our hive's freedom will cost us in the future._

* * *

Cadista was inside Twilight's alchemical supply warehouse, fishing for various reagents. Several harshly bright white lights along the ceiling provided ample light to the labels of each vial or crate. The grey queen was still wrapped up in gauze and casts. Her regenerating wings were only barely starting to bud, and would be useless for another month or so.

Limping all the way from the hospital she was supposed to be stuck in wasn't exactly an easy feat, but the Day of Mourning from yesterday had cleared her head enough to motivate her. The clatter of her crutches resounded as she found what she was looking for and used her magic to pull a wheeled cart over. After filling some empty containers of the amounts she needed, Cadista was about to move on when the door creaked open, revealing an exasperated Twilight Sparkle. "Mother! You're supposed to be in bed until you can be fitted for a prosthetic."

Cadista shook an ornery hoof at her daughter and grumbled impatiently. "I don't have time for that, and fitting me now would be a waste of time."

Judging from the amount of fire and drive in Cadista's tone, Twilight guessed she didn't plan on hurting herself. "Why not? Have you finally reconsidered rebirth to heal?" she asked with surging hope.

"No, I have not," Cadista replied flatly. She paused in her search to cast an eye at Twilight. "I will say no more until you can figure out my motive on your own." _That should buy me a few seconds to keep searching._

Half of Twilight was miffed about not getting a straight answer, while the other half was glad her mother's mood was high enough to give her a test. "Well…" she took a deep breath while slipping right into her comfort zone. "You snuck in here without telling anypony, except for these two who are still connected to you," Twilight pointed to her brothers supporting their mother, "thus you made sure no link-chatter passed through me. Plus there's the fact you didn't ask me about my stock. So, you wanted to come here in secret.

"It can't be rebirth research since you keep shutting that idea down. It wouldn't be for drone research since you could do that via puppet while resting your body. You mentioned a prosthetic won't matter yet so this is obviously something that you need to do before bothering with a new leg which could only mean. That. You…" Twilight gasped at the shock of comprehension. "You want to use alchemy on yourself without a rebirth." She looked at the reagent laden cart. "You wouldn't need that many supplies if this was something small."

She rushed over to look at what Cadista had gathered and started listing all her mother had collected. "You're… You're trying to dilute your royal blood!"

Cadista grabbed a bottle and placed it in the cart, only for Twilight to snatch it up and inspect the label. "Not dilute," she looked at her mother with horror, "You want to suppress it completely!"

"Very good, my daughter." Cadista saw that she had everything she needed and summoned one of her sons to take the cart, and the other to help her walk to a mixing lab. "It is my solution to the 'three queen' problem we have."

"B-but you'll cripple yourself!" Twilight chased after her limping mother. "You've been a royal for who knows how many lifetimes! You'd be destroying part of who you are!"

Cadista was leaning heavily on her military son who bore her weight without complaint. "I lost half of who I was to Chrysalis all those years ago. Losing a bit more won't make much of a difference." _Not if I do this,_ she mused, keeping the thought tightly to herself.

"You don't need to do this!" Twilight whisper-screamed, trying to keep from panicking the drones they were passing. "You could set up a temporary hive in Equestria. Princess Celestia and Luna have already invited you to set up shop in Manehattan!"

"I told you, I'm not rebuilding. I only have two roles left in life, and one of them is being your mentor." Cadista looked into the eyes of her nervous and loving daughter. "There's not much left that I can teach you, young one. Even if Stripped Gear had not been attacked, you would have surpassed me within a decade at the very most. Any resources used to rebuild my hive would be better spent for Aegis or your next pair of royal daughters."

Cadista hobbled into the mixing room and flicked the lights on. As with the storehouse before it, the mixing/alchemical research lab was spotless to an extreme. Several glass pots ranging from small milliliters to large vats were all arranged from smallest to largest. The typical cleaning chemical smell was absent due to the large ventilation fan on the roof to keep the cleaning fumes from contaminating the alchemical components.

Twilight stuck her head in from the hallway as Cadista made herself at home. "No matter what I say, or any argument I use, you're going through with this anyway, aren't you?" Sad reservation colored her voice.

"Your sister isn't the only one who can be stubborn." Cadista let her sons set the reagents on the table so she could look at her morose daughter. "I have to do this, Twilight." Her gaze fell as her mind wandered to Kreesus. _We are such prideful fools, the lot of us. Was I the one who betrayed Kreesus first? Was she only returning the favor?_ So many happy memories between the grey and red queens flashed past her mind's eyes. Each of them tainted by the destruction of Stripped Gear. _I have tried, but Twilight and Rainbow would never understand Kreesus or her actions. Not like I do._

Twilight buzzed over to join her mother's side, forcing Cadista to abandon her brooding. "Then at least let me help you. Two minds are better than one."

Despite herself, Cadista snorted in pained amusement. A week was not enough to be able to laugh without her ribs hurting. "Hence why Phoenix's Roost and Equestria are as successful as they are." Her mood grew stern. "Before we continue. Why did you allow the other queens to mate with your sons?"

Twilight used her magic to turn the mixers on and pull over several beakers. "You mean besides having to force all of my drones to be female, and keeping my consorts locked within their rooms so spies can't get to them?"

"Now is not the time to be cute, honey."

"As you wish, mother. It's because of Gethar's curse."

Cadista paused to contemplate what she knew of it. Ultimately she didn't see much in it, just the rantings of a vengeful spirit. "What of it?"

"That curse was so strong he bound it completely into our species, and it's still active even today." Twilight glanced at Cadista's disbelieving face. "It's the whole reason we die without love, and how most of us cannot produce usable love. I can't test it, but I think the curse latched onto our nervous system especially, which would explain why that system is the most affected by the curse."

"I see… Strong curses can taint an entire family line until the end of days." Cadista found it difficult to focus on her alchemy. "But if you're thinking you're immune due to you being a pony originally, that wouldn't explain why other pony transformees have never produced love before."

"Ahh, but you yourself told me that all other former ponies before me were _completely_ converted into a _full_ changeling. You left most of my brain as a pony. As a result, all of my children, and Rainbow since her pseudo-rebirth was based on Aegis, have mostly pony brains. I came to that conclusion after figuring out why some of Ratchet's children couldn't produce love, and yet every single one of my other drones could produce it at their hatching day."

"Interesting," Cadista said with mounting pride. "So you realized that your strain always allows love, but any diluting of that runs a good chance of that production failing."

"Yup! That's why I am exceedingly careful every time I alter my children's nervous system."

Cadista still wasn't fully satisfied yet. "But that still leaves a chance the other queens could get a loving daughter."

"Not quite," Twilight rebuffed with a rapidly fading smile. She finished setting the lab up for her mother, and waiting for Cadista to finish her own set up. "Some of my other children have stopped being able to produce love on their own, even after becoming adults."

That stunned Cadista more than Kreesus' betrayal. The fact that this was the first she had heard of it, and that it would happen at all. "What?! Why?"

That caused Twilight's mood to sour further into disappointment and sadness. "They became hateful and anti-social. Something you'd think a loving hive mind would suppress, but it happened regardless."

"Such is the risk of allowing drones to be sapient," Cadista added sympathetically. The context of Twilight's comment finally sunk in. "You _knew_ the other queens were raised harshly to survive not only the jungles, but other queens as well."

"You taught me that," Twilight interjected.

"That I did. So between that, your diluted blood, and their harsh upbringing, the chance of a rival queen producing a loving daughter are almost non-existent!"

"Precisely!" Twilight replied triumphantly with some of her good humor returning. "The only way to salvage them would be to raise those daughters the Equestrian way. So long as the current queens keep trying to have _my_ loving granddaughters, the very heart and soul of our species will become Equestrian."

Cadista huffed out of disbelief before chuckling out of sheer pride. Not even her pained ribs could dampen her mirth. "Twilight, my dear, geniuses are a dime a dozen compared to you."

"Thank you, mother. I just wish my sons' freedom didn't come at the cost of my granddaughters' suffering."

Cadista leveled a steely gaze at her morose daughter. "You made a hard decision, as any queen must do for the good of the hive." She met Twilight's gaze. Despite her pain, Cadista could see her daughter would make the same decision all over again. Biting back the pain of torn muscle and mending bones, Cadista nuzzled Twilight, halting the onset of tears. "You are a stronger queen than I am, Twilight. And I have never been prouder to call you my daughter."

Relishing her mother's intense pride, Twilight nuzzled her back. Some of the weight of her choice lifted at Cadista's approval, but only just. It was in that moment that she realized the hidden meaning in her mother's praise. _She's making a hard choice, just as I did…_

The hiss of steam announced the mixers were ready, prompting Twilight to separate from Cadista. "So, where do we start?"

* * *

Blitz stood by Aegis' side with the last of her filled memory crystals resting on the ground next to her. Four caretakers were putting the finishing touches on the rebirth pod in front of the future royal. The pod itself was the size of a queen to give the alchemical mixture enough space to fully saturate its future occupant. The highly complex alchemical components had been meticulously crafted by Twilight the previous day, and waited in a vat hanging above the pod.

The blue drone stared at her fractured reflection in the crystal, gazing mostly at her softly glowing eyes. Her fur was still damp from the extensive shower to clean out any contaminants in her fur and hooves. Blitz still found it difficult to imagine having royal eyes. Aegis stood by her side on two legs, which was quickly becoming her de facto posture. The purple princess squeezed Blitz into a sidelong hug, which ended up with Blitz pressed against Aegis' kidneys. "Hey, what's with the squashed face? You're totally perfect for this."

"Glad you think so," Blitz fiddled with her hooves. "How can you be so sure? This isn't just being an engineer. We're going to rule a _whole_ hive. This is historic!" She looked at Aegis' incredulously self-assured face. "No matter what, we're going to shape the future, and I don't know if I'm the best option! What if somepony better than me didn't enter the running?"

"Then they weren't better," Aegis stated flatly. "You volunteered where others didn't. You're crazy smart in all the ways I'm not. I think we'll be even better than our mommas for sure!"

"Your modesty always surprises me," Rainbow Dash quipped as she came in for a landing. By now, the caretakers were ready for Blitz to enter the chrysalis, and stood by on the elevated platforms above the pod.

Aegis only shrugged, but kept her tone respectful. "Hey, I'll be the first to say you and momma make an awesome possum team, but Blitz and I were like, designed for each other. Or soon will be," She added with a smirk.

Rainbow snorted in amusement before looking to her pensive daughter. "It's not too late. You can still back out if you want. You know I won't think any less of you. I was freaked at the idea of becoming a queen myself, you know."

Rainbow's early days as a full changeling were was hardly a secret. Blitz looked up at her proud mother with a searching gaze. "But you weren't really left with a choice like I am. How can you or Aegis be certain that I'm the best pick?"

"We can't," Rainbow stated bluntly, catching Blitz a little off guard with the admission. Rainbow Dash knew exactly how to answer Blitz's question after living with 'Miss OCD' herself for so long. "You're an engineer, Blitzy, your whole world is numbers and exact measurements. But when it comes to rule, sometimes you just gotta go with your gut. Your tests can tell a lot, but we can only stack the deck to a point. Ultimately it's a leap of faith." Rainbow knelt down and squashed Blitz into a motherly bear hug. "I know you'll do me proud, my girl. You're too awesome to fail, and that's a fact!"

Emboldened by her mother's love and assurances, Blitz returned the hug with all her strength. For a long minute, Rainbow Dash kept embracing her daughter for as long as Blitz needed. Eventually, Blitz broke the embrace and flew up to the hole on top of the chrysalis. "I'll do everything I can to be worthy of this, momma. I promise you that."

"I know you will, champ," Rainbow flew up to hoof bump her.

With that, Blitz squeezed through the hole face-first and shimmied herself to stand upright in the cramped pod. The caretakers pulled a hose from the alchemical vat above and started pouring it in. The thick liquid was thankfully warm as it splashed across Blitz's back and weighed her wings down. Through the barely transparent wax shell, Blitz could see Aegis and Rainbow placing a hoof on the side.

Smiling, Blitz was filled with courage, and placed her own hoof to meet theirs. There they remained until the thick blue liquid reached her head. Rainbow sent over some calming thoughts to suppress Blitz's instinctive fear of drowning.

Exhaling as much air as possible, Blitz dunked her head under the oxygenated liquid and breathed in as much as possible. She coughed a few times as she expelled the last of the air. The alchemical components took hold shortly after filling her lungs, causing Blitz to fall into a deep sleep.

The caretakers finished filling up the rest of the chrysalis. Once done, they left a valve on top and attached a crane to the pod so it could be lifted up to the hundreds of hatchery racks so it could be safe and sound until Blitz was ready to emerge.

Rainbow Dash made sure to keep a close eye on Blitz's hive-voice, and eagerly awaited the day she would reawaken. Aegis' wings were buzzing as dreams of her future hive, standing side by side with Blitz, filled her with impatient excitement. "Sis' made sure that when Blitz awakens, that both of you will have the same physical maturation. That way you should become proto-queens at the same time."

"Sounds good to me." Aegis took to the air and orbited her aunt a few times out of sheer delight. "I'm about to freak out here! Blitz is freaking _perfect!_ Our hive's totally going to rock!" As she orbited Rainbow Dash, Aegis looked out across the hatchery, and the rows upon rows of purple and blue chrysalises. _One of these days those will be our eggs, Blitz._ She ached to have Burny with her so she could spew a ring of fire around in celebration. Well maybe not right there with the eggs.

"It's a lot of work," Rainbow said knowingly, causing Aegis to drop back to two hooves. "What are you going to do to make that future hive of yours stronger while Blitz is fermenting?"

Aegis rocked back and forth on her back legs, relishing how much easier bipedal movement was becoming. "Well I need to finish mastering my strain." She swept a foreleg – no, her arms at her legs. _That's what the minotaurs call their upper limbs. I don't care if they still qualify as legs, because at some point, I'll be getting those shifting hands from the sphinxes._ Shaking her internal reflection away, Aegis refocused on Rainbow Dash. "I've already got half of that done. Now I just need to work on my hands."

Aegis saw the veiled look of disappointment from Rainbow Dash, and spoke quickly before her aunt could speak. "I mean, since I'm going to be the hive's general that also includes martial prowess. I need to learn how to adapt hoof-to-hoof combat so that I can teach it to my kids." _Or would that be hoof-to-hand now?_

"If that's what you think is best," Rainbow Dash replied crytically before taking to the air and buzzed towards the exit. A word of advice, wait until Blitz wakes up before starting to adapt weapons and armor since she's the engineer. Ratchet's busy with the new capital ship Granny sent us.

Aegis wanted to stay for a little longer and look up at Blitz's cocoon. I'll start with the minotaur fighting styles once I can control my hands better.

With Rainbow Dash seemingly satisfied for now, Aegis smiled up at Blitz. _We're going to change the world, you and I. I can't wait to get started!_

However, such thoughts of conquest of the history books were cut short by Rainbow Dash. There was an air of teasing that colored her voice, much to Aegis' chagrin. How about you worry about getting into Rasua's good graces first? If you really plan on incorporating shapeshifting hoofs and hands into yourself, you might want to start winning her over on the idea as early as possible. Or steal some of her hair or a bit of blood somehow so your mother can divine how to make shifting hooves and hands. Which might be difficult if Rasua never leaves her room for anything except meals.

A shiver ran through Aegis' spine at the prospect. What a joy that will be.

Hey Twilight still keeps dragging me to diplomatic meetings. This your chance to learn some good ol fashion plot kissing. Enjoy!

A figurative storm cloud boomed over Aegis' head. She groaned while leaping into the air to find the fearful sphinx. This is just some excuse so you and momma can avoid talking to her about psychics.

Rainbow somehow managed to let off a nasal laugh over the Link. Don't blame us. You two were the ones who wanted to make a hive near the Stratholme's border. Better start learning the mind of the chimp-cat-birds reeaaalll quick.

So help me if I see you sleeping on a cloud, I'm going to freak!

Then I'll just hide my cloud better. Good luck, Aegis! Rainbow cheered with a sly grin. By now she was outside and found a large cloud high in the air. _As if I ever get a chance to_ _just_ nap anymore. Ah well, I finally have some time to investigate that 'carrier' Granny's crew had been working on.


	50. Chapter 50

Carrier has Arrived

Rainbow Dash left the hatchery with profound pride in Blitz for committing to a royal rebirth, but also in herself as well. Blitz's initial hesitation drew up some strong memories as Rainbow made her way over to the covered airship hangar. _That reminds me so much of how scared I was when I found out I was a royal bug. But now…_

She looked around at all the changelings buzzing around the hive, with a growing portion of them sharing her rainbow mane and blue color. _If I told my old self I'd rather be a queen than a Wonderbolt anyway, she'd probably deck me upside the head. And now I've got a royal daughter._

The thought of it drove her queenly expansionist instincts to new heights. _I'm giving rise to more hives. Once Aegis and Blitz are all settled in… I want more royal daughters. I think Twi will agree that we should blanket the Chaos lands with our hives. And once Blitz's hive is ready, she'll no doubt create her own royal daughters so we can do it even faster!_

Rainbow swooned to the mental picture of hive mind of that size, a chorus filled with millions of voices. Just thinking about that far off day excited her to the point where she was getting heated. By the time she arrived at the hangar, her pheromones were in overdrive, not that she noticed. _I can never thank Aegis enough for giving me that circlet!_

However, no matter how much her life as a queen made Rainbow Dash happy, there was always one thing in the back of her mind that yearned for the past. The omnipresent buzz of her gossamer wings was comforting, but it was no replacement for the sound of feathers upon the wind. _I don't care how alchemically hard it is, one of these days I'll get my feathers back. Granny already had us become more pony like by giving us fur and proper manes. There's no reason I can't figure out the wings someday._

Fortunately for the drones inside the closed hangar, the warship within distracted Rainbow Dash enough to subdue her queenly instincts, and by extension, her pheromones as well.

The so called "carrier" was lit up by large numbers of lights and one way skylights. It was actually fifty meters longer than the _Deception,_ but much to Rainbow's confusion it only had a paltry number of small anti-air guns. _Well whatever it is, they certainly aren't calling it a carrier of big guns._

Rainbow Dash scowled at that as she continued to inspect the exterior. The top of the ship looked more akin to a short stretch of road than anything else, with what she assumed was a command tower off to one side. Rainbow circled the hangar's interior to get a view of the ship from all sides. Overall the ship looked like a long square box, although tapering towards the front a ways. Along the sides of the ship were two boxy wings where large propeller engines sat idle. Finally, both sides had what looked like long thick steam pipes just outside a matching dimple in the hull which ran from a few meters beyond the stern to what looked like a big exterior mana engine that easily dwarfed a queen.

Curiosity drove Rainbow to inspect the steam pipes a little closer. _Why have pipes on the outside?_ Two pipes split off from the engine and curved back to being parallel with a much thicker third one running straight out the back. Support scaffolding crisscrossed the three all the way to the stern where the two outer pipes reconnected in the shape of a flat circle with the center pipe doing the same to form two circles of pipes.

The other big thing that caught Rainbow's eye was the complete lack of lift propellers that were supposed to keep the ship from falling. _Sure it has forward propellers, but how does this thing get any lift? Should I even bother mentioning those paltry deck guns? I hope Granny didn't send us a fancy new freighter. Sure we could use one, but everyone from SG was saying this is a fancy new weapons platform._

Seeing nothing else of interest, Rainbow flew towards the command tower. Numerous drones of all three coat colors covered the vessel. Though it was mostly the grey ones showing the purple and blues how to crew the ship.

The command tower itself had far too much open window for Rainbow's liking for what she assumed was the bridge. As she expected, Captain Rourke was present along with four grey drones. Rainbow hailed them over the Link before teleporting through the glass.

"My queen," the group announced together with polite shallow bows before Rourke spoke alone. "Chief Scientist White Phosphorus was just explaining the command center to me. I have to say, this vessel is by far the most interesting weapon to date."

Rainbow had to suppress from rolling her eyes, but she couldn't help but give a disillusioned scowl. "Then you know something I don't, 'cause this all looks like a big fancy freighter to me."

White Phosphorus would have berated anyone who insulted his brainchild other than a queen. Thankfully for him, Rourke spoke for him in a much more amused tone than he was capable of. "Well, my queen, you're half right." Both she and Rainbow looked to the scientist.

"Yes, well, you see, your highness, it is not the ship itself that is dangerous, I grant you." He spoke with a grumbling tone that betrayed years of being mocked by his colleagues. He still took vindictive pride that only Cadista saw the merit. "This vessel is designed to carry, service, and launch the _real_ threat this ship brings to bear."

"Care to show me?" Rainbow Dash replied with mild interest. "I don't know what could be more threatening than creating bigger guns."

White Phosphorus turned towards the stairs, mostly so he could hide his vindictive smirk. "Sometimes it's not the size of the gun you use, but how you wield it. Come, I'll show you!"

Giving an amused snort, the comment reminded Rainbow of her military career. _Just like Spitfire always said, the right amount of force at the right spot makes all the difference. Alright, I'll bite, Whitey._ She followed after him with the rest of the group lining up behind her. She was led through various aluminum corridors where passing drones stood at attention at Rainbow's passing. _Guess having all steel is too heavy._

The group quickly found themselves within a large hangar. _Heh, a hangar within a hangar._ Rainbow was about to voice a colorful barb when White Phosphorus pointed with a wing at a small vehicle as he kept walking. "This is the true weapon of my carrier."

"It's a little small for a gunship isn't it?"

"Some of the pilots got it in their heads to call this a biplane," Coal Chute replied with a slight chuckle to hopefully break the ice a bit. "On account of the two sets of forward wings. I think it's a simple and apt name for its type."

Rainbow took careful examination of the biplane. It was nine meters long with two straight wings in front, with one a half a meter above the other. A third set of shorter wings in the form of an inverted 'T" was located at the tail. Only a single propeller engine sat at the front.

The frame itself looked to be of extremely sturdy construction, thought Rainbow admitted she knew little of manufacturing methods. Two large flak cannons were slung under the lower wing near the fuselage, with the barrels being just beyond the edge of the propeller blades. There was an open cockpit for a single pilot with only a small windshield in front.

The cannons had feeds snaking to the section behind the pilot. Finally, there was a repeat of the carrier's exterior curved piping that ran from the bottom of the engine to the tail. Rainbow finally clicked that the piping looked sort of like a tubular hollow sword with a circular end instead of a sharp tip.

Rainbow Dash had seen enough fancy gadgets and gizmos to know White Phosphorus was just _begging_ to be asked how the machine worked. "You know, I'm just going to leave the explanations on _how_ this thing gets off the ground to my sister. Just tell me about why we should dedicate so many resources to them."

"As you wish," White Phosphorus said with supreme effort to keep a growl out of his voice at such disinterest. "The problem with warships like the _Deception_ is that they are slow and vulnerable to attack once entering the combat zone. Let's be real here. The other queens have been watching us for hundreds of years. One day they'll figure out how to use that mana artillery they used on my home against a high flying warship. The further away we are from those launchers the better.

"Both Yumia and Mother Cadista's anticipated that for a long time," White Phosphorus continued with a prideful smile. "She's been working on these single pilot aircraft designs off and on far longer than she was trying to redesign Queen Twilight Sparkle. You're looking at the culmination of countless years of airship developments. " Rainbow Dash gave him a disbelieving eyebrow at such a claim.

"That's impressive and all that," Rainbow yawned, ready for a nap, "but that doesn't really answer my question."

One of White Phosphorus' brothers saw he was about to explode and stepped forward to head him off. "Queen Rainbow Dash, simply put, this aircraft can reach long distance targets, at far greater range than the _Deception_ 's guns can reach. It can move ten times faster, strike a distant target and return. And with this ship acting as a mobile hangar, we have potentially unlimited range for them."

After spending so much time with the _Deception,_ Rainbow Dash had a thing with big guns. "It doesn't seem like a game changer to me. Still…" The more she thought about it, the more her military mind searched for possible uses. "These probably would have been useful during the last siege."

White Phosphorus jumped on the thought. "My thoughts exactly, your highness. In fact, had you been in command of this vessel instead of the _Deception_ you could have projected your firepower a good eight hours sooner."

"Maybe, but these small things don't have the staying power of my flagship," Rainbow countered evenly. "And every new tech requires more repair time than stuff that's tried and true."

"Your highness," White Phosphorus insisted with all the tact he could muster. "The world changes daily and the other hives evolve just as quickly. As stalwart as your defense of the _Deception_ was, it nearly failed. We _need_ to keep expanding our arsenal to keep up. With mother's trade assets being transferred over to Phoenix's Roost, there's no reason we can't finish outfitting the carrier to be a potent weapon."

Rainbow Dash glanced around the hangar deck. There were several other aircraft, but most of them were incomplete or in some obvious state of disrepair. "How many of these things do you have available?"

Coal Chute tried to mask his embarrassment. "Only one is operational for now. We lost most of our parts and other fighters when our hive was laid to waste. We barely managed to save the blueprints for everything, but at the cost of most of the ship's crew, including the pilots. Hence why we're training some of your naval staff."

"So you have a ship with turrets taken off a gunship and only one aircraft to its name. Is that fair to say?"

Captain Rourke politely cleared her throat and spoke with the measured calm Rainbow had come to expect from her. "To be fair, my queen, the carrier was barely into its first trial run when the attacks started. It's a testament to its design that it made it from SG to the Roost without breaking down." The grey drones warmed up under the praise. "At the very least, Cadista saw the merit for it. I think we should trust her wisdom and vision."

An inch. Even with Rourke's advice, Rainbow was just an inch from scraping the ship for parts to build a proper ship of the line. "Aside from having to devote a factory or two to building the aircraft, and constructing a second hangar for it, is there any other major support infrastructure we're going to need to bring the carrier up to snuff?"

White Phosphorus and the others shuffled around nervously. Their silence only proved to exasperate Rainbow Dash even further. "Well, your majesty, there is the slight issue of needing a pegasi-mana enriched fuel for the steam engines for the ship to rise. I won't trouble you with the laundry list of various compounds of the mixture, but I can tell you that fabricating it would only require an expansion on your oil refinery."

Even though she was the hive's overall commander, Rainbow Dash knew exactly the productive capacity of the hive's armories, including oil refinement. "You _do_ know all of our ships still run on coal right? We only have a refinery for flamethrowers, lubricants, and whatever else my sister requires. We're nowhere near ready to supply this fuel guzzler!"

"And the biplanes," Rourke added flatly. 'Their new engines require it as well." Rainbow Dash couldn't help it any longer and dragged a hoof across her face out of supreme annoyance. "Even with these logistical problems, my queen, I still think this will be an excellent addition. Just remember the historic arguments of those championing the first crude firearms over crossbows."

Of all the things Yumia and Cadista forgot of their history, only the recordings of those arguments survived to this day. She thought over it for close to five minutes before Rainbow heaved a sigh. "You guys are lucky we got a big cash injection. Write up what you need and pass it on to the treasury." She started cantering back the way she came. "I want demonstrations within the week."

The group of engineers and one scientist cheered, even if a bit prematurely and quickly thanking Rourke for her assistance before brainstorming how to abide Rainbow's command. For her part, Rourke took the gratitude with more than a little enthusiasm before calling out to her aunt. My Queen, the carrier still doesn't have a name. Care to give it one?

Pah! There's only one thing that'll fit this money pit. We'll call it the _Longshot._


	51. Chapter 51

Alchemy

If there were two things that could surmount fear, it would be thirst and hunger. Rasua had put on an air of stoic calm as she made her way from the ambassador quarters of the castle and out to the closest food court.

Every drone she passed was courteous enough. Most gave passing greetings, and casual acknowledgements. None of them seemed to be trying to liquefy her brain with mind bullets, so that was a plus. _I'm going to be stuck in this techno bug hive for who knows how long. If they_ do _end up frying my brain, I at least want to die with a full stomach._

Unbeknownst to her, Aegis had Intel and her squad on standing orders to shadow Rasua the moment she left the ambassador wing.

Intel was perched upon a cloud above the dining area when Rasua arrived. Aegis, our guest is eating. Thunderfury says her aura's cloudy, but she seems much calmer compared to the last few days.

Aegis was cantering past the Tree of Harmony and hit the barrier just outside the cave. The barrier itself felt like soft taffy as she shoved her way through. You think she's gotten over the fact that we're all psychic?

Intel unfurled her spyglass to take a closer look. Rasua flagged down a waitress with what looked like a friendly, if perhaps neutral expression. Intel's query towards the waitress drew the same conclusion. Well she's not trying to drench us in holy water anymore so we have noticeable improvement. She couldn't help but chuckle at _that_ particular memory.

In her attempt to exit the cave, Aegis had got her left leg caught in the barrier, and was now buzzing her wings and scrabbling on the ground in a bid to free herself. _Aw come on! Moooom! Why did you have to retune the shield frequency on me!_

It took a minute, but Aegis was finally able to yank her leg free. Alright, I'll be right over to talk to her.

* * *

Rasua was discovering the wonderful world of waffles and maple syrup. The exquisite sugary delight was interrupted by the waitress returning with an omelet and bacon laden plate right as Aegis came in for a landing next to the table.

"Heyya, Rasua, glad to see you finally poked your head out of your bedroom. Mind if I join you?"

"This is your city, Princess, you can sit wherever you please," Rasua replied with forced warmness.

Aegis was starting to get better at reading Rasua's emotional aura, and was able to pierce the friendly mask to find the undercurrent of fear. "Still, I think it's polite to at least ask."

The pair lapsed into silence long enough for each of them to take a bite. "So are you finally chill with all of us being… psykers, I think you said?"

"I have come to the realization that I have been letting my fear get the better of me, and as such I am making a poor example for my species."

"Fear can be a powerful influence," Aegis replied evenly with a mouth full of egg. "But I'm glad you are at least trying to see us as more than just brain-stealing insects."

The constant buzzing sound from all the flying drones still brought shivers up her spine. "Y-yes, well, it helps that you're sapient and at least _look_ half mammal."

"All is well then..." Aegis trailed off as she enjoyed a few more bites and some apple juice. The pause started to worry Rausa. "Except for one thing."

 _And so falls the other anklet._ Rasua's fork paused in front of her mouth. The syrup threatened to drop onto her lap as she tried to guess as to why Aegis' tone with mildly sour. "And that is?"

Aegis chewed her food for a couple of bites to make Rasua sweat. "This agreement to have some of your psyker friends settle in Alliance territory." She stabbed an egg laden fork at her pensive feline associate. "You played me like a drum to get that agreement for nothing more than to show you we Lings are moral people."

To her credit, Rasua looked insulted. "I don't know what you're talking about it."

"Oh don't gimme that!" Aegis snarked back. "A show of morality for sanctuary for a whole group of people?"

"Are you saying you're backing out now?" Rasua replied with condescending tone.

It was Aegis' turn to finally set terms. "No, we'll still help you with it, but we need a couple of concessions from you to show that we are _all_ honorable people."

Rasua chewed her latest bite very slowly to think. "I brought little money with me."

"Nothing so materialistic as that," Aegis replied with a slight chuckle. "First off, if these sphinxes are settling Alliance territory, they will not be some outpost of the Federation. They have to become citizens of the Alliance, with all the allegiances that entails. Since your own people can't stand them, that shouldn't be an issue."

"I can pass that along to my contacts," Rasua replied with a small amount of disappointment. "Some might not agree to that."

"Well they will have to if they want to come here," Aegis replied coldly. "The second thing I want is some of your blood."

Rasua gave Aegis a look like she was crazy. "What could you possibly want my blood for!?"

"Because I want those," Aegis pointed a mechanical finger at Rasua's hands. "These metal hands are clunky, and a pain the flank for numerous reasons. If I could peel the alchemical secret to shifting flesh and blood hands out of your blood, then I'd be one very happy bug."

 _Does she_ really _have to keep reminding me she's an insect?_ Rasua started nervously wringing her hands. "You don't need to actually _do_ anything to my hands, do you?"

"Nothing outside of just drawing some blood." Aegis smiled, purposely showing off her fangs.

"…I can agree to that," Rasua started with a bit of fire, "but I remember what you said about altering yourselves after others. I want assurances that you will destroy any information you gain about any other part of my body. It's a matter of personal privacy." _Not that a race of psykers could understand the concept._

"You have my word," Aegis replied with a victorious smirk. She was practically salivating at the prospect of having morphing hands. "So as a sign of good faith, why don't you come down with me to the clinic to get that blood taken care of right after breakfast, and then we'll make sure your letter back to Stratholme gets there in good time."

Rasua had little choice in the matter but to extend her trust on the matter. "That's fair. However, I would like to ask some questions first."

"As long it's not classified," Aegis returned agreeably. She took the time to polish off her omelet and paused before ordering a second one. The gears started churning in her head as she suppressed a growing grin. _If she asks what I think she'll ask._ Bow Tie, I'd like some soup for my friend and I.

"I think I remember you mentioning that any drone would willingly agree to… something you called a rebirth."

Rasua's request brought Aegis back to the present. "That's right."

"What does this rebirth process entail, exactly?"

"No one's ever really asked that before, I don't think." Aegis was suddenly aware of how problematic a true answer might be. "Well… the root alchemy compounds, array carved into the pod or floor, and the right spellwork first put the person to sleep and cuts off all pain reception. Then the body basically breaks down into a liquid with the person's consciousness temporarily transplanted to nerve clusters that line the cocoon."

"Y-you liquefy?! So each rebirth kills you?"

"N-no, not really. Like I said, your consciousness is transferred to nerve clusters that are mapped to your patterns before the person is fully liquefied. After the body's gone, the rest of the alchemical formula is filtered into the cocoon to reshape the body to the desired format. This is what allows us to avoid having like… 200 year old brains in the body of a teenager or whatever. The body reforms around the nerve clusters and then BOOM, a whole new you."

"That's too outrageous to be real!" Rasua insisted with disbelief written all over her face. "Surely you're toying with me."

Aegis leaned back and shrugged with a snide grin. "Hey, just because you don't believe something, doesn't make it false. I'd show you the soup Blitz will be in about a month if the hatchery wasn't strictly off limits to non-changelings."

"How can you be so blasé about such… insanity?!" Rasua managed to keep her volume conversational, but her tone was anything but.

As if right on cue, the waitress arrived with two bowls of chunky chicken soup for each of them. "Why? You ask." Aegis dipped her spoon in and lifted out several bits of meat and vegetables. "Because this was me a few months ago."

Rasua frowned at the changeling princess who was doing her best to stay serious. However, Rasua's unamused scowl proved too much for her. Aegis' spoon clattered loudly on the table as she started laughing uproariously, clutching her gut when her sides started to hurt. Most of the surrounding changeling simply rolled their eyes at her and continued on their way.

"Normally I'd fear risking a diplomatic incident with this, but, Princess Aegis, you are such a tool."

Through teary eyes, Aegis looked up at Rasua who was doing everything in her power to _not_ look like she was pouting. "Bwha ha ha ha! Y-you actually bought it!"

 _To think a crown princess is allowed to act so… so… childish!_ Despite her irritation, Rasua felt the corner of her lips arch upward. "So what is the _real_ truth?"

Aegis let her giggles run out before picking herself off the ground and waved off some of her siblings who were worried she might actually laugh to death this time. She reclaimed her seat and shot Rasua a winning smile. "I'll give you the simplified version. Alchemy is a combination of spellcraft, chemistry, and biological manipulation that we've been perfecting for the past millennium or three. The alchemical spells are so complex most of them have to be etched in multi-layered arrays. We're talking up towards thirty arrays on a single strain.

"The arrays and spells act like guides and instructions. It changes each cell one at a time, using the alchemy components as fuel/food for the cell changes. Certain chemicals together allow for certain alterations. The contents of the alchemical slurry inside the cocoon also act as life support. Now, while alchemy is technically possible without the components, it will feed off of the recipient's own body without them and can result in death." _Which is why Aunty nearly died when she was turning._

"Consequently, rebirthing allows us to recover from just about any wound, and all non-magical diseases since the alchemy hits that stuff at the same time, so that's another plus. The whole alchemical process is much more involved than that, but there's no way I can explain it all. It really is it's own field of study. One that only the queens can truly master."

Rasua hummed in between spoonfuls of soup. It was quite good actually, and she resolved to find out what it was called later. "Certainly a fascinating method of pseudo-reincarnation. However, the way you previously mentioned this rebirthing thing, it sounded like a personal sacrifice on the drone's part. If they're getting a new body, then why is that?"

Aegis lost much of her mirth, and proceeded to was dunk a cracker in her soup while she framed her response. "Simply put, any drone-rebirth erases the person's memories. They still have their root personality intact, but none of their experiences."

"Drone-rebirth? You mean there's more than one type?"

"Ah, yeah. I underwent a royal rebirth. For all we know about alchemy we…" Aegis hated that it was her turn to be embarrassed. "We don't actually know why alcohol and," she caught herself before giving away too much, "and it's companion substances allows royals to retain most of their memories, while drones can't."

Rasua quietly ate as she digested the information. "So… do you also use this drone-rebirth as a form of personality execution for criminals?"

Aegis' mood soured greatly. "We - we had to do it once. Granny's done it a whole bunch of times over the centuries."

Execution was by no means a rare sentence in the Federation. _I remember having to execute my fair share of rogue psykers and other criminals._ "For a people who have no hesitation to use fire as a means of war," Rasua glanced at Burny strapped to Aegis's back, "You have such strong attachments to those of the same hive. These criminals got the punishment they deserved didn't they?"

"Pah, as if a non-changeling could understand. It's bad enough that criminals are starting to pop up amongst my brothers and sisters from time to time, but the worst part is their hive voice becomes so bitter and resentful. It becomes painful to hear amongst the chorus if you get too close to them."

 _Hive-voice? That's one way to put it._ "Well you have my sympathies. So… Those drones that sacrifice themselves to be reborn. Why can't they keep their memories like you did?"

"Because they didn't undergo a royal rebirth," Aegis replied as if it was obvious.

"And why would making every rebirth a royal one be bad?"

Aegis had to remind herself that Rasua was asking out of ignorance. "Royals like myself are rare because of two major factors: our intense desire to lay eggs and expand the hive, and the proto-queen stage of our life-cycle. As a proto queen, we _have_ to lay eggs. Around five hundred of them over the course of a month and a half. So our species would grow uncontrollably if every rebirth was a royal one." _I mean, sure we princesses require like four times as much love as a drone just to function, but that's a moot point as long as I get rutted every day._ A familiar itch in her loins urged to be scratched. _I'm glad that's the funnest workout in the world._

Rasua recoiled a bit at the excited princess, only she assumed Aegis was imagining laying eggs. _I think it might be a good idea to avoid mentioning the possibility of aborting the eggs._ "So can't you take the brain restructuring part of the royal rebirth and use it in the drone version for non-criminals?"

"Not to my knowledge." Aegis polished off the last of her meal, and saw Rasua had done the same. "Come on, we can keep talking on the way to the clinic, and maybe burn off a bit of those big meals while we're at it."

The pair jogged through the city as Aegis continued. "I'm not as proficient in alchemy as my queens, but what I do know, is that the science essentially is split into two fundamentally different disciplines. Royal and drone. It's not a simple matter of throwing alcohol and the companion substances in the cocoon and think you're going to get a royal version of that drone. Say like, if I wanted to have a strain with stronger wings, I would use a variance 46-B9 array pattern with…"

Aegis caught herself almost giving away secrets again. "A formula mixture with a classified amount of mana. But if I put the royal mixture into that, the poor drone could end up with two heads and less brain cells. Believe me, we've tried, but the complications are just crazily convoluted. Royals require a vastly more complicated mix that I'm still learning."

She gave various other harmless facts about alchemy as the pair returned to the castle and into the bowels of the former colony ship. Rasua wasn't too familiar with the palace, but it seemed odd to go so deep. "Shouldn't a clinic be much closer to where all the people are?"

"Yeah, see about that, that was the original plan. Then I contacted momma about it, and she said we should head over to her alchemy lab instead."

 _Does she even know what she's doing half the time? She didn't stop talking the whole way either, so she 'spoke' with her mother at the same time as me?_ Rasua mused worriedly as Aegis skidded to a stop in front of a large set of double doors. The two Queens' Guards glanced between Aegis and Rasua before stepping aside for them to pass.

Aegis entered without knocking, leading Rasua into a large room, and a massive wall of chemical odors. It was the same lab where Twilight had assisted Cadista in her alchemy project, the results of which sat in four sealed vats off to one side against the wall. The gentle hum of the stirring motors mixing them would fill the air for the next two days.

Rasua quickly noticed two additional Queens' Guards on the inside as well, though they remained outwardly silent.

Twilight Sparkle was in the middle of a large waxed wooden floor with a dizzyingly complex array drawn in chalk around a glass basin filled with a murky silver liquid. A second array was on the low lying ceiling on that section of the room which Rasua realized was twenty layers of thick glass pancaked together on sliders that moved into the adjacent room. Finally, there was a briolette cut crystal that Rasua could have mistaken for a massive spear tip.

The purple matriarch's horn was alight with the same lavender/orange glow that filled the various arrays. "Ah, good you're both here."

Twilight stepped away from the glass basin and gestured Rasua towards a sink. "You're in luck, Aegis. I was planning on analyzing this dead timber wolf," she tilted her head at a pile of lumber sitting in a cage, "for its secrets. Rasua, would you kindly wash up to your shoulders? We need to eliminate as many contaminates as possible."

Washing up gave the wayward blacksmith just enough time to truly take in the enormity of the alchemy lab. _It doesn't seem that far off from the chemistry labs of my homeland._

Aegis on the other hand was over by the timber wolf cage kicking the inert logs. "Momma, you weren't planning on actually making a wooden drone strain were you?"

"Ha! No, I wanted to analyze the magic so I could make moving statues and possibly improve our clockwerk designs. Aside from Rarity's help, we don't have enough artistry around here. Besides, the Tea'la would be a better source of information for that kind of project."

Rasua stepped towards Twilight and gave a respectful bow. "I am ready, your majesty."

"Good to hear you volunteered for this." Twilight's warm tone belied the sourness of her hive-voice. Even if it came at the cost of even **more** refuges, Aegis!

The guilty princess shrunk down at Twilight's stink eye. It's still a good cause.

Humph. "Alright, Smith Rasua, all you need to do is dunk your arm – um - leg… forelimbs! Dunk them into the tub here and nothing else. That way we won't get any other parts of you analyzed."

Rasua looked dubiously at the chemical soup in front of her. "I thought you would only take a blood sample, your majesty."

Twilight gave Aegis a questioning glance, only to find her looking at all of the arrays with a bewildered expression. "My daughter was mistaken. Blood only tells us so much."

The roiling silver colored concoction let off a large bubble, making Rasua's wings shiver. "I hope this won't cause me any sort of illness."

"You don't have any cut skin do you? Even a rash or scab would be very problematic," Twilight cautioned. The three of them searched every inch of her forelimbs before deeming them unblemished. "Excellent, now put them in so we can begin. This will take a while, so get comfortable." Rasua cringed at the cold fluid, but complied without complaint. "Oh, I almost forgot. Shift one paw into a hand, but leave the other as a paw. That way we'll get information on both."

"Sounds reasonable enough." Rasua complied and watched Twilight charge her horn for the activation switch.

"Now hold still. If I do this wrong, it'll hurt a little. If I do it right, it'll hurt a lot," Twilight deadpanned.

"Wait, what?!" Rasua shrieked as the light of the arrays doubled in brightness and the crystal sent a beam of purple light into the alchemical tub. The liquid started glowing with magic, making Rasua flinch away, but she kept her forelimbs in place.

A few seconds passed with there being a distinct lack of pain or even a numbing sensation. "Ah, I must have done it perfectly then!" Twilight declared. Rasua looked back at the glowing tub before turning towards Twilight who was struggling between mirth and regret. "Sorry, sometimes I let my sister's influence get the better of me."

Aegis had enough tact to keep a hoof covering her snickering face, but little else. Rasua decided to pointedly ignore the princess. "It is not the worst surprise I've had since I came here. So I have to ask, is Princess Aegis the only one interested in my hands?"

An unspoken conversation passed between mother and daughter with Twilight internally sighing. _Sometimes I have to double check her purple fur to make sure she's_ my _daughter._ "Aegis has it in her head that she needs hands. With your species, I can understand the need, but all changelings have telekinesis, so hands seem a bit redundant. It's important to remember that making a strain overly complex causes unnecessary waste and more ways for things to go wrong."

"You laugh, scoff, and make fun, momma, but I'll prove you wrong about hands," Aegis said with an excited buzz of her wings and a smile to match. "With Blitz and me armed with arms, we'll be the best hive yet, you watch!"

"I certainly hope you are," Twilight replied before refocusing on the crystal above Rasua. _First Mother knows how many resources I'm putting into this grand experiment of hers._ "Are you comfortable, Rasua?"

"Enough, your highness." _About as much as I can be with this slurry seeping into my fur, yuck._

"Excellent." Twilight looked deep within the crystal to see several arcane formulas taking shape within. "Good, the information is coming in nice and clean. It'll take the analytical arrays some time to filter out the errors caused by contaminates. Not even washing can eradicate it all."

Rasua shifted on her haunches, thankful that Twilight had the presence of mind to pull a cushion over, even if it was flat from constant use. "How long did you say this would take?"

"About four hours," Twilight replied quickly. "We'll need to repeat the process once or twice more depending on how clean the data is."

 _Oh happy day._

Aegis stepped up to observe the process more closely. Even with Blitz taking the role of the civic queen, Aegis still wanted to learn everything about her royal duties.

Rasua eventually resigned herself to playing guinea pig. _Well it doesn't look like these changelings will get much out of this little donation to the cause. If Queen Twilight is that dubious about my hands, then she might order Aegis to give up on it. Then I'll have conceded to one of their 'requests' with them gaining nothing from it. Either way, a win-win for me._ Suddenly, the icky feeling of the lukewarm slurry covering her arms wasn't so bad anymore.

A clock on the wall ticked away for several minutes before Aegis looked at Twilight. "Momma. Will we be able to integrate these new hands into Blitz before she hatches?"

Seeking to glean anything about alchemy, Rasua listened intently. Plus there wasn't exactly anything else she could do. For her part, Twilight's eyes remained glued to the ever expanding information in the crystal. _Even I can't keep up with this. I'll have to create a Linkscape later to study it all._ "I probably won't have this worked out for some time." She guided Aegis' eye to the swirling cloud of arcane symbols and graphs that were forming into the crystal As you can see, young one, the sheer amount of information gained from a living sample is enormous.

Wooow. This was the first time Aegis had witnessed alchemical sampling and the data looked more akin to a fluid work of art than anything scientific.

The trick, my little Spitfire, is first mapping everything. Then we have to figure out which parts of this data holds the key to the trait we want, namingly shifting hands. Then we have to carve out all the unneeded sphinx data and interpose your strain on top of it.

Oh, Oh! I know the next bit! Aegis butted in, You have to run alchemy tests on small tissue samples to find a way to get my Ling cells to accept the new genes without dying or causing cancer.

Excellent, Aegis. Now what's the next step?

Aegis felt all warm and fuzzy at earning her mother's pride. It was always more intense whenever she was learning scholarly pursuits. You have to figure out what combo of chemicals, array patterns, and spellwork will safely transform me from my current self to the new and improved me. Although results vary depending on the future rebirthee's strain. Some changes, even complex ones, are easy while others are impossible no matter how hard we try. Like love production before you became a ling, or our inability to remove the holes in our limbs and wings.

Ten points to you, Aegis, well done. I just might make a proper queen out of you yet.

Rasua rolled her eyes as the two audibly silent changelings squashed each other in bear hugs, but said nothing. _That stupid psi-talk of theirs is so damned rude to everyone else in the room._

Twilight let go of the hug and refocused on her work, with Aegis hovering nearby to help in any way she could. Small talk between Aegis and Rasua allowed the pair to pass the time when Twilight wasn't directing her daughter's attention to key points in the alchemical scanning process.

Even though Twilight had no interest in gaining hands for herself, she was still fascinated that the sphinx's natural evolution would cause them to gain such a natural and highly specific shapeshifting. _If I didn't know any better, I'd think they were two different species who were perfectly fused into one._

Sadly, Twilight's excitement over new scientific discoveries was interrupted by Gentle Touch. My queen, I think you're going to want to attend our budget meeting tonight.

 _Is she serious? I was going to spend the whole night with Ratchet on a romantic night out._ You know I had plans for tonight right?

Indeed I do, and I have already cleared tomorrow night for you and Ratchet, but I think you need to investigate this sooner rather than later.

Twilight hummed in thanks. Glad you took that into account, my dear. So what's so important that it needs to postpone my scheduled Romance Night?

Weellll, Gentle started with supreme sarcasm. The boys down in the shipyard just sent us a preliminary laundry list for the logistical costs of supporting the new "carrier" from SG. This would more than eat up the thirty million we just got from Grandmother's trade savings. That would mean you'd have to stop egg production immediately again.

Are they _mad_?! Twilight half-raged, We have to use that money to boost the economy and allow us full egg production again. Mother said it should only take ten million at most.

Well then I would bring it up with her, or the engineering crew. You might want to investigate the ship itself to see what the issue is.

Twilight was starting to lose focus on the data from the crystal. I'll have to. The R&D department always go over budget if you let them. Put a hold on any funding requests until I can inspect the ship myself.

As you wish.

 _Rainbow may be content with just being a general, but I need to bring her back in on this so she can learn how to curb the money hungry research teams._


	52. Chapter 52

Concerns of Tomorrow

The Queen of Planning herself had done it! Together with Gentle Touch and her civic planners they leveraged the life out of every last bit that Cadista had granted her. The economy of Phoenix's Roost was getting the booster shot it so desperately needed. Between numerous purchases of building materials, food, and enough coal to keep her merchant fleet operational for the year, Twilight's planning would start making dividends within six months.

Most importantly to the queens, egg production was back into full blast. A term Rainbow Dash found most amusing.

At the moment, Twilight was 'marinating' a clutch as she walked into her alchemy lab. Much to her surprise, she found Aegis studying her notes on Rasua's forelimbs. The purple princess had not gone so far as to break out any reagents or pull out the glass-bound arrays though. "So, you finally have something to make you interested in alchemy?"

Aegis dropped the scrolls and buzzed over to nuzzle her queen-mother. Several drones started filtering into the room behind Twilight. Aegis greeted each of them good morning before refocusing on Twilight. "If you made Aunty learn alchemy, then it's only fair to Blitz that I do the same."

"Uh huh, and this sudden desire wouldn't stem from the prospect of hands, would it?" Twilight replied with sly narrowed eyes.

"Hey, it worked with Aunty and her wings." Aegis shrugged while grinning sheepishly up at her mother.

"Ha! Well, let's see if I can instill more interest beyond just hands by the time we're done. Come along, and take notes on _everything._ I roped in all of mother's alchemists so we should cut down on research time with this many minds."

"Where is Gramma anyway?"

Twilight aura and voice became rigidly neutral. "She had some things to take care of before she scrambled herself."

* * *

The fires over Stripped Gear were long gone. The once glorious and proud techno-city sat in utter ruin with heavy columns of steam and ash drifting from cracks in the ground as the caldera stirred at a lethargic rate. Lava bubbled up after overwhelming the subterranean crystal factory and oozed up through the sewers. It would not be too long before the volcano reclaimed what it owned.

For a hive that was completely ruined and a ticking time bomb for an eruption, Stripped Gear was not abandoned. Cadista walked through the broken buildings and corpse covered streets. Clouds of carrion birds and insects blanketed the whole area even though the feast of flesh was winding down.

Even the Day of Mourning could not completely heal the wounds upon her heart. She refused to dwell on it however. _If I start thinking about any of this… I don't know if I could summon the will to leave alive._

A mountain of broken brass and steel towered in front of Cadista who stopped a few blocks away from it. She could make out various balconies, her old quarters, and even the receiving hall where Celestia first met Twilight after her rebirth. _I should recreate that room in a crystal._ That _at least needs to be remembered._

Thankfully, Cadista's destination was not in the palace itself, but the adjacent hatchery. The angle at which the palace collapsed gave her hope that the object of her search wasn't buried under tons of rubble.

The hatchery entrance was rather nondescript by design with just a slightly larger than normal iris door. Ghosts of the past haunted Cadista's vision. She could almost see the Honor Guard still standing in front of the now ruined door that had been compromised by the collapse.

Cadista carefully avoided the twisted metal around the entrance before stepping into the darkened downward slanted corridor. The palace's destruction had cracked the ceiling in several places, but nothing looked like it was on the brink of imminent collapse. Instead it was the nose burning volcanic gasses which worried Cadista more than anything. _Damn, the nursery is the lowest point of the hatchery. If I had waited any longer to come here, I don't think even a heat suit would keep me from cooking..._

Luckily Cadista had prepared for this. She wore a silvery full body suit with cooling runes and enchantments draping every square inch of it. She opened her saddle bag and pulled out a gas mask and donned it quickly. Bringing up a flashlight, Cadista hobbled on three legs through the low ceiling passageway into the hatchery beyond. _To think my height is now a detriment._

A wandering thought nagged at her that she should have puppeted a drone for this. _No. I have to do this in person._

It didn't take long to arrive at the abandoned hatchery. The once well lit room now had several dim lights crowding the walls and ground.

Now that she was no longer in the tight corridor, Cadista could look out into the vast chamber. The glass tubes that had bore eggs for generations were mostly smashed and broken with only a few escaping destruction.

Ruptured steam pipes and dislodged gears blanketed the walls and ground below. Errant sounds bounced around the room from a handful of chitin bound drones scavenging the area with light spells guiding their greedy eyes.

Cadista's ire surged at the extent to which the ground-floor air vents and pipes had been broken open by the careless drones. _Figures. Even if these strains can survive this heat, not many reagents could._ A look at some of the drones revealed several bladders along their legs and barrel that contained the spoils. _Well, if they're so content to steal from me, it's only right I return the favor._

Cadista noted that several flights of stairs were still intact and crept down them as quietly as possible on three legs. The half dozen thieves were too focused on eating the reagents, filling their bladders with anything of worth. As soon as Cadista got close to the ground, she mentally latched onto each drone without their notice. _... Strange, I can't tell what queen they belong to. Looks like somepony is learning how to better hide their hive signature. Either way, I better subvert them before she realizes I'm here._

Since the suit and ambient heat made pheromone use impossible, Cadista summoned up a massive burst of psionic power. She blasted into the six drones' minds and quickly severed them from their hive mind. You belong to me now.

The thieves gathered in a circle around Cadista and genuflected. Command us, our queen. While Rainbow Dash would have needed to use her pheromones, Cadista's ancient will was more than enough to dominate six non-puppeted drones. _Not exactly sure what to do with these husks when I leave. Killing them might be suspect, and I don't want anypony thinking I was here._

Leaving the problem for later, Cadista indicated to an intact door off to the western end where the nursery was. I need that door open. The quicker the better.

Without a word, the six drones leveled their horns at the door and blasted the door. All the attack did was char the paint.

Cadista shook her head in annoyance. Yep, your mothers keep you as stupid as ever. Try something else. The six fired off a deep freeze spell and then started ramming the door to break it. _A good try, but the hatchery doors won't weaken under freezing temperatures._ Stand aside. Actually, go keep gathering alchemy reagents. _No point in letting them just stand there uselessly._

Cadista sensed the metal was starting to grow hot from the magma below, but not quite to the point where the gears should be compromised. _The cold should have worked. I guess the door construction was better than I remember._ Fortune smiled upon her as Cadista worked her magic to crank the gears manually after disengaging the lock.

She only waited until the door was half open before squeezing through into the nursery. "Glad this room's vents and pipes were all along the ceiling." Cadista checked her suit for damage before looking for the spot where Twilight Sparkle's chrysalis had been located.

The chrysalis' location had been completely deliberate. Half of that was because this was the spot where Yumia and Cadista had always rebirthed themselves. The other half lay in the floor. Cadista leaned down on stiff joints. Between the staples keeping some of her stitches in place, and the gauze still wrapped around her chest, it took supreme effort to not only dissipate her pain across the hive mind, but to do so without Twilight finding out. _She doesn't need to know I've been here until I return._

Cadista scanned the steel plated floor with her magic and found a latch that responded only to her magical hoofprint. She pulled the plate off to find a grey urn with a sealed cover. It was a rather plain object with a single handle on one side and a stylized gear imprint. _Yumia. I would never be able to rest unless our ashes were scattered together._

A shuddering sob shook Cadista to her bones as she held the urn as tight as she dared. "You watched over Twilight when she became one of us. Thank you for protecting her against the formless beast of her wandering dreams. It is only right that you protect Blitz during her rebirth." A small bit of mirth crept into her mind. _Aegis had Burny to keep her safe after all._

Cadista tucked the urn into a padded section of her saddlebag and turned to leave. Not wanting to stay in the shattered ruins of her multi-lifelong home lest it rob her of all will to live. Cadista departed the hatchery and made towards the waiting gunship beyond the hive's walls. The commandeered drones obediently trailing behind their new mistress.

Even so, that didn't stop her from taking one last look at Stripped Gear once she reached the lip of the caldera. _Kreesus. Do I listen to my heart or do I listen to Twilight's in how I should deal with you?_

One of the drones caught her eye, making her scowl. "Well, at the very least you six will make excellent alchemy subjects after we pry some secrets out of you. Who knows, you might make good _intelligent_ drones some day."

"We live by your will, our queen," they replied in perfect unison.

Cadista groaned. "I can barely stand six of you doing that. I don't know how the other queens can actually enjoy such mindless children. Come along then."

* * *

It took some wheeling and cajoling, but Cadista finally got Twilight to stop nagging her about going back to the jungle without having to play the 'recovering my soulmate's ashes' card. It helped that Cadista was able to present six able and willing alchemy subjects, especially since Twilight was loath to do such testing on her intelligent children.

Cadista hobbled through the hatchery of Phoenix's Roost with her soulmate's urn wrapped in silk. A few caretakers flittered to and fro; making sure each cocoon's occupant was in good health and topped off with love. There was a rhythmic order to it all that surpassed even Cadista's cadre of caretakers.

 _I'll tell her the real reason I went back home later when she won't feel so guilt ridden about not getting to my hive quickly enough to save it._

Cadista passed all the way through to the nursery. She had expected to have to call a caretaker to lower Blitz's chrysalis from the upper racks, but as it turned out, it was down on the ground floor. She startled a little to find Aegis curled up in front of Blitz's pod reading a thick notebook. _Shouldn't she be at the marshaling yard doing ballet with Burny?_

Keeping the urn secured in her saddlebag, Cadista limped forward and drew Aegis' attention in the process. "Studying your mother's alchemy notes, I see."

Aegis jumped to hind legs with a quick wing buzz. "Hey, Gramma! You caught me. I just wanted to keep Blitz company while I studied."

Cadista smirked and shook her head. _Still doesn't have any forbearance towards me. She's gotten even worse since becoming a princess. I blame her mother._ "Strange what it takes to get you to sit and study."

"Yeah… well." Aegis turned back to Blitz's pod. "While I work with Mom at night, I like to spend my mornings down here with Blitz. She's going to be my other half after all. I can't wait till she wakes up so I can link my mind directly with her, ya know, instead of mom and Aunty being a proxy between us."

Cadista hummed contemplatively at the bipedal princess. "And what does 'other half' mean to you, young one?"

"Exactly that," Aegis deadpanned. She leaned gently against Blitz's pod, letting her love for her passively feed her counterpart. Cadista's disapproving eye gave Aegis the creeps. _Gramma wants more than a simple explanation._ "Well, we've all seen how wound together momma and aunty are. They flow around each other like water, catching problems the other misses. Although sometimes I think they do that on purpose, overlook things that is, to leave problems the other is better at dealing with. Whenever they're in the same room they talk in unison a lot, sometimes whole speeches. It's really cool.

"I like to think that mom and aunty have become two hemispheres of a single brain. I want to be like that with Blitz as quickly as possible. Maybe before we even become proto-queens."

Cadista was assailed by old memories of Yumia. _I see. So I was right. When two queens share a single hive and love each other as Yumia and I did, they reach a heightened level of understanding between them. Though perhaps brain hemispheres is a bit much._

"Well I'm glad to see you taking care of your counterpart." Cadista pulled out the urn and gently removed the cloth before showing it to Aegis. She drew up enough composure to keep her voice level as Aegis inspected the urn from afar. "These are Yumia's ashes. It was her last wish to watch over the love producing daughter, your mother, our efforts would eventually create."

"Oh," Aegis replied awkwardly and fluttered her wings out of anxiety. "I guess it worked since mom turned out to be a pretty solid queen, am I right?"

If Cadista caught onto Aegis nervousness, she made no show of it. "I like to think Yumia would be happy to watch over another princess. After all, you can't stay down here in the nursery all the time."

"But isn't she already watching us from the Silver City?"

Cadista nodded as she hobbled over to sit next to Aegis. "She is. I guess I'm just a sentimental old mare."

"Well…" Aegis scuffed her hoof on the resin floor. "If you really think Yumia would be willing to watch over Blitz I'll take all the help I can get."

Cadista couldn't help but to smile at Aegis' stalwart protection of Blitz. It was more than just innate loyalty shared by all those of the same hive. It was real love that came from Blitz choosing to be her life-long companion with her only hesitation being whether or not she was the correct choice for Aegis. _That is the bedrock for what should follow for centuries to come._ "It might do nothing," Cadista admitted. She noticed a maintenance panel behind Blitz's cocoon and popped it open. There was just enough space for the urn. "But I like to think Yumia's presence here is meaningful."

Aegis watched Cadista's reverent actions with sorrow. "She must have been the world to you."

Cadista lovingly rubbed the urn before closing the panel. "She was." Cadista turned to give Aegis a warning look. "Bonded queens are strong together… but when ones dies." Cadista debated on whether or not she should tell the truth. She affixed Aegis a stern gaze. "Part of the survivor dies with her."

"If that's true... then all this time it must have been very hard on you." Aegis hugged her grandmother to try and cheer her up. "Depression isn't healthy to suppress you know."

"Perhaps." Cadista gave a quick hug in return before taking to the air. "Just make sure of one thing, Aegis. You are the soldier, and Blitz the scholar. Protect her, Aegis, do what I could not."

"Ha, you don't even need to tell me _once!_ Blitz'll never be hurt so long as I'm at her side." Aegis clenched her metal fist and stared at Cadista with burning passion. "Believe it!"

* * *

Ventras sat the head of his audience chamber going over a written proposal of new zoning legislation to accommodate the flood of immigrants. A collection of half-finished letters he was writing to the Federal government were scattered on the conference table, though most of them just required his final signature. Between him and Thaddeus, the pair had written all of the necessary process reports and made sure taxes were collected and waiting for the currently docked naval ship to end shore leave before sending the letters and tax money back to the homeland.

However, one letter in particular was for the Council of Thirteen itself. Even as his read the rezoning proposal, the council letter was still at the forefront of his mind. _I need funds to buy whatever tech the changelings are willing to part with, and some they're not. Luckily, the Alliance values gold, unluckily, I need more solid evidence outside of a single display of power. Otherwise I'll never sell it to the council to fund purchasing fire weapons. After all, every tom has his price._

 _In the mean time, I might be able to scrounge up enough funds to buy a shuttle of theirs at least. Anything to give some insight into an aerial navy._

Ventras' review over the legislation halted when he heard the main doors open and the blizzard outside dusted the whole floor with snow. The frigid cold blasting its way inside before the guards could close it. Thaddeus marched in from the cold with a face to match as he scanned the few gathered politicians seated around the table. He turned to the court spell-dancer who was waiting in attendance. "Heldera, we require a privacy screen."

"As you wish, Majordomo." It was a common request, so Heldera already had the necessary scrolls prepared. She held one hand on one of the scrolls and had the other open towards Ventras and the Thaddeus. "Prying eyes and straining ears are trouble, so protect those here and make it double." Everyone save the spell-singer and two of Ventras' most trusted guards left for the west wing out of traditional courtesy to continue their work.

A slight sheen enveloped the room and coalesced around the governor and majordomo. To anyone else, anything the pair said would be gibberish along with their mouth movements being desynchronized with what they were really saying.

"I hope you bear news from my daughter."

"I do, in fact, although the news is beyond troubling, and yet intriguing all the same." Thaddeus produced two envelopes. The first bore a broken wax seal of her family crest with the second bearing the intact mark of the Sestapo. "These changelings are far more dangerous than I ever thought possible."

Ventras furrowed his brow, and took the letters and started reading the one meant for him.

Dear Father, and Oath-brother who always reads my father's mail.

I have been well treated as far as I can tell. My needs are met, and I have been given time to acclimate to their society. But I will not waste paper on needless details.

Your concerns were accurate. These changelings have psykers after all, but the problem is that they ARE ALL PSYKERS!

Yes, every last one of them has at least some measure of psychic ability ranging from the most common capabilities of empathy and intraspecies communication to outright psionic attacks on account of the royal caste. You must be careful when dealing with any changeling diplomat or traders outside of a muton damping field because even their weakest members can get a read on your emotions. Fortunately for diplomacy, I expect any diplomat to have an understanding of that precaution, and that those fields don't interfere with their seemingly limitless communication range. I must warn you, father, that the worst part is that these psionic abilities are so pervasive among their kind that they seem to have no code of conduct regarding the use of these abilities, and use them on an almost minute by minute basis.

Ventras' hand was shaking from a mix of utter horror and, heaven help him, morbid curiosity in equal measures. "By the Eternal Cycle. My little huntress is stuck in the middle of a nest of psykers!?"

"Aye, my lord. We are blessed to have been born in our… liberal province. I think that alone kept her sane. As for these pskyer changelings, I can only hope that their royal family follows some moral code akin to the Psykira. At the very least, far more than our imperial families did."

Ventras brooded over the first contact visit. "…Queen Twilight Sparkle showed restraint in demonstrating her ship's destructive power until my ignorance forced her hand. I can only hope they show similar self-control with their psionics as well."

"That hope is all we have," Thaddeus replied with deep concern coloring his tone. "Or else she could be their mind puppet when and _if_ she returns. This letter might be censored if she is already under their influence."

Ventras reclaimed the envelope and sighed in relief at finding two pin feathers within. One was completely covered in soot while the other had red dye on it. "No. At least not yet. The wording and these feathers tell me her will hasn't been compromised. Her training would have allowed her some measure of protection from being fully enslaved."

Thaddeus could only hope his old friend was correct.

As mentioned previously, the changelings have no psionic regulation to speak of. Princess Aegis Altair described their reasoning as if we were to regulate the use of our hands. Psionics are such an integral part of their lives that their society would break down without it. And before you try, I have attempted to suppress Aegis' psionics with my apprenticeship medallion, with her cooperation of course. But our methods only seem to deny them their empathy, not the intraspecies communication.

Ventras cooed at that little tidbit. "So not only can our towers block their empathy, but suppression medallions can do that as well. That might explain why the two queens always seemed to hesitate a little every time before speaking."

"I thought that as well, Ventras. Though she never states as much in her letter, I fear greatly for Rasua. Being around all those psykers will undoubtedly diminish the dampening effect of her medallion. As far as I know, the Sestapo doesn't test its low level members for psionic abilities."

"Yes, I'm sure my daughter is well aware of that as well," Ventras replied worriedly. "I'll have extra dampeners sent to her."

The other bit of information I have is that the _Deception_ is as destructive as we feared. On our way to the changeling city, we were summoned as reinforcements to a besieged ally. Upon arrival we were beset by hundreds of thousand hostile changelings.

They are a highly divided people.

These changelings were very different from those who hail from Phoenix's Roost. These were more like insects. Clad in chitin and apparently possessing a complete lack of self-preservation. They threw themselves into the warship's weapons en masse, and were slaughtered wholesale. I still think our own lightning cannons could have performed far more favorably against so many unprotected fliers.

However, even with such destructive power, the hostile changelings nearly overwhelmed us twice. You would be proud to know that I assisted in repulsing both assaults with our final victory in the skies being only possible because of my actions. For that, I have garnered an extreme amount of respect. Even if Princess Aegis Altair fails to act like it.

Ventras was caught between being troubled by such a numerous enemy that could overwhelm such a mighty warship, and intense pride in his daughter bringing honor to family and nation alike. _Well done, my little huntress. I will have to make sure to send some of those Grecian Delights that she loves so much._

Oddly enough though, it seems the _Deception_ is the only large warship they have. There are other smaller airships called gunboats, but nothing comparable to the frigate itself. Queen Twilight Sparkle and Queen Rainbow Dash rule a highly industrialized citystate of about ten thousand. However, it is still only a single city for the time being. Equestria is the one who has the lion's share of the Alliance's territory and population.

"Cel'thera! I should have known they were playing us like fools. Only a single true _war_ ship!?"

"To be fair, old friend," Thaddeus placated. "I think the _Deception_ along with its marine contingent would have been enough to cause catastrophic damage if we had called their bluff. Though I must give them credit for properly naming that vessel."

Ventras grumbled in mutual respect. "Nevertheless, it changes little. We have nothing that can bring down a lightning immune airship. We're going to need to fight fire with fire to do that."

"I'm sure the council will come to the same conclusion."

"Let us hope."

I have included other critical details by the numbers on a third letter which should arrive within a week or so. Please be sure that Sestapo Commander Flarasa receives this letter's companion.

May summer's showers always enrich your harvest.

Your loving daughter,  
Rasua Talarn

Ventras looked up at Thaddeus who was gritting his teeth. "The rest is most intruiging indeed."

Reaching into a chest pocket, Ventras withdrew a small pouch and flipped the letter over to sprinkle the contents onto the back. As soon as he blew the dust away a shorter message appeared.

The railroad has a final station.

Ventras hummed with profound amusement. "Well, well. It looks like things are going to get very exciting around here. Thaddeus, we have preparations to make for 'special' immigrants, and we'll have the backing of the local Sestapo as well."

"This is a dangerous game, old friend," Thaddeus warned. "We must exercise _extreme_ caution."

"Have no fear, my friend," Ventras replied as he took a candle and burned his daughter's letter. "I will not repeat the mistake of hubris after the fiasco with the Changelings' display of power. We let the Sestapo do most of the work. The rest of us will just stay out of their way."

* * *

Twilight Sparkle sighed in utter relaxation as she wiggled her way deeper into the steaming hot jacuzzi overlooking the gorgeous night sky. The balcony used to be the forward observation deck of the _Ashes of the Phoenix,_ but now it was wide open to the cold night air.

Rarity's expert touch had brought it to life with a few strategically placed palm trees, and the floor completely covered in sand to give it that 'at the beach' feel. Various other details such as mini-tiki huts, a bamboo bar, a stereo system that played ocean noises, and lounge chairs rounded out the look and atmosphere. It wasn't her usual style, but when given a canvas as massive as a castle, the fashionista branched out.

Normally this place was open to everyone, but for tonight, Twilight Sparkle and Ratchet had it all to themselves, and she was loving every second of it.

Ratchet was snuggled up next to her, with only his nose above the bubbling water. Between a candlelight dinner, a play put on by the nymphs, and three hours of horseplay, Ratchet was completely worn out. He was more than content to remain latched onto his queen and lover and let the hot water melt away all the tension he had built up in his body.

For her part, Twilight was content to do the same, only that she kept most of her face above water so she could watch the twinkling stars. It would take more than being reborn into a changeling to rid Twilight of her love for the heavens above. _Who knows. I might end up living long enough to go there._

Well, I have to say, I thoroughly enjoyed myself tonight, Ratchet said while keeping only his nose above water. Where in the world did you learn some of those positions? By the First Mother you were an animal!

Twilight jabbed him playfully in the ribs while letting loose a good laugh. The hit wasn't enough to make him surface. Let's just say that when it's part of your job description to mate regularly, you make sure your partners get creative and have the Amore Sutra as required reading. The fact that her old foalsitter's book was helping her children this way made Twilight giggle maniacally. Although, I might need to erase my memories of all those sessions every few years or so, just to keep the act fresh. The last thing I want is for sex to get dull.

That explains a few things. Ratchet pulled himself up to the surface and planted a kiss on her check. Twilight shifted so he could hold her in his forelegs.

Those same forelegs that helped guide her along her chosen path. Twilight started channeling a spell to cool their body cores so neither of them would overheat. _No reason we need to cut this night short on account of a little boiling._

Twilight buried herself into Ratchet's embrace. She relished this all too rare time she had with him beyond just sleeping in the same bed. Yet it created some mild conflict within her. She loved nights with him, but as queen, Twilight was one half of the heart and soul of the hive. It was actually difficult for her to _want_ to set aside time away from always improving her home.

 _I think RD's right. I needed this so I can give even more of myself to the hive._

Nuzzling deeper into Ratchet's soaked fur, Twilight let half of her mind lose itself in Ratchet's company, while the other half communed with the Link. _I am more than just a nexus, more than a queen-mother. The hive is an extension of me and my sister._

Twilight felt her awareness filter through thousands of eyes, feeling what her children felt, hearing what they heard, all with Ratchet acting like an anchor. The sensation went beyond mere words. Love, joy, surprise, mirth, irritation, delight, anger, lust, she felt it all as her children felt them.

So what do you want to do now? Ratchet's voice cut through to Twilight, making her shrink back into herself. Twilight had to blink as her awareness returned to normal.

"We have one hour, ten minutes, and thirty eight seconds before I should get to bed. We can talk about whatever."

Ratchet knew exactly what that meant. The hive was _everything_ to her, as was expected from a queen. What that meant to Ratchet was that she wanted to talk about it. "So how'd it go with the new capital ship we got? I heard you weren't happy with the preliminary budget allocation."

"Oh ho ho, no I most definitely was **not!** I had to curtail all that spending to a fifth of their original estimate. Just enough for them to make changes to the oil refinery and make a few of those biplanes of theirs. Did you get a chance to see them yet?"

Ratchet knew it didn't take much. All he had to do was speak of engineering so that Twilight would swing the conversation around to a more precise topic. All of it so she wouldn't lose that romantic touch to the night. _I'm so glad she dove into engineering like she did. I wouldn't be able to hold a real conversation with her otherwise._

"Only briefly, sadly. I was called away before I could see much."

"Did you at least get a chance to investigate the Octavia fluid? Truly remarkable stuff."

"Octavia? Must have missed it."

Twilight look a long sluggish breath and dunked her head under water. It actually came from an earth pony inventor in Canterlot. The stallion didn't know what he had. Gloss caught wind of it and bought up the patent while leaving him one rich pony. The name sounds familiar though… I bet the inventor was infatuated with a mare.

Ratchet nuzzled her lovingly. Even though Twilight couldn't feed off that love, she wouldn't trade him for anyone. "So… what? Is it a replacement for coal and oil or is it steam 2.0?"

Twilight raised her head out of the water and let go of her breath. "If anything, it would be the coolant, actually. Octavia, far and above anything else, is an excellent magic conductor. It absorbs the pegasi magic our engines generate and allows them to spread the field over a far greater area. This allows greater engine efficiency. Once energized with magic, the Octavia is pumped through the external pipes that loop around the hull. The pipes have catalyzing rods in them distributed along their lengths. The rods cause the Octavia to release its stored magic, and that means the pegasi magic can be released along the length of the ship. As a result, one sufficiently powerful engine can lift an entire ship."

Ratchet hugged her tight, only for Twilight to return it. "Seems a little too complex for such a small combat vehicle though. A lot of things can go wrong with it, and the pilot would be too busy flying to fix anything."

"Then we better make sure nothing does," she responded with a long yawn.

Twilight's snuggle was interrupted by the familiar feeling of eggs dropping into the ready position. _I can wait to get them fertilized until the morning, right now is Ratchet Time._ Twilight adjusted her cool spell to extend over her egg sack before refocusing on Ratchet. She fell asleep in his forelegs shortly after that. Ratchet took over the spell to keep their bodies cool and held her tight to keep her head above water. It helped that he was nearly as tall as she was.

Ratchet smiled at the former librarian's peaceful face. It was the same expression she always wore when she was snuggled up to him. With a slight laugh, he magically pulled her wet mane away from her eyes and kissed her muzzle. _Rest easy, my love._


	53. Chapter 53

Bonus: To the Fashionmobile!

The hatchery was typically a semi-noisy place. The distant chugging of steam and gears mixed with the ever-present flow of liquid through the tubes snaking all over the place for each cocoon and the laughter of nymphs going to and fro created a welcoming ambience for most changelings.

Aegis paced in front of Blitz's cocoon with a precise clock hovering in front of her face, though her gaze kept dancing between the chrysalis and the watch. Come on and hatch already. Do it, do it, do it!

She pressed her face against the waxy cocoon, trying to see the heavily obscured figure within. Despite Aegis' insistence, Blitz's hive voice remained unchanging and she didn't stir.

I know you're awake! I can see you moving in there! She hoped the accusation might get through, but to no avail. Come on, Blitz, it's been exactly one month, fourteen days, seven hours, and fifty one seconds. You're done baking so get out of the oven already!

Seeing that hive-speak was failing her, Aegis tried a different tactic and took a long deep breath. "Hatch, hatch, hatch, hatch, hatch, hatch, hatch!" On and on she chanted until she was out of breath and wheezing out the words.

Aegis took a second breath to try again when Twilight spoke. Aegis, you better not be at Blitz's pod yelling for her to hatch again!

I'm not yelling, I'm simply encouraging her very loudly.

 _Dang it, girl, you are going to disturb the other cocoons. I think I need some way to keep you out of the hatchery for a while._ Alright, you, that's enough. RD will let you know the moment Blitz's voice changes in any way. Now, get back to the surface, we're about to reveal Rarity's present!

Oh sweet, on my way! Aegis glanced around and found Gear Ratio doing routine checks on the chrysalises nearby. Aegis buzzed over nonchalantly and wrapped an arm around the chief caretaker. "Hey, ol buddy, ol friend, ol pal, can you do a thrice over on my counterpart here? I think she's a little sluggish in waking up."

Gear paused a moment as Twilight spoke to her. "Momma says you better not interfere with our work over this anymore or she'll find a way to postpone Blitz's awakening by a month. Just to make sure she becomes a proto-queen before you."

"She wouldn't!" Aegis cringed at the thought of Blitz and her being out of sync. A light brush of motherly glowering from the Link was all Aegis needed to flee the hatchery. Alright, alright, I'm going!

* * *

Twilight chuckled to herself at her daughter's antics. _Ahh, young love._

Both changeling queens were walking through the palace with Rarity between them. The fashionista was immaculate as usual. "I must say, with no small amount of modesty, that this castle is positively brimming with color now! I can't thank you two enough for giving me the honor of decorating it."

Working with the technological motif of the former colony ship's design, Rarity had blanketed the castle with a brass finish with multiple rooms having differing decor to mix things up. For the most part however, a motif of pistons and gears covered various parts of the exterior and the omnipresent aroma of lubricant and oil drifted throughout the entire hive.

Thankfully, Rarity had grown accustomed to the 'scent' long ago. _It's not about what I like, it's about what the customer likes, and these adorable drones can't seem to get enough of that… fragrance._

Rainbow couldn't help but to marvel at the gear work below her hooves, visible thanks to the steel grating. Said grating was also covered in resin to protect their hooves. "Gotta say Rarity, I still can't believe you managed to make almost all of these gears actually serve a purpose outside of looks."

"Well you can thank Steamy and his crew for that. Honestly, his ability to make anything I think up reality is simply amazing. We were able to tie every door and light into the overall machinery to bring form and function to new heights!" Rarity sighed contently at the years of memories and effort coming together so fabulously.

"We can't thank you enough, Rarity." As Rarity expected, Twilight was enraptured by the feel of a living castle. "You've made our castle a fitting home."

"It's was my pleasure, really. And while it was great fun, I do so miss the fashion world. I have a lot of catching up to do."

Rainbow Dash grinned knowingly. "We figured as much." Rarity nodded in absent agreement. "So that's why we think your boutique back in Ponyville just won't cut it anymore."

Rarity would have stopped walking out of a flash of sadness had the two queens not kept on trotting ahead. "Well I admit it is probably woefully out of style by now, but that's nothing a little TLC can't cure." She let the comment roll off her with dignity. "Besides, I should really get back home anyway, or else Epaulets will end up raising my little Cloudy Skies and Summer Seas without me."

Twilight felt truly happy that each of her friends, even bashful Fluttershy, had gone on to have families of their own over the years. In the mind of the changeling queen, individual death was far less terrifying than not leaving behind a legacy. _As long as a part of each of my pony friends continues on over my long life, I'll be happy._ Scaring away her inner musings, Twilight was glad to see the door to their destination was up ahead.

"We fully understand, Rarity, but sticking in _just_ Ponyville will make such a career return difficult, so we thought of something to help with that."

"Oh?" Rarity cooed as Twilight opened the hatch and waved Rarity to enter.

What lay beyond took Rarity's breath away. All three of them were in one of the much smaller dry-docks used for the gunships. Instead of the usual patrol ship, a vessel that looked like someone took a gleaming brass store and merged it with an airship, turning it into a mobile fashion extravaganza. At least it would be once Rarity had her way with it.

The ship itself was just a bit bigger than Rarity's old shop/house, and had a collection of six traditional propeller engines, four for lift and two for propulsion. With the _Longshot_ still unproven in battle, neither queen was willing to invest too much into it.

The exterior had a primer coat of paint for protection, and several panels for future advertisements or other purposes that were all left blank. Twilight waved at Steamy and his two assistants who were hovering by the shop front which had plenty of large glass windows for displays. "We knew none of us had the critical eye you do, Rarity, so we thought the next place you decorated would be your own little mobile fashion store. We like to call it the Carousel Floatique!"

"I – I don't know what to say," Rarity replied dumbfounded. A tear of joy threatened to spill out. "Can I look inside?"

"Of course, Rares, it's your home now. If you want to make it that."

Spotting the gangplank easily enough, Rarity bolted as fast as a dignified lady could. The front room seemed deceptively spacious. Comfortable wooden floors with an oak finish were complemented by wooden walls and ceiling. Steamy followed in after Rarity and the royals. "We remembered you mentioning you wanted to remodel the Carousel Boutique so we left the interior as bare as possible."

Twilight followed up the blue drone's comment with one of her own. "Since we were going to leave the fine decorating to you, we figured we'd make the place modular instead."

Rarity zipped around to inspect each and every facet of the store's floor. "Ladies… I – I don't know if I can put it to words." She turned around to find both queens hovering nearby with excited looks that paled in comparison to her own. "I **love it!** "

Countless designs raced through Rarity's mind, colors of all kinds, styles of every shape, and motifs that could make alicorns weep warred with each other for which would be brought forth into life. Rarity nearly dropped her aristocratic poise as she ran over to give both queens a crushing hug. "I never dreamed of having a flying shop before! Oh how all the other designers will be jel - I mean inspired by it."

Rainbow smirked at the the whole thing. "I knew you'd like it. I mean, who wouldn't want a flying house, am I right?"

"It's our way of saying thanks for everything, Rarity," Twilight commented with a sly look at her tactless sister. "The _Floatique_ is ready to fly. In addition," she trailed off as Steamy approached with a booklet Rarity knew all too well. "Steamy and Crescent Wrench have volunteered to stay on as pilot and engineer respectively."

Steamy gave a manly blush. "It's the least we can do until you or your family learn how to operate and pilot the vessel yourselves. Wrench would be here if she wasn't busy getting her things packed up."

Rarity gave a lady-like titter and patted his head. "You've been such a big help already, I couldn't possibly drag you away from your home."

"It was his idea," Twilight offered.

Everyone looked in Steamy's direction for details. "W-well, you know. We have our diplomats, traders, and a few other drones out there, but we're still pretty isolated here in the hive. I figured we might want to 'spread our wings' as you ponies say."

"Yeah, and you know, he could set up his own engie shop out there one day, or return home. Either way, it's all good." Rainbow's raspy snark was present even when not needed.

"For the time being though," Twilight cut in, "we already have your tools, the dock, and all the lingpower you need. Whatever you need to bring your latest vision into fruition, it's on us."

"Ooohhhh, you spoil me to no end, you know that," Rarity teased with a dramatic hoof wave. She slid over to Steamy and waved off the booklet. "I already have some ideas on what to make. I think a meshing of my Ponyville home and your technological motif would be perfect for a flying boutique."

"We're already happy to help, Miss Rarity." Steamy flexed his muscles, causing the alabaster mare to blush. Like his predecessor Spike before him, Rarity never went past teasing between Steamy and her. It was a personality quirk her husband actually expected from mares, given that it was typical behavior during the Moonlit Empire's golden age.

Thundering hooves from the gangplank heralded Aegis' entry "I didn't miss it did I?!" she half-yelled while scanning the room.

Before either queen could respond, Rarity waved at the manic princess. "Not at all, not at all. I dare say you've arrived _just_ in time."

"Oh good," Aegis wiped the sweat off her brow only to find Rarity cantering over to her. "I was worried I'd miss your new shop taking off."

"So kind of you, Aegy. But your mother's right, it would be best to add that nice polish right here in the dock. And," Rarity added with poise, "I think assisting me with this would be an excellent exercise for simultaneous hand and telekinetic work."

"Ahhh," Aegis dropped down on all fours. "I would _totally_ love to help you with that, but um," she looked to Rainbow Dash. "But Aunty and I have to work up some new siege tactics together. Part of my queen training, you understand."

"Nonsense," Rainbow Dash announced with a fang filled smirk. The rebuke deflated Aegis, causing her ears to droop. "That can wait for later. I think Rarity's suggestion is perfect for you."

Twilight made her way to the door where more drones were lined up and waiting with draft paper and pencils. "I know you'll do excellent, Aegis. Just think of it as part of your expanding knowledge base, something every queen should have."

Rainbow Dash was following close behind her sister. "And I need to go over the proposal of turning a freighter into a navy tender. So you guys have fun."

Rarity butted in just before Aegis could speak. "Don't worry, ladies, we will." She looked at Aegis who was doing her damnedest to keep a diplomatically friendly face. "Won't we, deary?"

 _Oh happy day. Maybe Blitz'll wake up to save me from this suffering._ She found Rarity looking at her expectantly with a friendly smile. "Ahh, well, why not. I have allll the time in the world it seems."


	54. Chapter 54

act four: Reformation of the Hives

Rebirthday

Parties in Canterlot were hardly rare events, and when Pinkie Pie was in town, the weekly party count usually doubled. The Sparkle Manor was as lively as ever with one this very night. The large backyard and much of the manor itself was crowded with ponies and changelings alike as everyone sang to the playfully embarrassed lavender matriarch standing near the pool.

"Happy Re-birth day, to you!" They all sang with merriment filling the air along with spilled champagne.

"Happy Re-birth day, to you!" Rainbow Dash had a foreleg wrapped around her beloved sister swinging Twilight Sparkle back and forth with the rhythm of the song.

"Happy Re-birth day, dear Twilight/Momma!" Giggles spilled across the crowd between ponies and drones.

"Happy Re-birth daaaay, toooooo yoooouuu!" Cheering heralded multiple corks being launched from their bottles coupled with thundering hooves and buzzing wings in applause.

Pinkie Pie rolled out a massive three meter cake with big bold letters 'Happy 12th re-birthaversery!' "Heeey everybody! Let's carve this cake!"

Twilight snickered and took the large knife in her magic and cut the first piece. Barely a second after she had her plate, ponies and drones alike raced forward to devour the confectionary delicacy that only Pinkie could make.

Twilight and Rainbow Dash hastily made off with their slices before the throng of drones could crush them. The pair found a quiet corner to eat. "Twilight, I gotta say, for a birthday party, we've done more talking than dancing."

"But I _need_ to talk," Twilight replied with a goofy imitation of Rarity's daughter.

Rainbow retorted with mumbled sarcastic nonsense. She spotted Night Light squeezing his way through the crowd with a middle-aged unicorn mare in tow. "Twilight, honey! Even with you being as tall as you are, it's nearly impossible to find you. I had to wait for the song to single you out."

The aging stallion roped both queens into a hug to which they eagerly returned. The trio had caught up with each other earlier that night, but neither matriarch was going to pass up an embrace from their father and adopted father, respectively.

"Natural camouflage, daddy," Twilight joked while flicking her mane over. She had been letting it grow longer than usual to match Rainbow Dash's nearly meter long mane and tail. "Can never be too sure if the PCE is still hanging around."

"Well they would be foalish indeed to attack tonight with the princesses here." Night Light looked over to his female companion and waved a hoof at her. "Uh, I actually have someone special to acquaint you with. Please, let me introduce my new marefriend, Azure Skies."

Rainbow noticed Twilight's aura flicker wildly at that. Her parents' divorce had been hard, and she was sure that Night would have wallowed in misery alone with his children living so far away from home. _He has to grieve the hard way. Props to him for burying his past._

"Ah, hello, your highness," Azure babbled, clearly uncomfortable around royalty. "I have to say it is a profound honor to meet you." The poor unicorn wasn't exactly sure what to do with a changeling diarch. _Do I bow, curtsy, kiss her hoof, what?!_ Falling back on what she knew, Azure simply stuck her hoof out to shake. "I know I can't replace Velvet, but I hope I can bring happiness to the family, if, well you know…"

Azure wilted at her own clumsy words. Twilight simply smiled and shook the embarrassed mare's hoof. "You seem like a good mare, Azure Sky, I hope father and you make each other happy." She noticed Ratchet hovering nearby waiting for the conversation to end.

Night Light smiled broadly at his daughter's approval. _The way things looked last time I was there, I lost all hope of getting the real Velvet back._ Casting the sour thought away, he refocused on the present. "Ah what a time to be alive, when a father needs his daughter's approval for courting another. I didn't think I was that old just yet." He knew full well about the Day of Mourning, and how Twilight had grieved for the loss of Velvet's love, but he still wanted to keep his daughter as happy as possible.

With the ice broken, all four of them peeled out laughter, giving Twilight the perfect excuse to telekinetically nudge Ratchet into the conversation. "Since he's here," Twilight started with a sly wink to the confused consort, "you might as well meet my Prime Consort, Ratchet Altair. Ratchet, this is my father's marefriend, Azure Sky."

Quick on the uptake, Ratchet shook Azure's hoof who had absently left it up after Twilight let go. "A pleasure to be sure."

Rainbow Dash decided to split her awareness to puppet a drone back in Phoenix's Roost and started up a Hoofball game. _If my body's going to be stuck here talking instead of actually partying, then I'm going to put my brain somewhere else. As long as I stick around Sis, she won't mind._

Rainbow didn't get far into her hoofball plans when Iron Fist all but barged his way into the conversation. The old minotaur was as craggy as ever, and had aged well, revealing only a scant few grey hairs. "There, you are, Queenbow!" Rainbow gave a fang filled smirked at the pet name.

The conversation ground to a halt as Iron Fist let the head of his wooden mallet drop to the soft grass. "The time for talk is over. Now we must spar or else I'll go mad with these docile pony customs."

"Ha!" Rainbow came forward while eagerly buzzing her wings. "Anytime, anywhere. I'll put you on the ground in nine seconds flat."

"Ah, so you've improved. Good! My son shall assist me in battle." He let off a deep belly laugh at the prospect of having a good fight. "Since your heir being groomed into flabby administrator, bring one of your warrior brood instead. It shall be a glorious battle, one worthy of my changeling friends and allies!"

"No doubt." Rainbow didn't even need to do anything more than mentally ping her sister to say her temporary goodbye. To the rest, she merely nodded before following after Iron Fist Hey, Thunderfury! Bring your shields and report to me, we're going to have a little fun with bull one and bull two.

The drone had been in the middle of watching a group of griffins, sphinxes, and a few ponies play poker when the call came in. Much to his chagrin, Thunderfury had been banned from playing due to his hive mind and other drones blanketing the room. Now that's the kind of fun I like. He double checked that his shields were still on his back before taking off. I've always wanted to get some combat data on minotaurs.

* * *

As Rainbow Dash and Iron Fist began to exchange bruises for the next hour, Aegis and Blitz were exiting one of the showers after a round in one of the guestrooms that the drones had decided to make a temporary 'love palace' for the party's duration. Blitz was completely out of breath and was leaning against the cool wooden walls after the hot shower with her royal counterpart. Wow, Aegis, when did you learn to do _that_ with your fingers! By the First Mother I thought I was going to die!

Thanks to Rainbow's intense training regimen, Aegis was only slightly out of breath, so she was able to stand unassisted while flexing her flesh and blood hands. Rasua showed me some moves. You'd be surprised what kinks that girl has.

While Aegis was completely at ease resting on two legs in public with ponies, Blitz was far less keen on it. If either changeling princess dropped back onto four legs they'd easily be as tall as Luna.

 _As if Aegis would let me stay on four hooves around here with an excuse like that._ It took her a moment to fully comprehend Aegis' comment. "Wait, what? You bedded with Rasua?! But I thought she was…" Blitz groaned as her tired brain failed to find the words. "What do mammals call it?"

"Straight," Aegis answered while joining her counterpart in slipping to vocalization. "Sadly I did not. Buuut, Thunderfury did, and I got both his and Rasua's consent to watch his memories of their little get together sessions to get pointers." Aegis rubbed her fingers together, reminding Blitz of the last several minutes.

Twilight's teachings had given Blitz more composure than Aegis, so she was able to pass the gesture off with an amused snort. "Where _is_ Rasua anyway? I haven't seen her all night."

Aegis' eyes lost focus as she communed with the changeling half of the security detail. The act left Blitz to pass the time by looking out of the window towards the collection of Royal Guards and Jevruun Vrunningee watching over the guests. The years had seen the Equestrian military being armed with a number of infantry weapons including the new clockwerk repeating rifles. The entire weapon was covered in multiple failsafe inscriptions to make sure only the designated owner could fire it. _It's not perfect, but it's worked so far. Plus the refit of Equestria's military has us rolling in bits._

Aegis perked up, catching Blitz's attention. "She's over with Uncle Shiny talking about the Crystal Empire."

"She's not a very discreet spy is she?"

Aegis just shrugged. "As if our ambassador in the Federation mainland is any better. It's how nations play the game."

"It's a credit to your mothers that you understand the International Game," a voiced called out from the behind Aegis. Both princesses turned to find Cadence with a pleased expression and an aura to match. "You two are lucky to have Twily and Rainbow for both mothers and mentors."

Aegis grinned and glomped her aunt-in-law while Blitz sheepishly twirled a lock of her prismatic mane with a finger. _Crud. If she could sneak up on us, we need to stop vocal-talking about that stuff._ "Hey Aunty Kay. Life in the Empire as calm as usual?"

Cadence used her magic to smoothen Aegis' rowdy mane. "You mean boring? Yes, though I don't know if I should be glad or sad about that."

Aegis gave one last squeeze before letting go. "Well you'd be far less bored if you and Uncle Shiny finally had a foal or two, ya know."

It was an old argument, and Cadence had little hope to pass it off smoothly. "Tell that to your uncle. Part of the problem of being an alicorn is that I can't use the biological clock of menopause as an excuse."

"I'm sure he'll come around," Blitz offered placatingly. "Maybe he's just scared of the idea after looking at all seventy one thousand offspring between Aunty Twilight and momma. At least if you count the nymphs and eggs."

Cadence chuckled at that before an idea struck her, causing the pink mare's grin to turn sinister. "I might just have to threaten him that I'll get rebirthed into a queen to make my own foals if he doesn't give me some soon. Do you have any idea how awkward it is to be the Alicorn of Love without any children of my own?"

"Probably as weird as a queen with no drones to her name," Aegis replied flatly. She completely missed Blitz's chiding glare and was oblivious to Cadence's flustered state thanks to the alicorn's careful composure.

"Well I'm sure I can get him to come around soon enough" Cadence said to shift topic. She cantered over to try and locate her husband in the crowd. "You two aren't that far off from going off on your own."

Aegis grinned wickedly as she looked down at her belly mentally prodding it to hurry up and start making eggs.

Even Blitz was being swayed by the royal hormones flowing through her, and had to work to keep eggs off the brain. "Yup, Resta says we should start oviparing in a couple of weeks or so. She's convinced that being overdosed on love all the time and our proximity to," she paused to glance conspiratorially around before leaning into Cadence's ear, "the Tree," Aegis leaned back to speak normally. "Is accelerating our overall development faster than Momma Twilight intended."

Cadence couldn't stop herself from laughing at that. "What a crazy idea. Being overdosed with love is such a bewildering concept."

 _So is living without the song of the hive mind,_ Aegis mused defensively. Thankfully even she had the presence of mind to keep that thought to herself. "Our queen-mothers have been stockpiling building materials and bits. We're already breaking ground, but we're in no rush to get everything going right away. Even if we started laying _tonight_ it would still be another three years before we had any adult children."

"And another year or so after that for them to be educated enough to start running a hive," Blitz stated matter of factly.

Cadence was still bewildered by the whole thing. Twilight's rebirthday was a clear indicator on how old Aegis was. _She's not even a teenager, and Aegis is going to be a ruler soon. Not to mention Blitz is even younger._ "Don't you feel like you should have more time just by yourselves?"

The question baffled the princesses. Logically, they knew about the pony life cycle, but they didn't truly understand it. Blitz glanced at her mildly confused counterpart before mirroring that expression to Cadence. "What do you mean?"

Now it was Cadence's turn to feel slight embarrassment, but she still wanted to ask. She uncomfortably cleared her throat before continuing. "From what I understand, normal changeling princesses require something akin to three decades to become queens. You're barely getting a third of that between you."

Aegis wasn't exactly sure how to answer that, but Blitz used every ounce of Twilight's tutelage. "Well, I don't mean to sound disrespectful, but we're _changelings._ We're all so different from each other it's a wonder we can even consider ourselves one single species. What's normal for another, would be weird for us."

"I see," Cadence conceded. "That must be a real pain for cross hive medical treatment, if such a thing happens."

Aegis snorted derisively. "I doubt that'll ever happen outside of our mothers' bloodline. Well, the Home Guard don't count. The war down there must be winding down by now, one would think, so who knows."

* * *

Rasua sat at the bar with Shining Armor downing shots of whisky with the best of them. The unicorn was right there with her, matching her drink for drink. "I must say, what is it with griffins?!" She roared with inebriated delight. "Did someone pluck a sphinx in half and plant an eagle in the hole?!"

Shining's shot glass wavered erratically in his magic. "I bet the gardener who pulled that one off was drunker than we are!"

The pair laughed uproariously with Shining ordering another round for the both of them with a wobbly shake of his hoof to the nearest bottle. Rasua absently watched the pegasus barkeep refill her shot with drunken enthusiasm. "Hey I just had a thought."

"Careful now, those hurt ya know?" Shining laughed at his own joke, but Rasua was too drunk to process it.

"Do griffins lay eggs like other birds?"

Rasua's head hung low as she stared at the blank faced Shining Armor who was trying to remember. "Ya know, I'm pretty sure they do." He wildly swung his head around to look at her. "Hey, you both have kitty cat back halves. Do you lay eggs?"

She waved an angry finger at him, but it looked comical if nothing else. "It's not a kitty cat, it's a proud feline warrior body! And no, we don't lay eggs. I can't think of any cat things that do."

"The griffins do," Shining deadpanned.

Rasua threw her hands up in exasperation. "What?! You gotta be crazy! Why would the bird half make the mammal back half lay eggs?!"

"Well, ask him then!" Shining Armor pointed to the figure behind Rasua. She turned around to find an immaculately dressed male griffin who was glaring at them with insulted fury the likes of which had never been seen in the aviaries before.

"So," Rasua slurred, "what's the deal with you and eggs huh?"

"You drunken louts are appalling." He snorted derisively and turned his beak up. "I half expected this from you arrogant sphinxes, but you, Prince Shining Armor, I expected better." With a loud harrumph, the griffin stormed away from the bar.

A flash of dread passed over the unicorn after he noticed griffin's the ceremonial saber. "I think that was General Razor Beak. Oh that won't be fun."

"Ha ha! Prepare the royal couch!" Rasua belted off snorting laughter at her drinking buddy's expense.

* * *

Cadista sat on a stone bench near the far corner of the hedge fence at the back end of the property. The area was much quieter, and the din of the hive mind was more than enough to keep her company. She was more than happy to let her daughter have her day with all of her pony family. The former queen was a little shorter now, about the size of a consort, and she now had the round irises and glowing eyes to match any drone. With her ability to lay eggs removed, she no longer had any expansionist desires, nor the queenly pheromones to match. All in all, the only real thing she kept of her royal blood was her gender, ability to resist mental domination, and her psionic prowess.

Yet despite her desire for a quieter corner to rest after hours of intermingling in party, she was not alone. Arya had come along with a scant few Tea'la. The plant ponies were still sluggish with integration into such a technological society, but celebrations were universal. Arya spotted the false-consort and approached Cadista with her wooden wings wrapped around several drinks.

"Hail, friend Cadista. Why you seek escape from celebration? This is grand time for living, yes?"

"For many, I'm sure," Cadista replied calmly. Twilight was never able to smoothen the translation spell due to how different a plant brain worked. For the moment though, Cadista suppressed a sigh, refusing to let her mood fall. "But not especially for me. My daughters have become strong and independent of me. My life's goal is complete."

"You use strange ideas." Arya thrust a drink ladden wing at the former queen. "Life work always there. If you done with one, get another one."

Cadista genuinely chuckled and took a couple of drinks off of the plant pony. "I am old, my leafy friend, all I'm good for these days is being the wise elder."

Arya gave her the narrowed gaze of a pony who had a little too much alcohol, or in her case, too much sugar. "You say that as bad thing. Is good thing, very, very important that old teach young." Cadista wordlessly nodded at the point. "And on other leaf, life purpose not need to be better than old one. Just a new one."

"You have a way with words, you know that?" Cadista had listened to Twilight and even Rainbow Dash say the same thing multiple times, but there was something about the green and brown Tea'la that always made those thoughts weigh heavier than usual. "So what should I do, besides advise my daughters?"

"My no know. I Tea'la, Druid Guardian of the Tree, not wise one. You know what you should do, but no do it. So you need do it or you stay sad ever more."

"I'll think on it," Cadista replied automatically as she did to Twilight and Rainbow whenever the topic came up. For a moment, it seemed that Ayra would leave Cadista to her painfully sugary drinks. However, the plant pony latched onto Cadista's foreleg and pulled her to her hooves.

"Bad mojo on you. You must have cleansing ritual, is only way to banish sad spirits. Come this way!" Ayra bounded over to the deep end of the pool and jumped in with a howling warcry.

Cadista was more amused than annoyed at being forced from her isolation, but only just. She ignored the wary looks from the scores of swimming ponies and drones and waited for Arya to surface. "Come into the pony-lake! Water is soother of spirit. I know because I am druid."

At any earlier time in her life, Cadista would have refrained from joining the rambunctious plant pony. Now however, her pride as a queen was all but gone. _I've done my part. Perhaps I've earned a chance to have some fun._

Casting hundreds of years and multiple lifetimes of decorum aside for the night, Cadista gently slid into the cool water and floated there without a word. The act spread like wildfire across the grey drones in attendance before going hive wide. Cadista was allowing herself some public form of enjoyment. Clearly, the Silver City would be abuzz with gossip within seconds.

Ayra felt happy sap spread throughout her veins. She paddled over to the lounging queen with her wings acting as poor flippers. "The spirits that watch you are happy now. Their singing is joyous, friend Cadista."

Cadista didn't believe in the Tea'la spirits, but she smiled at the compliment all the same. "Glad to see my ancestors approve."

* * *

The night progressed with wild abandon. Twilight Sparkle found herself sitting a large circular couch with her closest pony family, Ratchet, Princess Luna, and Rainbow Dash who was sporting some new bruises. In addition, Rainbow's parents had finally caught up to their daughter after her sparring match. Sadly, Celestia had to bid farewell for the night an hour earlier.

Prism was a lean but muscularly built stallion who still wore his army soft cap wherever he went, even though he was long retired. Howling Wind was a sky blue pegasus who never tried to hide the pride in her eyes every time she looked at her husband or daughter.

As was becoming the norm, the queens leaned against each other, relishing the other's proximity. "So, Colonel Prism," Twilight started up after polishing off her beverage. "I think father has never heard about how you and Howling Wind reacted to RD becoming a changeling."

Rainbow glowered at her sister. "Ah come on, Twi, don't ask them that! I have a repu-"

She got no further as that's when Howling Wind flew over and embraced her beloved daughter. She inadvertently caused Twilight to back away a little from her sister. "Oh momma's little flier was scared to the high heavens, she was shivering on her hooves like a frozen puppy. Wasn't she Prizzy?"

"That she was," Prism replied with a mirthful grin at the prospect of dishing out parental embarrassment. "Poor girl was scared stiff with just the idea of showing us her half and half state, so much that we didn't know anything about it until _after_ my little Rainbow woke up a royal bug."

Rainbow buried her face in her hooves and groaned as old self-consciousness threatened to overwhelm her. Not even a military career could get her to ignore parental mortification. Not that her mother noticed, and continued where her husband left off. "She came in like the little trooper she is without using any disguise magic. Just strode right in and told us what happened." Wind mussed her daughter's unruly mane. "To think she believed a little thing like holes and fangs could stop us from loving our only daughter."

"Well to be fair," Rainbow announced through her hooves, "I had some good reasons at the time to be anxious, what with Twilight's lack of success."

Both Twilight and Night Light soured at that, even if Twilight was expecting Rainbow's poor choice of words. She glanced over at Night Light and was pleased to see that Azure Sky hugged her father a little tighter. _She's supportive, even in subtle moments._

Prism glowered at Rainbow who only reacted because she sensed his aura grow chastisingly bitter. "I see your mouth still runs a mile ahead of your brain. I apologize for her lack of social graces," he said to the Sparkle family. "Between us, her drill instructors, and commanding officers, we never could ween that out of her."

Luna carefully watched the whole exchange, including who Twilight's gaze was focused on. _Did she really bring that topic up just to gain some insight on Night's marefriend?_ Luna cast the annoyed thought aside. "So, Azure Sky, you started work quite recently at my Royal Observatory correct?"

The pale blue unicorn nodded briskly. "Yes, princess, that's also where I met, Nighty." She nuzzled his neck briefly. By now, Rainbow had recovered from her embarrassment and Wind was returning to her husband's side.

"I was there by request of the Chief Astronomer," Night Light said with wistful remembrance, "when we met each other."

The couple went on to tell the tale while Twilight carefully masked a detection spell by simultaneously levitating her cup to drink. _She's not a changeling, or using any enchantments. So she's probably who she says she is._ "That's interesting," she said warmly, "I still find time to stargaze even now."

Azure Sky grinned and was about to go into her favorite constellations when a Lunar Guard caught her attention as he whispered into Luna's ear from behind. She passed it off to speak. "Well I've always been fascinated by the ponyhead nebula. It's eerie, really."

"It does seem strangely similar, to be sure," Twilight conceded with a thin smile. "Although recently I've been infatuated with the Cat's Eye Nebula. It feels like a distant queen is looking back at me."

Azure took a moment to truly notice the queens' cat-like eyes. "It _does_ doesn't it. Although I'm sure we all thought that of Messier 57."

"The great eye in the heavens," Twilight identified with an interested hum.

Rainbow Dash nudged her sister. Hey, Luna looks like she's about to step in. Once she had her sister's attention, Rainbow sat up. "Something wrong Luna?"

All eyes turned to the midnight mare who rose to her hooves. "There are two changeling drones at the front gates claiming to be from the 'Home Guard'."

Rainbow remembered that only pony guards were stationed at the front. _No wonder I didn't hear about it first._ "This must be important if the HG are coming all the way here to speak with us personally."

Twilight kissed Ratchet before joining her sister on getting up. "Excuse us, everypony, we'll be back shortly."

Rainbow took a slight lead in moving to the front. Aegis, Blitz, report to the front gate pronto. We have emissaries from the Home Guard here.

Aegis had been contemplating on finding a way to see what Cadence's love tasted like when the call came in. Both princesses shared a bewildered stare before taking to the air. Why would they come here when our hive's way down south?

Blitz lightly slapped her counterpart's head. Haven't you been paying attention to our training? The Home Guard are traditionally barred from speaking to puppets if there is a major species wide issue. They must speak directly to the queens and nopony else.

Blitz made sure to keep Twilight and Rainbow in on the conversation, to which Twilight was equally pleased with Blitz as she was displeased with Rainbow's area of instruction. Rainbow knew exactly what her sister was going to say before the words even formed in her mind. Hey, we've had to crash course them in queenhood 101 in barely four years. What do you think Blitz's job is?

"Neither one of us had the luxury of all these extra years," Twilight reminded her.

"Exactly," Rainbow all but shouted, temporarily drawing eyes towards her. "I wouldn't wish that on anypony, let alone our royal kids! Besides, we had our pony lives to draw experience from."

Twilight followed her sister out the front door and saw the two princess buzzing over the roof to join them. "Let's just be glad we have them in-hive for at least another four years while their drones mature."

Twilight's instincts surged at the prospect of Aegis maturing into a proto-queen soon, but her logical side was adamant in training both princesses before they moved out.

Aegis and Blitz landed next to their mothers right outside the gate where a pair of thestral guards were watching over the two undisguised Home Guards. Blitz had to remind herself that most changelings didn't have fur. _Ugh. I hate chitin. Looks so cold and uncomfortable to snuggle up against compared to fur._

The two chitin bound drones genuflected at Twilight and Rainbow's approach while the two ponies backed off a ways. "Queens Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash, we thank you for granting us an audience."

Twilight gave a respectful bow, prompting the others to do the same. Then both queens started speaking in unison. "Rise, honorable Home Guard. An audience is the least we can do for your ageless service. What brings you here?"

Assuming the speech pattern was a show of unity, the left drone barely reacted to it. "Your highnesses, it has been four years since Queen Silandrus' death. With war still raging across the home-jungles, the Ebony Throne has remained vacant for too long. By ancient accord enacted by the First Mother, since no one has stepped forward with enough support to name themselves the new Prime Matriarch, we are calling a temporary end to the fighting. By the First Mother's will, _we_ will name a new Prime Matriarch, as is our right by tradition."

Rainbow spoke with dubious interest at the news. "That could be trouble. Who did you pick?"

"That can only be disclosed officially at the Summit itself," replied the right drone. "We can only say that every surviving queen must be in attendance. Failure in this could lead to being declared rogue. Including any heirs, as usual."

"As if we'd miss a Summit meeting," Twilight replied flatly. "When will it be held?"

"In two weeks' time, your highnesses" replied the first with a slight twinge of relief.

"Then we will depart tomorrow morning," Rainbow announced definitively. "Blitz, I want you to lead the preparations first thing tomorrow morning. Aegis, shore up the security detail. We're still open to attack until a three days before the meeting itself." She looked at the pair of princesses with a stoic glare. "I want no surprises between now and the start of the Summit."

"Yes, my queen," they barked back. The princesses physically paused while giving off dozens of orders to the various naval crews, but ultimately it didn't take them long.

Twilight mentally nodded in satisfaction with her sister's commands. "I guess now we'll get to see our grandchildren."

"That'll be a hell of a reunion," Rainbow scoffed. "I don't think we'll be able to take any of them to court for visitation or custody battles."

"We'll see," Twilight replied crytically. "For now, we should enjoy the rest of the night while we can." With the orders given, the princesses joined their mothers inside, but everyones' thoughts remained in the jungle.


	55. Chapter 55

Changeling Politics 101

The changeling royal navy was making a very brief stay in Phoenix's Roost before heading out to the Summit. With the construction of a cloakable tender vessel, Rainbow Dash was able to size down the cargo capacity on both capital ships, allowing better tactical movement at the cost of slightly reduced independent operational range. The removal of the hatchery from the _Deception_ was enough to make room for the new Octavia engines.

Little of that knowledge passed through Rasua's mind as she disembarked from the _Deception_ at the Phoenix's Roost airship dock, mostly because of the massive hangover she was nursing with a canteen of water. What she did know however, was that the refit of Octavia engines onto the frigate worried her greatly. _I know Aegis said these engines were in development for decades, but the willingness they show to so quickly embrace any new technology is frightening. What if that diplomat of theirs gets his mitts on something important back in the homeland? They may have one over on us in airships, but we have more than the lightning cannons and electrified crossbows they've seen so far._

Shaking such musings aside, Rasua made her way to the edge of the dock which hung a good fifteen stories up. Stretching from the central palace to ten miles at the outer walls was a complex of civic planning that was superb as far as Rasua was concerned.

The industrial district blanketed the entire south half of the hive with a singular spire jutting up to match the palace in height. The forest of smokestacks rising above the factories and warehouses belched grey and black smoke that was being pulled towards the spire.

Rasua remembered seeing large blackened lumps being constantly removed from the base of the spire, but ultimately didn't bother finding out what was being done with them. _They could be dumping them in the ravine or selling them for all I care._

The northern half of the hive bore all of the residences, primarily small apartments or large boarding houses for those drones that didn't require much personal space. A large number of parks and other buildings one would find in a normal city spread out, each one filling some need for Phoenix's Roost.

Rasua choked down her whiskey induced migraine and leapt from the dock, flying off towards a specific building that was flush against the northern stone wall. _Since I'm not going south with the royal family, I'm free to get my next session before going back to my smithing work._

Her path was beset by thousands of nymphs flying or running all over the hive. While the local drones were able to ward the nymphs away from anything dangerous, that didn't include poor Rasua. The hungover huntress was being stalked by a swarm of curious nymphs. Rasua was assailed by constant questions to which she gave short answers until she finally reached her destination. Thankfully a caretaker was already present and chased after the nymphs to shoo them away from Rasua. With the changelings gone, Rasua found several sphinxes milling around the two story structure. A large sign read 'Federation Immigration Office' in both Vespid and Felionian. Clutching her psionic-dampening smithing medallion to make sure it was there, Rasua landed near the front door. The building itself was rather generic with regularly spaced windows and a roof access. It bore the brass and gunmetal grey finish that prevailed throughout most of the technophiles basic building colorscheme.

The three sphinxes near the door all bore the brand of a psyker upon their forehead. It was a crimson brand of a stylized open eye seared upon them by the either the government or the Order to show to the world that they were willing practitioners of their psionic abilities. The only sign of them being Psykira was a single lock of blue dyed hair across the left side.

The three of them knew Rasua on sight as the one who scouted the Alliance as a safe harbor for the Psykira. "Hail, honored huntress, have you come for Dr. Arvatus?"

She nodded briskly. "Yes, is he in?"

"He just returned from lunch barely a minute ago." He pointed a paw at the front lobby towards an aging Egyptian tom who was chatting with the secretary.

"So he is, thank you," she replied in a friendly manner. _Glad the Sestapo works as discretely as they're known for. We haven't intercepted a single warning from the Order's monks in Equestria so far._

The reception lobby was almost completely empty, save for a scattering of waiting room chairs. Dr. Arvatus noticed Rasua's entry almost immediately and smiled at her. "Ah, my honored huntress. I was just thinking about you. I feared your time in the pony capital might have caused you to miss your treatment."

She shivered at the idea. "Believe me, I was scared that I'd lose three years of progress if I was too late as well. But I was able to convince my masters that my presence was unnecessary in the southern jungles."

Arvatus waved towards the hallway before walking towards his office with Rasua falling in behind him. "So I see. How was the party? Was it as extravagant as everyone expected it to be?"

"I don't really remember much of it," Rasua admitted with only a hint of self-consciousness. "I had to get drunk to keep your work from unraveling. I didn't expect the royal family to stay in Canterlot as long as they did."

Arvatus caught a whiff of stale alcohol. _She doesn't like drinking this heavily. I think she's developing additional fear about her phobia returning._ "Well, you are here now. Let us get started."

The doctor's workplace was akin to a psychiatrist's office complete with patient couch, desk, various personalized nick nacks and statuary of various individuals important to Arvatus. Chief among them was a figurine of Rasua on the right side of his desk. It was a tribute to the jane who helped him in more ways than she could possibly know.

Rasua took to the couch and rested her head on the end closest to Arvatus' chair. "I'm sure you know the routine by now, keep your mind's eye on that which you fear most," he said while taking a small paper cup and filling it from a water cooler nearby.

"Thank you." She downed it in one go while taking her dampening medallion off. Getting comfortable, she pulled up images of spiders, millipedes, the sound of hundreds of buzzing changeling wings, their eyes, and worst of all, the tens of thousands of them speaking with one voice. With their constant gentle glow, their eyes always looked like compound bug eyes from even a short distance to her.

As she pulled all these fears to the surface, Arvatus primed himself by massaging his temples and focusing on Rasua's surface thoughts. From there he followed the pathways they all shared to her entomophobia. He perceived it as a knot of tangled rope from which he started slowly pulling apart as he had done since their first session years ago. Too quick and he might cause any latent psionic potential within her to awaken. Too slow and he would never see appreciable results. "So tell me, how goes your relationship with Thunderfury?"

Active conversation was encouraged during sessions, yet Rasua's migraine had kept her silent thus far. "Difficult, doctor, you already know these changelings find monogamy laughably backwards at worst and unnecessary for them at best."

He nodded while placing his hands on her head, careful to avoid messing up her hairstyle. "They are a very strange culture to get used to, I agree." He teased a strand of the knot free, letting it dissipate. "But the lack of psyker phobias really helps smooth things over." _Almost makes me wish the Harieta province had stayed out of the Federation, but war would have followed us there._

No further attempts at conversation were made and silence reigned for over an hour as Rasua relaxed her guard to let Arvatus work more freely. Eventually he released her head and leaned back in his chair mentally exhausted. "There, that should negate your fears for another week."

Shuddering a moment, Rasua climbed back to her paws. "Thank you doctor. You are a credit to Psykira everywhere."

Arvatus took a cup of water for himself and sipped it. "Hardly. I am simply abiding the Faithocrattic oath, as any good doctor should." He leaned forward as Rasua made for the door. "One thing before you go."

For a brief moment, Rasua thought he would ask for payment for once. Being the one to realize the Equestrian Alliance as a safe harbor for Psykira, Arvatus usually waived all fees for her. "I noticed the knot of fear weakens every time you have," he coughed uncomfortably, "intimate relations with Thunderfury. It is as I expected, you have the Grenger Disposition."

"I am not familiar with that, doctor."

"Most aren't," he chuckled, "especially since medical Psykira specializing in the mind like myself are few and far between. It's difficult work, and even more so to practice safely.

"GD simply means personal contact, real love, or simple friendship can make my efforts more natural and permanent for you. Which is rare," he added with an amused guffaw, "since the focus of most phobias can't really be loved, only tolerated. But if you can resolve your personal issues with Thunderfury's polyamory, or any other changeling I suppose, you could rid yourself of your phobia for good."

"…Interesting, doctor. That might be necessary if I am to remain the Sestapo's agent here."

Rasua was about to leave but her curiosity got the better of her, and she stopped at the door before turning back to him. "Doctor?" He looked up from her file and hummed inquisitively. "I've been wondering about the changeling hive mind ever since Aegis first told me about it, but I never cared to know more about it until after asking for your services."

"Ahh, I see. You wish to know what it sounds like, yes?" Rasua moved back over to the couch after nodding. He closed the file and sat behind his desk with a creased brow. "It is… very dangerous to psykers like us, though I'm glad those Psykira who opt to remain in Phoenix's Roost are strong enough to resist it."

"How is it so dangerous? Thunderfury has always told me it is central to their society."

Unbidden memories came to him, making Arvatus pinch his nose. "I'm sure it would cause no physical damage, though I have no evidence. But the reason it's dangerous, huntress, is that it is a nigh irresistible siren's song." She gave him the puzzled look all non-psykers gave him when talking about such things. "Oddly enough, every drone I have ever come in contact with is almost completely mute psionically."

Rasua did a double take. "Surely you jest. How can there be a siren song if they're mute?"

"I said _almost,_ honored huntress," he said with less mirth than she expected. Arvatus cupped his hands and spread them out. "For us sphinxes, without our childhood training, we all radiate our surface thoughts like radio waves. These drones however, send their messages like a lightning bolt to their queen. While they refrained from speaking on it further, I suspect this technique is perfected during childhood."

Rasua mulled over the information, filing it away in her mind. "You keep talking about the drones. What about the queens? I imagine that must be very different if they are the psionic hubs they claim to be."

"Oh very much so," Arvatus nodded in agreement. "I actually approached Queen Rainbow Dash around spring last year, to give thanks for providing sanctuary to us. Out of morbid curiosity, I let my inquisitiveness surpass my better judgement and asked to briefly connect to this wonderful hive mind I kept hearing about."

Rasua's jaw dropped. "I thought prolonged linked minds went against the Psykira covenant."

He gave a self-deprecating sigh. "It does, which is why I only wanted to catch a glimpse of it." He gave a short humorless laugh. "As you might expect, she warned me against it, saying that it was a threshold no one outside of the changelings themselves should cross.

"But in my arrogance, I protested, stating that my mental discipline was strong enough to resist any addictive nature. To her credit, it took me five separate requests on different days, but eventually she granted my request for a single minute. For the life of me, I wish she hadn't."

Rasua furrowed her brow when he shuddered at the memory. "Was it that traumatic?"

"Yes, but not in the manner you're thinking," he clarified with a halting finger. Arvatus centered himself as the memory of the loud welcoming chorus of voices from all vocal ranges assailed him. Arvatus had to forcefully shake his head to clear it.

"I was wholly unprepared for the hive mind. No sphinx could be," he attested while jabbing a finger on his desk. "The moment I was brought into the changeling Link, I was surrounded by tens of thousands of voices. It felt like I was thrust into a giant forum with hundreds of conversations that weaved together with harmonious order." He wrung his hands trying to put the mind-numbing experience into words. "But it - it wasn't something you'd find in something as mundane as a school cafeteria. There was something like a carrier wave that brought a form of order to it all. The constant chatter sounded more like a song, all unified by the queen's orchestration. Queen Rainbow's presence was strangest part to it all."

"They say they're the focus of each section of the hive mind," Rasua stated with growing worry on how far her doctor went with this little experiment.

"Oh they are," Arvatus declared flatly. "But they are unlike any sound I have ever heard. I can only describe it as a heavenly tone not unlike your mana-tap chant. What I _can_ tell you is that Rainbow's psionic voice was guiding me to join the choir. It was completely automatic for her."

Arvatus choked up just thinking about the beauty of it, and had to pause for several seconds to compose his voice. "I nearly caved in to add my voice to that holy chorus, but Rainbow's conscious mind must have been watching me closely because she severed my connection before I could add my own voice to that choir." He remained quiet for a minute, brooding on foolishness he thought he had long grown out of. "I didn't want to leave it, honored huntress. At that moment, I would have given my life to remain a part of the Link."

"That's… unsettling," Rasua admitted hesitantly. "If what you say is true, this it is a testament to your fortitude that you have resisted that siren's call for so long," Rasua praised with a thin reassuring smile.

Arvatus gave a self-deprecating huff. "For you, huntress, I will speak the truth. I do not deserve your approbation. I wanted to be reconnected. By the Great Cycle I begged and pleaded for the longest time, and to be honest… what scares me the most is that some part of me still does."

* * *

Twilight Sparkle stood silently on the bridge of the _Longshot_ as it was preparing to depart for the jungles. Captain Darya, one of Rainbow's drones, calmly overviewed her crew's performance. She was a newer strain with improved observational capability over the hive mind itself, allowing her greater awareness over the battlefield. The strain was made in direct response to the carrier's fighters. _Rainbow Dash may not believe in the carrier, but she's wise enough to give it a chance. At least until her new cruiser is complete. She's already promised to gift it to Aegis and Blitz, but I can at least use it for the Summit trip._

With no need to micromanage, Twilight searched the hive mind for one ambassador in particular. Gem Shield was far to the northwest along the griffin-pony border where a large mountain range currently hosted a dragon horde.

Twilight pinged Gem with a puppet request which was quickly granted. With a rush, Twilight's awareness raced across the hive mind to fill Gem Shield completely. She found her far away daughter in a personal cavern nestled inside an open wax sleeping cocoon that was a staple for on demand sleeping accommodations. _Gem never was one to enjoy modern technology._ A small torch at the entrance provided the only light source.

Twilight was about to leave the rather spartan room when Spike appeared at the door. "Hey, Gem, just got those notes back about the next migration location."

He paused after catching Gem's wide grin and cat-like eyes. Twilight, in Gem Shield's body, admired the young drake Spike had become over the years. Spike had grown to match Princess Luna, with wings that were not quite large enough to carry him aloft though that would inevitably change. He was about as lanky as any teenager who hadn't quite filled out yet. "Hey, Spike, how've you been?"

"Terrible," he groaned before dropping the box to hug his adopted sister. With him being so much taller than a drone, Twilight had to rear up to embrace him. He let go first and started ranting while digging through the scrolls. "Okay, I admit, hanging out with my own kind was really good for a few years, I even managed to get Garble to back down from raiding anymore phoenix nests."

"He's the one you met on your first dragon migration, right?" Twilight asked while moving to the other side of the box. She wasn't sure which scroll he was looking for, so she opted to just let him work.

"Yeah, that's the one. Prick."

"Language, Spike," Twilight warned.

He deflated briefly with a sigh before continuing. "My bad. Anyway, I'm getting sick of this place." He quickly looked to the cave entrance to make sure no other dragons were possibly listening in. Sensing no one, he returned to the crate and found the right scroll. "My _people_ are so preoccupied with hoards and general bickering with each other, it's a wonder the matriarch has any real power over them at all." He waved the scroll at Twilight. "There's only so many times I can go to the bathroom without a toilet or running water around here before I go crazy. Or wake up in a dark cave without even a straw bed, or fridge for breakfast, or even a book to read! I only get scrolls to read, and even that's frowned upon here!"

Giving him her best reassuring smile, Twilight nuzzled Spike. "I know it's rough around here, but it's draconic tradition. They think technology separates people from the world they're connected to."

Spike spat in disgust at the concept. "Well it's stupid. Who's to say the world _doesn't_ want us to live like cave people? If you ask me, I think the reason why we have so many intelligent species is so that _somebody_ gets the right idea that tech and magic needs to be constantly improved, not so our brains are rotted by idiotic backwards thinking. What good's a brain if all you use it for is survival?!"

It was a rant he had given often enough that Twilight knew what he meant, even if the words changed. "I agree completely, Spike. But it is the dragon's way."

"Well it's not _my_ way!" he huffed angrily. "At least not when I can leave this dump. I haven't even been able to see any of my pony friends, or even go to your birthdays. At least with Gem around you can visit me."

"I understand your frustration. Outside of my bloodline, no other queen sees the value in non-biological technology. Such as it is though, you only have to stick around long enough for Gem and that cranky old unicorn Wise Consul to earn the matriarch's trust enough for you to return to the Alliance. The Rites of Velandus should be over in a few months, and then you can come home."

Spike perked up at that and cast Twilight a thin smile. "I still have your old basket, just the way you left it," she added with a teasing smirk.

"You _still_ have that thing? I probably can't even fit my foot in that anymore," he chuckled loudly. Spike could feel some of his dragon aimed resentment begin to cool.

"Never fear," Twilight announce with a hoof twirl, "I'm sure I can commision a replica to fit you."

"Ha! At that point, you might as well call it a full-fledged bed than a basket." Spike finally remembered the scroll he held, unfurled it, and then passed it on to Twilight with a deep frown. "I had some news for Gem Shield, but you might as well hear it too. The matriarch is finally letting you guys off the hook from that assassination attempt by _finally_ accepting your hive as a separate nation from Chrysalis."

"That's great!" Twilight beamed as she started reading.

"If only," Spike amended with a sour tone. "She's demanding two metric tons of starlight infused sunstone in tribute to be delivered to her by the time the migration reaches the next location or she won't add Phoenix's Roost to the list of protected nations."

 **"What?!"** Twilight scanned the scroll with shock and indignation rising in equal levels. "But that would allow any dragon to raid us for gems, gold and whatever else they may want!"

Spike twirled his claw dramatically. "As the matriarch oh so delicately put it 'not my problem anymore.' I tried to tell her that your hive's defenses would be more than enough for any pissed off dragon, but she couldn't care less. Makes me sick."

Shoring up Celestia's tutelage, Twilight took a deep breath to focus on the solution instead of the problem with only limited success. "So is she purposefully asking for the impossible? You can't infuse sunstones with _starlight,_ let alone two tons of it."

Spike grumbled as he sat down. "No offense to her, but the whole thing is partially Luna's fault." Twilight's planning for a rant came to a halt at that. "She showed up a few months ago with a big pile of gems as part of the once a decade princess visit. The 'cherry on top' of it all was a starlight infused sunstone barely the size of my finger."

"So let me guess," Twilight growled at the scroll. "The matriarch or someone important liked it and now thinks she can blackmail two tons of it out of us since we're friends with Luna?"

"That and she loathes the fact that you focus so much on tech," Spike added bitterly.

"I think if anypony has any right to say whether or not we've lost our connection to the world, it would be Arya and the other Tea'la." Twilight rubbed the temples of both her puppet and her real body. Even Gem Shield, who was observing it all from the back of her mind, groaned at the news. "I'll be sure Rolled Scroll passes the message to Luna. It's entirely possible that the sunstone is easy for her to make or find."

Twilight forcibly pushed those thoughts aside for the moment. "As troubling as this is, I don't want my visit to be all about bad news. How are you getting along with Slytha?" she asked with a knowing grin. _I always knew Spike's crush on Rarity was just a phase._

"Ah well, you know," Spike flustered with reddened cheeks. The purple drake tried to scowl at her, fully knowing she was playing with him. "I don't think it's going to go very far," he said with masked regret. "She's got the hots for Deventh." Spike spat his name as if it was poison.

Seeing her attempt failed miserably, Twilight hugged him again. "Don't worry, I'm sure another dragoness will come around in time."

"Yeah, maybe." Spike shrugged defeatedly.

 _He's done so much for everypony, only to lose Slytha…_ An idea struck her, making her gasp in joy. "Hey, Spike, what if I found a fire ruby for you?"

Spike blanked for a second before a toothy grin cleaved his face. "Yeah, yeah! That would work! Slytha always said fire rubies are her favorite, but there aren't any anywhere near the roost."

"Don't worry about that, Spike, I'll get it taken care of. Gem will tell you when I find one."

"Awesome, thanks, Twilight!" He ran over and scooped her up in a crushing hug.

"Anything for you, Spike," Twilight wheezed out.

 **"Spikivar, I require your presence immediately,"** boomed a growling dragon from deeper within the cavern. Twilight and Spike shuddered at the ear rattling roar echoing in the small chamber. **"Your matriarch suffers an itch."**

Being the center of a free-love hive, Twilight's fears immediately went to the gutter. Spike rolled his eyes and dragged himself to the door. "Bah. She's so old, every time she eats rubies her spines start itching like mad."

Twilight sighed in profound relief, but kept just enough composure to keep a compassionate visage. "I suppose I'll have to leave you to it. Just remember you'll finally be able to come home by late fall."

Dreams of being Twilight's assistant again and living in a place where plumbing was expected, gave him the strength to keep going. "Thanks, Twilight, I hope we get a chance to talk again soon, but I'll need to join the scavenging party after tending to Itchy Scales."

"Well good luck," Twilight called out as Spike ran off. From the depths of her mind, Gem Shield wordlessly indicated she had duties to tend to soon as well. Thank you for your assistance, Gem. Have a good day.

Twilight's dominating presence in Gem Shield's mind faded as quickly as it had come. With Twilight's attention focused elsewhere, she missed Gem squirming on the ground relishing the ecstasy after being puppeted. "Ohhhh, yeeeaaahhh." Her eyes rolled back as waves of pleasure washed over her.

* * *

The flotilla which set out from Phoenix's Roost consisted of three ships, the _Deception, Longshot,_ and a tender vessel called _Cornucopia._ With the loss of Stripped Gear and it's volcanic crystal factory, cloaking crystals were exceedingly difficult to produce. As a result they were rarely used anymore, save for the _Cornucopia_ due to its vulnerability.

Twilight insisted that their flightpath avoid the ruins of Stripped Gear lest bad memories color their actions in the Summit. From her elevated perch on the _Longshot's_ bridge, Twilight watched the flight deck crews drilling to launch the biplanes.

Ultimately though, Twilight trusted Rainbow's assessment. _At the very least they might be a shock value instead of any real tactical usefulness._

Twilight looked to her left to find Aegis watching the crews with an eagerness usually reserved for flamethrowers and eggs. "They're beautiful aren't they?" Aegis pressed her face against the glass trying to drink in every action of the crew and pilots. While she genuinely favored the pilots, Aegis was doing so more to ignore the large swaths of burnt and diseased trees the warships passed by on their way south. The sight of it all disturbed Aegis to no end should such forces ever be leveled against her home.

"To look at, from an engineer's standpoint at least," Twilight conceded, breaking Aegis out of her dark thoughts. "But I'm glad you seem to like them. The _Longshot_ will be your flagship after all."

"I still don't know what you and Aunty have against fighters." She looked up at her mother with a borderline condescending eyebrow and half frown. "Our whole business model is maximizing each individual drone's combat ability isn't it? What better way than fighters to do that?"

Twilight shook her head at the headstrong princess. "I don't focus on combat, Aegis, and you know that. I can defend myself in a fight, but I leave everything else to Rainbow. If she thinks the carrier is a bad idea, then I'll back her decision. You know we only kept this ship operational because mother insisted we give the concept a chance to prove itself."

"Well don't worry about that," Aegis declared as she refocused on the aircraft. "I'll figure out a way to make it work even if you two can't."

"You'd better," Twilight warned with masked mirth, "I'd hate to see all the bits dumped into this ship end up being a waste. I've always tried to instill creativity in all my children." She gave her daughter a loving smile whereas Aegis responded with a curious look. "Let's see if all that effort's paid off," Twilight added while poking Aegis' ribs.

"Gah!" The poke coincided with an abdominal cramp. Aegis bounced away from her mother's invading hoof causing Twilight to giggle. Ignoring the poke, Aegis rubbed her abs grinning maniacally. "That's the third cramp since yesterday. You think I'll finally start laying today?"

Twilight frowned before pointing out the bow window. "I hope not, because we're here."

The _Longshot's_ forward engines shuddered to a halt with the Ebony Castle looming ahead. Unlike the hostile jungles below, it showed no signs of the war. The black edifice was immaculate as always, bringing a strong sense of nostalgia in Twilight.

Alright, everypony, keep an eye out for the other queens. We have five hours before the Summit is in session.

Joining her sister's announcement from the _Deception,_ Rainbow Dash added her own. I want the _Cornucopia_ to resupply us.

Everyone scrambled to obey with the shuttle pilots and Queens' Guard in particular preparing to depart. Aegis scowled at how the biplanes were being left on the flight deck. _What's the point of having them if we don't use them?_ Hornet squadron get out there and scout the area, but don't engage.

Aegis waited for Rainbow's reaction to the first time those fighters would be scrambled for a non-drill. This time Rainbow spoke to Aegis alone. Why bring them out? Fluffy's the only one they can really scout out, and we can already see him.

Aegis found herself steepling her fingers to think. First off, our pilots and deck crews have only had practice so far. There's no real risk of combat this close to the Summit, so it's good experience. Plus it's a psychological attack, which is perfectly legal. With the fighters, they know that the same focusing tactic Silandrus used against the _Deception_ won't work against so many fast attack craft.

You're assuming they even consider these fighters a threat, Aegis. The other queens could assume they're scouts and nothing more.

Then all the better, Aegis smirked as the first plane took off. If the others underestimate the fighters, we surprise them with their lethality. If they overestimate them, then they're a deterrent until they think of a counter strategy. Either way, we win.

Rainbow snorted in approval. Sound ideas, just don't let your love of this ship blind you.

Waiting for the second of the five plane squadron to take off, Aegis made for the stairwell and the shuttle hangar below. No offense, Aunty, but I could say the same thing to you about the _Deception_.

Yeah well, we'll see who's right when the chips are down.

* * *

With an hour left until the Summit, the four royals of Phoenix's Roost cantered through the hallways of the Ebony Castle with a squad of eight Queens' Guard behind them and a pair of Home Guard taking the lead.

While she kept her expression and aura neutral, Twilight was still troubled by being here. It doesn't feel the same without you here, momma.

Cadista remained in Phoenix's Roost going over the latest budget projections. You're strong and resilient, Twilight, and I gave up my crown years ago. I am no longer welcome to the Ebony Castle.

I know… Twilight walked by a tapestry depicting the First Mother's victory in battle. It was the same tapestry she had seen the first time she came to this lonely palace. She glanced backwards at Aegis and Blitz who weren't even bothering to hide their bipedal movement and hands. I never imagined being the elder queen in our bloodline so quickly.

You'll do fine, my daughter. This may not be a quick meeting, but it should be simple enough. Someone will be named PM, and little more than that outside of a headcount of who's left so far.

Being so in tune with her sister, Rainbow Dash, picked up on the conversation. And see who has our grandkids.

While Twilight, Rainbow Dash, and Cadista conspired about their rival queens, Blitz cringed when an abdominal cramp nearly made her drop to all fours. _This is bad._

Aegis saw Blitz absently rub her lower stomach. You're getting them too?

The discomfort lingered for only a minute before passing. Yeah, but it doesn't seem to be that bad, Blitz realized and let her hand drop. I can almost ignore them compared to being at our first freaking Summit!

Aegis buzzed her wings out of excitement. I was here before, but only as a drone. Now I finally get to be _in_ the Summit!

Honestly, I only want this Summit to proceed smoothly. Blitz gulped when the two Home Guard drones flanked one last black stone door.

"Please, only your royal majesties in the chamber itself," the corporal on the right announced respectfully.

Twilight turned to Intel and her squad. "You know the drill."

"Yes, my queen," Intel snapped a salute and barked some quick orders to the other drones to stand at the ready. Intel called out to Aegis as she moved to follow their mother into the Summit. Make some enemies in there!

You know I will! Aegis snarked back. Squaring her shoulders, Aegis marched past the door with every intention of making her mark on changeling society.

If they were honest with themselves, Twilight and Rainbow Dash didn't really know what to expect. Several queens were already present and waiting. Polybia was the first to catch the pair's eyes. She was in the middle of talking with an unrecognized queen who looked tired, worn out, and had the look of recently molted chitin across her left foreleg and chest. By contrast, Polybia looked physically imposing with a self-assured expression and dominating stance. However, both Aegis and Rainbow Dash noticed there were odd discolored splotches on her chitin, starting on Polybia's horn and becoming rarer near her tail. Polybia only stopped talking to watch Aegis and Blitz walking by on two legs with obvious confusion and bloodshot eyes.

Kreesus sat flanked by one other queen and a single proto-queen if her height was anything to go by. Aegis was surprised to see that proto-queen was not part of Twilight's bloodline due to the lack of any fur. If I had to guess, I'd bet that's Silandrus' daughter.

While her two apparent allies whispered to each other, Kreesus stared at Twilight with mixed emotions that neither Twilight nor Rainbow could read with any certainty. Sitting quietly beside Kreesus' single queen ally was a diminutive blue princess who had chitin covering her entire barrel and half of her neck. Fur grew along the princess' legs and head and it looked as if that fur was started to grow over the leading edges of the chitin.

What really caught Twilight's attention though was Chrysalis seated off to the side in an isolated section of the amphitheater with only Jstrul, and two princesses at her side, one purple and one blue. The princess' had the same strange mixture of chitin and fur that Kreesus' ally possessed. However Chrysalis' strong and collected demeanor could do nothing to hide the vicious scars crisscrossing her chitin. Her whole neck was a dull pink due to the chitin being completely shed and a new shell growing in.

Jstrul had both of her eyes gauzed over and a chipped fang. With no medical salve of their own, Jstrul had dirty bandages covering her barrel, though Twilight could only discern dirt, not blood, soiling the once white strips.

Lastly, Captain Thoran, leader of the Home Guard, was standing alone near the empty seat Silandrus once occupied. "Announcing Queen Twilight Sparkle, Queen Rainbow Dash, and their heirs, Princess Aegis Altair, and Princess Blitzkrieg respectively."

Blitz groaned and smacked her face out of exasperation. "Did he _really_ have to use my full name? It doesn't even match my job in any way shape or form!" she grumbled under her breath along with a few Prench obscenities.

Unbeknownst to Blitz, Rainbow shot an apologetic look at her daughter. _Well not everypony can be prophetic with foal names anyway._

Almost everyone in the room was keeping to their own council, and not gawking at Aegis or Blitz's bipedal movement. Like Rainbow before her, Aegis growled at the lack of interest. Does nothing faze them? I bet I could have five heads and they wouldn't give any of them the time of day.

Don't feel too bad, Aegis, Twilight stated flatly. She would have injected some humor, but the blatant presence of purple and blue princesses was almost insulting. They barely reacted to Rainbow walking in as a full queen.

Doing her absolute damnedest to ignore her sister's verbal prodding, Rainbow Dash was glowering at all the queens with princesses. Unlike her sister, she wasn't hampered by trival things like 'diplomatic grace'. "I've heard of shameless salad tossers before, but you all take the rutting cake! None of you had the First Mother damned common courtesy to recolor any of our grandchildren so it wasn't stupidly obvious?"

Polybia cast a condescending eye at her. "We have had more important matters to attend to than insulting Queen Twilight's intelligence. You, however, are more than capable of doing that for the both of you."

Rainbow jumped to her hooves fully intending to lay out some verbal murder. "Oh yeah?! I bet you'd love to know our consorts were keeping score on you sorry hags. A corpse would be a better lay than any of you."

The collected queens scoffed more than anything else with Kreesus speaking the general consensus. "We have better uses of our time than frivolous bedroom exploits, Rainbow Dash."

"You don't know what you're missing then," Rainbow replied with a snide grin. "And that's _Queen_ Rainbow Dash to you, you repulsive honorless traitor!" Kreesus' reaction was _almost_ all the satisfaction Rainbow needed.

"Pardon my impertinence, your majesties," Thoran interrupted before the Summit could descend into anarchy. "But it appears all surviving queens and their heirs have joined us, and the allotted time for the Summit to begin has elapsed."

Rainbow halted her tirade, but never stopped glaring at Kreesus. It finally took a mental prod from Twilight to make Rainbow retake her seat. Save it for the battlefield when it comes to that, sister.

Returning to her sister's side, Rainbow Dash silently glowered at their rivals. Fine. I'd rather wait until the _Steamrunner_ is operational anyway.

 _Queens are completely insane,_ Thoran mused darkly. _I'm so glad we Home Guard don't have one._ Satisfied that the various royals were listening, Thoran continued. "It has been four years since Queen Silandrus' death was confirmed. As my messengers have informed all of you, since no other queen has been able to gather enough political support to be nominated as the next Prime Matriarch, it falls upon us, the Home Guard, to name a successor."

A gentle rumble of gossip passed quickly as Thoran continued after a moment. "Until that successor accepts the position, I will be acting as temporary Head of Summit, and act in accordance to the rules of conduct Queen Silandrus enforced previously.

"We of the Home Guard have debated this selection ever since Silandrus' death on who would best fit the future survival of our species. Records indicate that this choice is usually difficult, but in this case, it was not." The rumor mill tripled in volume, so Thoran simply spoke over it. "We of the Home Guard have decided to name Queen Twilight Sparkle as the next Prime Matriarch."

While Kreesus and many other queens were shocked by the declaration, Polybia however jumped to her hooves frothing with rage. "Are you mad, _drone!?_ "

Twilight was completely speechless in all of this with Rainbow Dash going bugeyed. "Whoa, whoa, whoa. You want _Twilight_ to be PM? Rock on!"

"She's far too young to be the Prime!" Kreesus added with much more composure than either previous speaker. "She's barely into her first century. She can't even rule a hive by herself!"

To his credit, Thoran remained firm in his position. _That never stopped you from allying with Yumia and Cadista._ Keeping the thought to himself, Thoran answered her with only the barest hint of his snide musings. "From my understanding, Queen Twilight's style of rule is voluntary, not a symptom of weakness. As for her age, she is the eldest queen capable of producing love. That love is ultimately the deciding factor."

Chrysalis remained oddly quiet throughout it all, not that Polybia noticed as she spat hatred at Rainbow Dash. "Neither of you are _true_ changelings! You're half-breeds that destroyed the sanctity of the First Mother! The Home Guard be damned, neither of you have any right to be on that throne!"

"We have just as much right as you do, fanatic," Twilight stated with all of the aristocratic sass she used to put up with in Celestia's court.

Rainbow took to hovering in the air, but stayed close to her sister. "Besides, the HG didn't ask _us_ to vote. They're the ones who get to pick." She kept her gaze on Polybia, but mentally nudged her sister. This is all legit right?

As far as I know, Twilight replied quickly.

Not desiring to waste her breath confronting Twilight or Rainbow directly, Kreesus zeroed in on Thoran. "You're making a mistake. Twilight is too weak to rule a hive by herself, let alone the rest of us, even if the position of PM is little more than a figurehead!"

The 'debate' faded from Aegis' awareness as she felt something solid shift in her gut. Her jaw dropped and her eyes dilated to the size of dinner plates as she felt four objects move in her abdomen before moving down her canal. "Holy frick, it's happening now!?"

Aegis looked over to see Blitz was sweating profusely as she grimaced and squatted down. Blitz started pressing down on her stomach, but Aegis was too preoccupied to finish watching. She looked down to see her first egg fall out of her and roll on the stone bench. Barely two seconds passed before the second egg came, followed by the third and fourth soon after.

Completely ignoring the world around her, Aegis scooped the eggs up in her hands just to make sure they were real. A manic grin that would feel right at home in a mental asylum cleaved Aegis' face as her vision centered on the four lavender eggs in her hands. Her wings were buzzing so fast out of exhilaration she started floating up. "I – I – I laid eggs. I, me, Aegis, I _laid eggs!_ **I finally laid eggs! I'm a proto-queeeeeeeen!"**

Aegis didn't even need to manually feed them love. The raw emotion she radiated being more than enough to satiate them. Between Aegis and Blitz, their love was so intense that it radiated throughout the amphitheater. the range and strength was more than enough for the other changelings in the room to siphon off some for themselves. Aegis fed the glowing eggs a little bit anyway to link them to her. It was only then that she turned to Blitz and saw her quartet of blue eggs were also glowing, though Blitz's exultant grin was rapidly fading to mortification when her eyes drifted off the eggs.

Confusion washed over Aegis as she followed her counterpart's gaze to find all the other queens staring at them ranging from Polybia and Kreesus' shock, to Chrysalis' steely visage.

Aegis found herself being telekinetically yanked back down to her seat, with an extra magic field keeping the eggs secure in her hands. Twilight gave her daughter a brief hug. We'll celebrate when we're not smack in the middle of the Summit. Take your eggs to Intel, get cleaned up, and race back here.

R-right, yeah, okay. Tucking her eggs close to her chest, Aegis flew off to the exit. Blitz caught up to her, with her eggs held firmly in her magic.

I can't believe this crap! Why did we have to start laying **right in the middle of our first Summit!** Blitz' embarrassment was so profound her disguise magic went wild, causing her whole head to turn bright red. Things were only made worse for her embarrassment with the fur on her nethers and back legs being damp.

Aegis got the door and swung it open. Because we of the Sparkle bloodline love to make a scene.

Blitz found it difficult to be mad at Aegis when she was still wrestling with the elation of her first laying.

Once the two new proto-queens closed the door behind them, Chrysalis turned back to the now silent Summit. "Well, if Queen Twilight is capable of producing a proto-queen in less than twelve years, that's more than any of you have accomplished," she deadpanned towards Kreesus and Polybia.

"Hey, I'm here too ya know!" Rainbow shouted sourly. "In case you hadn't noticed, one of those proto-queens came from _me!_ "

Kreesus was more or less able to conceal her shock at the scene, as were most of the other queens, including Chrysalis. Polybia, however, was dumbstruck by it all. As Chrysalis so diplomatically put it, Twilight had barely been a changeling for twelve years, and Rainbow Dash even less than that, and they had already produced not one, but two proto-queens. This was not sudden news to most thanks to their spies, but to have it so flatly pointed out was a blow to everyone's pride, even for Chrysalis herself. That wounded pride was far worse for Polybia who had let her information network decay into complete ignorance of everything outside of the jungles. Luckily for Twilight, she had been expecting this would happen fairly soon and collected herself first. "Captain Thoran before I accept your nomination, I need to know exactly what that entails."

The other queens found their voices and moved to raise more objections when Thoran shouted ahead of them. "The floor recognizes Queen Twilight Sparkle." The others silenced themselves more out of habit than any regard to the purple queen. Wanting to get out of the increasingly hostile and bizarre Summit meeting, Thoran talked quickly. "As Prime Matriarch, you may preside over the Summit as you so please. In addition, you are granted the status of 'Last Bastion' which means that no one is allowed to make war upon you because you stand as the "last bastion" of our species. Records show that it was Queen Silandrus who created this law upon acquiring the position after the last jungle-wide war ended up killing all but three queens out of the twenty seven before the war. A startling parallel to our current situation, wouldn't you say?" He added with veiled disdain. "It is generally believed that is why she lived as long as she did. She only fought wars she knew she could win."

Polybia couldn't believe her ears and snarled at him. "Are you trying to tell me we wouldn't be allowed to attack her at all!?"

Not wanting to push his luck, Thoran didn't chastise her for speaking out of turn. "Only in self-defense. Should the Prime Matriarch declare war on you, you may end the war in any way you see fit. As always, a war only ends when both parties cease hostilities."

Chrysalis steeled her voice and stood up to get Thoran's attention who nodded at her. "The floor recognizes Queen Chrysalis."

"I agree with Thoran's decision." Twilight, Rainbow, and even Thoran himself did a double take. "The Prime Matriarch is meant to be the last of our kind should the jungles claim us. Regardless of age, we _must_ have love production as a species." With renewed fire, Chrysalis glared at Polybia who was staring daggers right back at her. "Since no other love-maker is of age yet, let alone in possession of their own hive, Twilight is the most logical choice."

Chrysalis briefly shifted her gaze to Kreesus who was fuming, but Chrysalis knew she wasn't stupid enough to deny reason. She turned back to Polybia who was silently promising a painful death. "Our future should be all that matters, not your pathetic little fantasy world of scriptures that your _bitch_ of a mother made about the Silver City and the First Mother."

To the end of her days, Rainbow Dash would swear Polybia spontaneously combusted out of pure rage. "You will _regret_ that, Chrysalis," she said in a low growl. "I will not accept the Prime Matriarch being some _outsider!"_ She jabbed an accusatory hoof at the former ponies. "I will have nothing to do with a Prime who treats our most sacred beliefs as nothing more than some research project!"

"Ultimately, that it is not your decision." Thoran countered with just enough authority to stop Polybia's rant. The zealot charged her horn to incinerate him where he stood.

"Not another word, **drone!** "

Flames licked at Thoran's chitin, but before he could be consumed, Twilight and Rainbow Dash fired off a counterspell at both him and Polybia respectively. Kreesus and Chrysalis jumped to flank Polybia and charged their horns. "Have you gone mad, Polybia!?" Kreesus shouted with bewilderment and indignation in equal measures. "Thoran is _still_ acting PM. Attacking him is tantamount to going rogue!"

Polybia scanned the queens who were arrayed against her. Even her singular ally was paralyzed in fear between siding with her or being declared rogue along with her. "As if any of you can stand against me now." She let go of the spell and shoved past Chrysalis to focus on Twilight Sparkle. "Not even your warships will save you, profligate!"

Thoran recovered from the shock of the sudden attack and pointed at Polybia. "You have broken the Summit Accord! I hereby declare you rogue and your crown forfeit, as is your life!"

Kreesus and Chrysalis wasted no time in firing off two killing curses, but Polybia deflected one with a burst of mana, and dodged the second. Spoiling for a fight, Rainbow Dash charged headlong straight at Polybia with her wings glowing white hot with Arcane Wing magic. Twilight shielded her sister during the charge but Polybia blasted everyone with a blinding flare.

Everyone who was looking at Polybia got caught in the spell, an intense flash blinding them. Except for Thoran, every queen either reactively shielded themselves or wildly fired spells in all directions.

By the time Twilight sundered the spell on both Rainbow and herself, Polybia and the princess of her ally were gone. Rainbow Dash rubbed the spots out of her eyes and looked around to find her target. "Is she insane?! Why would she go rogue like that?"

Chrysalis expanded her magical senses to compensate for her blinded vision, but she couldn't sense Polybia. "She's gone mad after using corruptive dark magic for so long."

Twilight flew over to help her sister, and to learn more. "What kind of dark magic?" Rainbow, I'll figure out more here, see if you can locate and stop Polybia.

Already on it. Rainbow Dash removed herself from the gathered queens when Captain Darya spoke over the hive mind. My queen, Viper squadron has eyes on a queen fleeing the Summit theater, are you and the others alright?

 _Seems like you made a good call, if for the wrong reasons, Aegis._ Rainbow Dash focused on the carrier captain, glad that she had something to work with. It's Queen Polybia, she just attacked the Home Guard captain, and went rogue. I think she has one of our grandchildren with her. Chase her down and try to rescue the princess if you can!

Darya's blood ran cold and she couldn't process the news while Rainbow relayed similar orders to the _Deception._ S-seriously?

Yes, seriously. Now get your plot in gear!

Y-yes, my queen, at once.

Within seconds, five biplanes angled to intercept the rogue queen while all the royals converged on Polybia's ally demanding answers.


	56. Chapter 56

So Much for Solidarity

Viper Squadron leader Rusty Spring throttled up the engine of his Hornet biplane and rumbled off the _Longshot._ He was the last one back in the air after refueling since Aegis' scramble order came in over five hours ago.

He tapped the Octavia pressure readout as the engine coughed to push the aircraft in a near vertical take off. "Come on, baby, I know you don't like waking up." _Wish the lab coats had figured out how to keep the engine going during refueling._

A few coughs and growls later, Rusty eased the hornet away from the flight deck and banked towards the Ebony Castle. Overall it was an uneventful mission so far. Once he was back at his patrol rotation, he looked at Fluffy hovering off in the distance which, as expected, remained passive.

His wingmate, Greasy Piston seemed to know what he was looking at even with her aircraft being on the opposite side of the castle. That thing's creepy as hell idn'it?

That it is, Greasy.

Ah mean, piloting an airship - er - fighter is fine and dandy, but _being_ one isn't on mah list of priorities.

Rusty rolled his eyes, but ultimately just let Greasy ramble on about nonsense. When you live with a choir in the back of your mind for so long, one more voice in your ear doesn't matter much. He was far more interested in the blackened and charred landscape below the mesa. Stretching for miles in all directions were large swaths of dead ground with oddly geometric sections of living jungle trapped within. _Looks like the queens have been going at each other's throats hardcore down there for some time now. Kinda odd how close it is to the Castle._

Passing over the ruined city surrounding the castle, Rusty spotted hundreds of sleeping drones of all colors. _Such is the life of a mindless drone. Just sleeping their lives away waiting for something to do. Not like a fight would start up now of all times._

Rusty lazily watched the world spin as he entered into orbit around the castle when Darya called out to the squadron. Be advised, Vipers, the shuttle will depart the castle's docks soon with our newly christened proto-queens' eggs.

A round of acknowledgements rang out from the pilots with Greasy snickering at the hive mind wide shout Aegis had let off a few minutes earlier. I swear, you won't never find anybody more excited at having kids than Aegis.

You guys heard Aegis' manic giggles over the Link right? I don't think even momma and Aunty like laying eggs as much as she does, another pilot named Breaker replied derisively.

A round of stilted laugher passed through the pilots when the last pilot, Aileron, spoke up with a troubled tone. What the… is anypony else seeing this?

Almost as one, hundreds of drones started killing the others in their sleep, but before any of the other pilots could comment on it, Greasy yelled over the squadron section of the Link. Whoa, there was a big flash on top of the castle where the queens are!

Fear spiked through the pilots as their gaze was caught between the all-out brawl starting up below them while some looked up at the Summit amphitheater where a lone queen jumped off the ledge and fled straight down towards the ruined mesa city.

Rusty started sweating in his cockpit despite the rushing air. Captain, are you seeing this?

Yes, Viper Lead, I'm relaying this to mother. S – ah – stand by.

Darya's shaky tone matched Rusty's nerves at the sight of battle around the Summit. _This ain't right. The Summit's supposed to be a sanctuary! ... of sorts._

Polybia barely got a fourth of the way down when Darya barked over the squad's local sub-link. Polybia's gone rogue! She's got a princess with her, orders from the top to separate them. Secure the princess and eliminate Polybia!

Rusty instantly banked his fighter to obey even as his mind reeled at the news. Somepony actually went rogue? What are they, nuts!?

Aw heeeeell yeah! Greasy whooped with far too much cheer. Looks like we get to bag ourselves a queen! Ah bet you all a trip to Manehatten Ah get the kill!

Rusty moved to sweep around the castle to get a bead on Polybia, who had spotted the fighters. Damn it, Greasy, she has a hostage! Breaker, Cloud Strife, get in as close as you can and try to pull the princess free with your magic. The rest of us will back you up.

Breaker formed up to Cloud's left wing as the pair dove down to close in on Polybia.

The whirling high speed hum of the biplanes quickly reached Polybia's ears and she immediately tried to incinerate Breaker's aircraft, but the flames only slipped around the Octavia field instead of burning the pilot.

Breaker poured on the speed only to find several acidic green bolts flying up at him from below, with one shot tearing a hole into his fighter's left wings. I'm hit, we're taking fire from the drones below! His controls were shaky, but the aircraft wasn't downed that easily.

Stop your blubbering, Ah'm on it! Greasy jeered as she pointed her nose down to locate the threat. A flock of twenty drones had broken off from the all-out battle in the ruins below and were firing up at her wingmates. "C'mon ya mindless cannon fodder, time to eat!" Greasy cackled as she unloaded ten bursts from her flak cannons.

The group of drones were torn apart, but more were breaking off from the fight below with several of Chrysalis' black drones in hot pursuit.

Cloud was close enough that she could see the blue princess wrapped tightly in Polybia's legs. The wind tore over her open canopy and at her goggled face. She angled her craft around to get alongside of Polybia.

However Polybia was having none of that, and fired off three quick bursts of magic at the aircraft, punching holes in the tail section, and completely tearing the rear half off. "Oi, I'll kill you for that!" Cloud jumped from her doomed aircraft and tackled Polybia in midair. She shot off random bolts at Polybia's face while trying to wrestle the weeping princess free. "Give her up, Poly!"

One blast nailed Polybia in the jaw, but she refused to relinquish the panicked princess. "I can't!" Polybia managed to get her back hooves underneath Cloud and kicked her off. With enough distance between them the queen aimed her horn and launched a fireball, charring the drone's fur and wings off.

The other pilots watched helplessly as Cloud plummeted in freefall. Raging at the loss of their wingmate, with only the captive princess staying their retaliation. Yet before Polybia could refocus on escape, five of Chrysalis and Jstrul's drones managed to break through Polybia's defenders from below and tackled the rogue queen. **"You're so predictable, Polybia,"** Chrysalis mocked through her puppets before a wave of hatred rolled off of her when Yeelindrus' broken body flashed across Chrysalis' reddening vision. **"It's a shame the technophiles' wrath is too quick for my liking, but we all make sacrifices."**

Between the five of them, the drones were more than able to physically overpower Polybia and wrenched the princess from her grasp. With their prize in hand, two of the drones cast a sleep spell on the panicking princess to keep her from struggling as they sped away. The remaining three drones kept Polybia's wings pinned and pulled on her horn to make it too painful to cast spells. They capitalized on the queen's lack of physical prowess and spat gooey green glue all over Polybia's wings and joints to end any hope of her freeing herself.

The four of them tumbled out of control while dozens of Polybia's drones broke off from the fight below to save their queen. Rusty was unsure what to do until Rainbow barked at him and everyone else in the squadron. Sticky Spit's as cold as ever, kill Polybia immediately, even with Chrissy's drones in the way. _At least Cloud didn't give her life for nothing._

That was all Greasy needed to hear as her aircraft finished reloading. No love lost there. Rusty, Aileron, let's give her some pepper!

The three biplanes lined up the tumbling queen and unloaded thirty flak shells at Polybia. The shredded bodies continued to fall as an unrecognizable mass. However, Polybia's drones didn't go crazy with the death of their queen as Chrysalis and the pilots expected. As one, Polybia's remaining drones froze stock still for a few seconds before wailing a soul crushing psionic scream. As they screamed, the signature purple laced ebony aura of black magic poured out of their eyes, ears, nostrils, and mouths in a horrid miasma. The dark cloud enveloped all the remaining drones from the other queens, rotting the flesh and chitin off their bones, with numerous lost souls twisting around the forming maelstrom.

By the First Mother, what the hell is that!? Greasy freaked over the local Link.

Similar shocked expletives escaped from the other pilots with Rusty pulling his fighter away from the growing dark storm. Get clear of it!

The remaining fighters sped away to safety, but none of the other drones were fast enough to escape, save for the two with the princess, having ascended high enough away to escape the storm's fury.

* * *

The tempest grew to match the Ebony Castle in size before coalescing into an ethereal shadowy form with massive barbed horns that curled over and over to form a crown. Two impossibly black pits for eyes formed as its head stared down upon the queens in the Summit Amphitheater. Twilight and the other queens, who had been interrogating Polybia's ally stared up at the demonic cloud that lorded over them, as a massive bell rung a single gut rattling deep note.

A feeling of dread overcame Twilight as her mind put a name to the looming form above them. _Grogar?!_ Twilight's stomach plummeted at the sight of the legendary demon.

Grogar waited until the bell's echo faded before speaking in a booming, breathy voice. **"The wheel** tuuuuurnssss **."**

Twilight's terror rose sharply as the cloudy specter took a deep breath. Rapidly telling her sister what to do, the both of them cast a shield dome of golden magic over themselves. Sensing it was not a basic defense shield, Chrysalis trusted Twilight's magical knowledge and kept her blinded sister from leaving the shield dome. "I hope you know what you're doing, Queen Twilight." As she spoke, Chrysalis added her own magical strength to the shield with her sister joining in shortly after. Seeing this, Kreesus mirrored Chrysalis' actions after telekinetically pulling all of the princesses into the shield dome. A sinister grin escaped the shadowy figure as if he had been waiting for everyone to gather into a single target. Grogar breathed his miasma directly on the queens' shield before any of them could have second thoughts.

Thoran fled the rapidly spreading mist by flying out and away from the castle itself while giving a warning to the rest of the Home Guard. With Grogar's attention focused completely on the gathered royals, the great shadow ignored him completely. The demon's cloudy body expelled itself upon the barrier as well as flooding the castle itself, sinking down through the old palace, killing and rotting everything it touched.

The corrosive magic burned away at the shield, but the queens poured every bit of magic they had into Twilight and Rainbow's barrier to keep it strong. Even then, the two queens' horns began to burn and ache under the strain.

Twilight started seeing spots from the strain as the toxic cloud continuously poured over the huddled changelings.

Grogar's cold piercing gaze narrowed upon them and redoubled his breath attack upon the golden shield.

"I don't suppose you could trouble yourself by teleporting us away from this infernal thing," Chrysalis demanded with regal tact.

"In case you hadn't noticed," Twilight growled back with pain in her voice. "I'm a little busy here! What's stopping you?"

The howl of rushing winds beating down on the weakening shield caused Chrysalis to dump more mana into the barrier. "I had hoped our combined efforts would give you enough wiggle room to get us out of here."

Twilight ignored any further conversation to focus. Having little of her sister's arcane strength, Rainbow Dash started to buckle under the strain, causing her to drop to one knee. Her pain forced her head down, but she kept pushing back. Out of the corner of her eye she caught sight of a blue princess looking up at her with fear and a desperate hope for safety in her watery eyes.

With renewed determination, Rainbow redoubled her efforts, but the spectral ram showed no signs of slowing as the world around the royals was cast into shadow.

The sound of shipboard artillery roared through the rushing fetid air followed shortly by the rolling thunder of exploding shells. Grogar roared in shock and disbelief before losing cohesion. His cloud body attempted to reform but another volley of golden light blasted the miasmic demon apart.

Twilight kept the shield up since there was still a heavy mist clinging to the floor, the task made much easier without the torrent of death pressing down on her. Captain Rourke called out to her. My queens, light-magic bombardment successful. Is everypony alive up there?

For the most part, Rainbow muttered back as she scanned the other changelings around her. Rainbow felt a pounding migraine coming on around the length and base of her horn. Aegis, Blitz, you two alright?

We're safe, momma, Blitz answered promptly. Aegis, and Intel's squad made it to the shuttle before the castle's lower levels could be flooded with that gas.

Good to hear. Might be best if you stay on the ship for now. I don't think anypony's going to care if you don't return for the day.

Roger that, mother. I'm glad you and Aunty Twilight are okay.

Yeah, me too. Rainbow broke communication to look around. Those who had princesses were in the middle of trying to calm them down with various methods and degrees of success. Rainbow arched a curious eyebrow at Chrysalis who stiffly hugged her purple daughter and gently stroked her mane. _Maybe Twilight was on to something after all._

She turned to Twilight to find her sister was brooding with a worried scowl. Leaving her sister to her thoughts, Rainbow was about to summon a gust of wind to blow the lingering mist away when a massive shadow fell upon the Summit theater.

A gut-vibrating shrill cry drew everyone's attention up towards Fluffy as the living airship closed in. The leviathan created a massive gust of wind with several wings, sweeping the misama away before moving off at Kreesus' command.

Finally free of the toxic mist, the royals spread out again when Twilight and Rainbow dropped the shield. With her daughter calmed and now sleeping restlessly on her back, Chrysalis faced the former ponies. "You continue to surprise me, Queen Twilight Sparkle. You have light magic shells for your ship now too?"

Rainbow glowered at being ignored again. "For your information, _Chrysalis,_ the light-blessed ammo was _my_ idea." Chrysalis decided to honor Rainbow by giving her a neutral look as the former pegasus continued. "After what happened with that old nag, Silandrus, I made sure we had some countermeasures against dark magic."

"Well, it worked quite well," Kreesus butted in, ignoring the hateful glare of both former Equestrians. The mention of Silandrus reminded them of the fall of Stripped Gear, and it was no secret that the living embodiment of loyalty could never forgive her. "I still can't believe Polybia of all changelings would defile the sanctity of the Summit though."

"I wouldn't be too sure of that," Twilight replied coldly, trying to forego her resentment of traitorous queen in favor of the moment. "I think that shadow being was Grogar."

None of the other queens even so much as batted an eye at the name. Twilight groaned and rubbed her temples. "Of course none of you would know him. _Stupid genetic indifference to history,"_ she grumbled under her breath. "We can talk about it later, we have more pressing matters to tend to, such as seeing if there are any Home Guard left in the castle."

Chrysalis hummed in mild disapproval while Jstrul held up a hoof for everyone to wait. "You Equestrians have been too far removed from the war if you think the danger is passed. Polybia's been using necromancy for at least the past year. We can't assume she's dead until we destroy her body completely."

Rainbow sneered at the blinded queen with it painfully evident in her tone. "Poly got shredded into a pile of meat. She's deader than dead."

"No," Twilight warned with a waving hoof, "Queen Jstrul is right. Any time there's a necromancer involved, you can never discount the dead without a proper inspection and disposal of the body. And if Polybia summoned even a fragment of Grogar, then we need to confirm she's truly dead."

"Just _who_ is this Grogar individual?" Chrysalis asked flatly.

Twilight measured the crowd of queens, gauging just how she wanted to word her response without sounding overly frightened and weak. "I _thought_ he was just some obscure fairy tale Celestia shared with me a few times during Nightmare Night. He is a demonic ram from Tambelon - a necromancer of untold power. I don't remember what his goals were, only what the pictures of him looked like."

"Perhaps Polybia simply used his image to strike fear," Kreesus replied dismissively.

Rainbow could feel her sister's conviction in her aura. "Right. Ol' Poly used the image of a fairy tale demonic goat that meant nothing to any of us except Twilight." Rainbow rolled her eyes. "That makes total sense."

Polybia's ally was curled up in the center of the gathered royalty, thus far staying quiet. She only spoke up when she saw Chrysalis' drones deliver her abducted daughter to the Summit theater. "Given the dangers, perhaps we should return to our hives and continue these talks via proxies." She suggested almost hopefully.

Kreesus tentatively stepped onto the pockmarked stone and was glad to see there was no lingering effect. "Don't even try it, Sectovaria," Kreesus growled threateningly. "You still need to tell us of any other contingency plans Polybia may have laid."

With everyone's attention back on her, Sectovaria shielded her prized royal daughter in her forelegs. "I don't know anything. My pact with Polybia was that she would provide military protection in return for raising her newest love-producing daughter in a way that would keep that production possible."

Twilight looked down at the now awake, curious but frightened princess with sympathy. She wanted more than anything to retreat to her airship and shake off the horror of seeing Grogar made manifest, but she checked her fear in front of the other queens. "If she has one, why was she absent from the Summit?"

"Because she hasn't even hatched yet," Sectovaria rebutted defensively. "Polybia knew she could never raise a love-maker, but saw that I could." Sectovaria nodded towards her daughter as evidence.

"Probably all that ludicrous dogma of hers," Jstrul said with a condescending sneer. A moment of silence came when no one joined in the mockery.

That moment gave Rainbow Dash a chance to investigate Jstrul's comment, not so much for its message, but for what Jstrul was _not_ saying. The blinded queen attempted to look steady as a rock as she fumbled to return to her original seat with Chrysalis guiding her back. Rainbow, however, noticed their wings were twitching nervously and their ears were in constant motion at every little sound.

Rainbow saw those same signs in Kreesus who was putting on a convincing stoic face. However the cracks in that façade appeared in her allied proto-queen, Valera. She had lost all composure and was clinging to Kreesus like a terrified filly. Kreesus was giving her a side long hug that was just as tight as Valera's own. Rainbow noticed those same signs in every other queen present, including her sister. _Everypony's completely freaked out from the attack, and trying to hide it. Might be a good idea to end the Summit soon before anyone else goes insane._ Hey, Twilight, why don't you agree or decline to this PM position already. Everypony's probably too close to losing their marbles to bother objecting one way or the other.

Twilight shored up her composure by spreading her stress and fear throughout the hivemind. And you're not? We just got attacked by a necromancer that makes Sombra look like a foal!

Rainbow gave her sister her patented 'Cold as Ice, Fang Filled Smirk of Awesomeness and Radicalness'. Sadly, a few seconds showed that that wasn't enough to get her point across. I've been fighting from one big baddy to the next for practically my whole life since that whole Nightmare Moon thing. Some giant cloud goat isn't a step up in my book.

Grogar's a ram, not a goat.

Same difference, Rainbow replied dismissively as she focused on getting the squadron to investigate the approximate location of Polybia's remains.

Twilight told herself she should have expected such flippancy over seemingly minor details from her sister, but even to this day it rankled her to no end. Looking around, Twilight found Captain Thoran had returned, and was now fidgeting in place near the ebony throne. _It doesn't take a genius to know he's desperate to assess the damage and casualties below._

"Captain Thoran," Twilight called out loud enough to grab his attention and everyone else around her. "I'll accept your nomination for Prime Matriarch, but on the stipulation that my sister and I share the throne."

Twilight knew the other queens would immediately object so she turned to them to head it off. "We rule a single hive together, it is only fitting that we share this throne as well. Should either of us live long enough to be rebirthed, we'll both abdicate the position."

Even Rainbow Dash was stunned at first, but saw her sister's logic and held her tongue. _Well at least then they can't just flat out ignore me._

Thoran thought it over briefly. "It is unprecedented, but as Prime Matriarch that is your prerogative. The wording of the First Mother's formation of the Summit never said there could be only one."

Jstrul was able to speak a single stilted word of protest before Chrysalis silenced her with a gentle hoof to her mouth. "I need to think on this, sister," she whispered.

As Jstrul tried to argue with Chrysalis, Kreesus was also in deep thought. The other queens gave half-baked objections but Thoran's knowledge of the actual rules and traditions shot them all down. None of them had the right of veto since it had taken so long for a new Prime Matriarch to be named.

Chrysalis eventually waved at Thoran to gain the floor. "While I think Queen Twilight Sparkle is doing this out of loyalty to her co-ruler, I believe this is a necessary decision in regards to 'Last Bastion'." Both former Equestrians looked at her curiously. "Due to their shared hive, any future aggression towards Queen Twilight could be indirectly aimed at Rainbow Dash since the right of 'Last Bastion' wouldn't extend to her otherwise. In effect," Chrysalis gave Twilight a respectful nod, "this simply takes care of a loophole, and little else. Besides that, the Prime Monarch has no power outside of this chamber."

"Wasn't it your dream to be Prime Matriarch?" Jstrul whispered to her sister.

"That will have to go to one of our daughters," Chrysalis returned in hushed tones with veiled resignation. "I would not disgrace the position or the throne with an obsolete queen, even if I fit that category. Besides… This two queen system might be the key we've been overlooking."

All eyes shifted to Kreesus as the last objector, but she ultimately sat down in a huff. "I can accept the condition Queen Twilight gave regarding rebirth. I withdraw my objection."

Silenced into impotent resentment, the other queens followed their allies' into reluctant acceptance. With that, Thoran finally felt free to step down from the raised dais of the throne and waved Twilight and Rainbow towards the seat. "Then all matters are settled. I will leave your majesties to any further deliberations."

Rainbow finally took a long look at the Ebony Throne only to find a broken pockmarked nub of stone remaining. "That's great and all that, but I think somepony's going to need to make a new chair for both of us."

Thoran wilted at the sight of the once proud throne. "I'll add it to the list of repairs," he added with a defeated tone. He made his way for the exit, but stopped halfway there. "Before I go, however, I would like to place a formal request for any aid your majesties can bequeath. Our hatchery survived, so even early egg donations would be much appreciated."

Chrysalis' eyes glinted with predatory mirth. "Since Queen Twilight Sparkle is now Prime Matriarch, and had been thus far removed from the jungle wars I suggest that she be the one to lend such aid."

Rainbow Dash saw her moment to one-up Chrysalis and grinned wickedly. "We'd be happy to give aid, but that's rather difficult with our non-aggression pact in place."

For the first time all day, Chrysalis truly looked at Rainbow Dash with something other than condescension or disapproval. "I'm sure we can renegotiate terms."

Mentally giving her sister accolades, Twilight Sparkle addressed Thoran. "We'll have engineers down here as soon as the other royals depart."

"Thank you, Prime Matriarchs." With his job complete, Thoran left before any further bickering could start up.

Kreesus watched him go before addressing Rainbow Dash. "You have forces sweeping where Polybia's body landed. Is she truly dead?"

Even though she wanted nothing to do with that traitor, Rainbow knew Polybia was a bigger threat. "There's a lot of gore and meat down there, along with tons of broken chitin, but no one's ID'd Poly yet. It's possible her body got completely destroyed by that shadow cloud goat."

"Don't bet on it," Jstrul warned. "We've lost enough battles thinking her dead can't resurrect themselves. We've had to start burning the bodies because it's not even safe to capture some for experimentation." She waved at her eyes for emphasis

Chrysalis mulled over it all as the others spoke before voicing her own concerns. "Queen Twilight, you said earlier you know of that being. Grogar I believe you said. I get the feeling he didn't want to make himself known," Chrysalis stated darkly. "I propose everyone here suspend hostilities and marshal our strength to root out the truth about this potential threat to us all."

Twilight saw the signs of battle fatigue make a resurgence in the five remaining queens. _At any other time, I'm sure someone would call her out for weakness, but no one here is willing to push that particular issue._

Kreesus all but jumped at the chance. "I agree. Polybia has been able to pick off the lion's share of the lesser queens since the wars began. At the very least, a cease-fire until her death can be verified is more than acceptable."

Chrysalis carefully masked a knowing smirk at Kreesus before facing Twilight. "Since you have such a knack for research, and… legal access to Canterlot and it's allies' libraries, I suggest you be the one to search for any information you can get on this Gorgar person. We must know our enemy to defeat him. Assuming that shadow being wasn't _just_ a case of psychological warfare."

"I can agree to that," Twilight replied with hesitant approval. _Is she on the level, or is she playing one of her games?_ "We'll renegotiate the terms of our non-aggression pact later today. For now though, if there is nothing else, I move to end today's Summit."

Twilight looked expectantly at Rainbow Dash who was more or less staring off into space. Yet her sister's scrutiny was enough to bring the blue queen's attention back to the present where she gave Twilight a confused look. What?

You're the PM too. We both have to close the meeting.

Oh fine. Shoring up her rarely used regal bearing, Rainbow Dash spoke with that eloquent tone that Celestia had briefly tried to teach her before realizing the futility of her efforts. "I concur to close today's proceedings."

* * *

Not wasting any time, Kreesus, Valera and their ally fled immediately. Chrysalis, her sister, and Twilight stepped over to one of the side rooms to discuss the pact, while Sectovaria tried to leave quietly. Rainbow quickly moved to intercept her. "Hey, you with the face, you're not going anywhere just yet. How do I know you're not running off to bring back Polybia as a zombie or something?"

"Because she went rogue that's why," Sectovaria wanted nothing more than to leave, but the sound of a few passing biplanes made her wilt at the thought. "L-look, I've only been a queen for three years. I lost my mother barely five months after that, I just lost my military security, my primary love source, and now everyone's going to go after me the instant this whole Grogar thing turns out to be just some hoax Polybia used to scare everyone. I need to leave to have any chance in saving my hive."

Rainbow didn't budge as she pinged Twilight to verify Sectovaria's story. Unfortunately, the only knowledge Twilight had was that Sectovaria was a recognized late-stage princess at the last Summit five years ago. "...Fine, good luck to you then."

Sectovaria began to move away but stopped after catching Rainbow giving her princess a forlorn frown. "W-wait, Queen Rainbow Dash. Can I ask something of you?"

Rainbow did a double take at finally being addressed by her title for once. "What is it?"

Sectovaria chewed on her cheek and tried to summon the courage to voice her request. "I - I know how much you former Equestrians care about your offspring, royal or not. I barely have five hundred drones to my name, including love collectors. Without Polybia's support, I'll never be able to gather enough love to feed Khirala," she said while moving a foreleg away to reveal the cowering blue princess not even a year out of the shell. "Or defend ourselves for that matter."

Khirala fumbled back over to hide behind her mother's hoof, tugging heavily on Rainbow's heartstrings. "If you can't support Khirala, why did you create her then?" she demanded heatedly.

The dark grey queen tried not to cower at Rainbow's ire, but her emotions were too raw to resist backing away. "I didn't have a choice! When Polybia killed my mother, she came after me, easy pickings and all that," Sectovaria admitted darkly. "The only way to save myself was to say I could raise a loving daughter, and that I could do the same for her."

Casting aside any regal bearing, Sectovaria laid down on her belly to properly comfort Khirala. After she coaxed Khirala from her sniffling so she could look upon her grandmother without excessive fear, Sectovaria continued. "It's worked so far, so Polybia gave me her royal egg in exchange for all the love and protection I would need. I don't even know if the nymph will even be capable of producing love in the first place, but Khirala can."

With her granddaughter's well being on the line, Rainbow Dash didn't even bother trying to rationalize things. "So you're in a bad way, I get it." Rainbow looked down at the blue princess. "Khirala is my granddaughter, but you seem to care for her like any real mother should," Rainbow stated definitively with a hint of overt approval. "I can offer you protection, love crystal shipments, and even a place to settle your new hive, but would require an oath of fealty to both me and my sister."

"That… is a good offer," Sectovaria said defeatedly at the ground. "I admit I only expected to survive a month at most without Polybia's protection. Attempt to hide out in a pony city or something." Shoring up what little regal bearing she had, Sectovaria looked Rainbow Dash in the eyes. "For both my daughter and my own survival, I pledge my undying fealty to you and Queen Twilight Sparkle until you release me, or death takes me."

Despite Kreesus' betrayal, Rainbow Dash was still willing to take any other queen at her word. This was mostly because Chrysalis had never gone back on hers, much to Rainbow's continued surprise. "Good to hear it. For now, instead of a city, I want you to relocate your hive up north to the Chaos Lands, and take your daughter with you."

Hope she had not dared to indulge in, shown forth in a grateful smile. This was better than being given some small slice of the northern jungles with outside protection, nor was it a relocation to Alliance territory where she would come under scrutiny of Equestria. _The Chaos Lands?! That is so far away from the jungles, none of the other queens would ever bother me again!_ "T-thank you, my liege."

"Hey, you're the mother of my grandkid, and you seem like a cool cat down on your luck. But since you're going to be our newest ally, we'll send over regular love crystal shipments so you can focus more drones on building your new hive."

"That would be most helpful, thank you. What form of tribute would you require in exchange for that and your protection?"

Rainbow Dash had to think of that for a moment before it came to her in stark realization. "I want you to start having intelligent drones like Twilight and I. Chances are good that Khirala will have intelligent drones by default, and they are critical to a love producing hive."

"I… see," Sectovaria shifted uncomfortably as she climbed back up to her hooves with Khirala asleep on her back. "I was always told intelligent drones were too great of a risk to the queen… But if you and Queen Twilight were willing to elevate two of them into princesses, maybe those fears are unfounded. With a basic alchemical template I could start alchemically altering myself to create them naturally."

"Great. I'd also ask about you shedding the chitin… but I think that bit at least, should be your choice. We'll go over more details later, but before you go..." Rainbow said conspiratorially. "What will you do with Polybia's royal egg?"

"Simple. I'll keep it in my current hatchery and safeguard it from scavenging animals and feral drones. If Polybia's not truly dead, she'll come for it. If she's alive, I let her take it. I don't think it wise to keep a possibly undead queen from what is hers, rogue or not."

"Maybe…" Rainbow tapped her chin until an idea struck her. "Actually, that's pretty smart thinking. Keep Poly's egg where it is. If she takes it, then we'll know for sure whether she's alive or not. Any other queen would simply destroy it. Should anyone except Polybia enter the hatchery, tell them that egg's off limits by my authority."

Sectovaria's gaze went vacant for a moment before focusing back on Rainbow. "As you wish."

"Cool beans, now, since you're having to move so far north, why don't we give you a lift as far as Canterlot in our airship? Unless you got something you need to do personally."

Sectovaria's eyes dilated at the thought. She looked out at the two distant warships with the handful of fighters still patrolling the skies. "I admit I never expected to think of those ships as anything other than a threat… But yes, that would make things much easier, I appreciate it."

Rainbow smirked and wrapped a far too friendly foreleg around Sectovaria's neck. "Stick with us kid, and you'll go far."

Sectovaria forced a grateful smile in return. _Technically, I'm a year older than you._

* * *

While Rainbow Dash spoke with Sectovaria, Twilight had the ignoble task of dealing with Chrysalis and Jstrul. "So it's settled then," Twilight said flatly. "Until the issue with Grogar and Polybia is resolved I have free access throughout the jungles without breaking the Non-aggression pact."

"And in return you only have to give us any information you have on him and we'll give you any news on Polybia." Jstrul kept her tone level, but she was still having internal struggles. _Why is sister wanting to deal with them at all? This whole Grogar thing is just some foalish fairy tale. Perhaps sister is just using this as an excuse to force a reprieve to give us time to regroup._

"Well, if that's everything," Twilight looked to Chrysalis and Jstrul who made no move to speak further, "then I'll be going." _I hope Celestia has something more than children books on Grogar._

Chrysalis smirked as Twilight flew off to the waiting airships. "We should thank, Polybia, really. This pause in the war will help us far more than Kreesus."

With them being the only remaining royals in the amphitheater, Chrysalis was able to wait for her sister to summon a seeing-eye drone. "You really think we'll be able to challenge her? She's made mistakes, but tactically, she's almost on par with the technophiles in terms of current strength."

"Maybe so," Chrysalis replied with more than a little irritation. "But we should prepare in case Grogar actually exists. It is not like Twilight to jump upon flights of fancy, especially since pausing the war is of no benefit to her or her hive."

* * *

Deep in the green heart of the vast jungles, Polybia's hive chittered and writhed as a large lump of bulbous tissue was carried in by two drones through the smooth tunnels. The way was lit by glowing algae along the walls.

Deep underground, the two drones located a frothing hot pond of teal liquid. It radiated a faint light, casting the small chamber in murky shadows. The lumpy flesh was carefully deposited into the pool.

The flesh squirmed and thrashed violently as bones formed and muscles grew. The legs formed first with soft chitin growing along them, then came Polybia's head breaking out of a weakening membrane before her body finished reconstituting itself.

She heaved herself out of the pool still covered in the slushy substance. "May you rot in Tartarus, Chrysalis. I should have known you were up to something when you visited Thoran last month." Polybia's rapid regrowth left her physically exhausted, and she laid there panting out of breath. Her veins felt like they were on fire while her nerves ached, and muscles spasmed from the rapid growth. _Good thing I wormed that soul separation spell out of that wretch, but by the First Mother does it hurt._

Aside from the two drones that had brought in Polybia's "contingency plan" there was only one other thing inside the chamber besides the pool. It was a pod with dozens of wards, both physical and magical, with only the occupant's head clear of the wax. "Well, well, my reluctant student was able to master the art of using a phylactery after all," a barely interested baritone grating voice range out. "A pity you used a lump of living flesh to do it. A crystal vase serves as a much cleaner soul vessel."

Polybia glared daggers at the proto-queen sized ram. He stared right back at her with hollow pits for eyes that glowed red like embers of a dying fire. "I told you I'm only going to use necromancy to win this war. The moment I've conquered my rivals I'm casting this vile magic away, along with you."

"You only make things harder for yourself that way," the ram replied as if he were speaking to a child. " _I_ don't need a pond of muck to restore my body every time it's destroyed."

Polybia shakily climbed to her hooves. "I don't even _want_ to know what you _do_ use."

"Oh don't be so rigid, Polybia," he said with affected disappointment. "You would be capable of so much more if you put aside such misguided morals. It's not the spells themselves that are sinful, only how you use them. Even the Equestrians are more… tolerant of necromancers than you, although they regulate it far too heavily for my tastes. Who's to say the First Mother wouldn't approve of more advanced necromancy?"

Polybia stopped as her mind grew fuzzy. Her vision lost focus the longer the necromancer stared at her. _I must still be weak from the revival._ Doing her best to shake it off, Polybia turned to face him. "I refuse to dishonor the First Mother! Even if none of the other queens seems to care for her anymore, at least **I** still will."

"I said nothing about dishonor, Queen Polybia. I merely recommend that maybe you should reexamine your scriptures. Perhaps they are not as stringent as you originally believed. After all, the last remaining faithful queen mustn't fall victim to misinterpretation."

Polybia growled and strengthened the shielding in her mind. "Don't toy with me, Grogar! I will not let you twist me into your puppet!"

"You can't blame me for trying," he chided while tugging at his restraints for emphasis. "I'm not going to sit here idly, and be your little Well of Power every time you need to syphon my essence for your little war."

"I will take what I need, and whenever I need it. Remember that, _Grogar,_ " Polybia rebuked with a bitter scowl.

"For now, perhaps. In any event, it seems you've dug quite a deep hole for yourself. I wonder how much longer it'll be before you have to step down from your high morals to save yourself. After today's little incident…" He narrowed his gaze with a hint of a smile coming to him. "Speaking of which, what is the last thing you remember before your body was ripped to pieces?"

"I don't have time for this, Grogar, I need to retrieve my royal egg. Without a hostage, Sectovaria will destroy it soon."

"I should certainly hope not," Grogar said as Polybia departed. "Killing sinless youths is a dark stain to bear indeed." Polybia looked at him with confusion clearly written all over her face before leaving the chamber. Grogar's gaze followed her even after she faded from view. _I wish you would have modified that dead-mare spell. It galls me to no end to have my image broadcast for the world to see._


	57. Chapter 57

Four Queens, Rogue High

Nestled within the tender vessel _Cornucopia,_ the shipboard side hatchery could easily hold a month's worth of eggs from both queens. However that did not account for four egg layers, but thankfully the majority of the alcoves were empty.

Aegis Altair leaned against Blitz while gushing over eight of those eggs in particular. She had Blitz wrapped into a tight side long hug. "It's finally happened, Blitz, we're becoming queens!"

That was almost enough to pull Blitz's gaze away from her enclosed eggs. "Technically we've been turning into queens ever since being reborn."

"Oh shush, you know what I mean," Aegis snorted while nuzzling her counterpart. "What do you think they'll hatch with; hooves or hands?"

"I would imagine hooves, since that is our natural state." Blitz waggled her fingers, even now, still in awe at how natural they felt. Over the years, she had developed a much higher level of dexterity with her fingers than she ever thought possible. _Aunty did a really good job on me. I wonder if she made our hands superior to even the sphinxes._

The pair was mostly oblivious to Gear Ratio who was swooning along with her fellow caretakers a few meters away in the control room. The four of them were eternally grateful for the glass divider between them and the proto-queens. Gear had a professional reputation to maintain, and squealing in joy like a nymph was rather unbecoming, in her eyes anyway. "To think, girls, we've got to service not one, but _three_ proto-queens' first clutches." A round of joyous giggling passed through the group of caretakers.

One of the assistants put the finishing touches on the eggs' nutrient solution and cranked several wheels to cycle the liquid. "Don't forget, sisters, our caretaker corps will double within the year to handle the new workload. But…" She gestured for her coworkers to lean in close so that she could whisper. "I heard from Gentle Touch that there's talks of retooling the hive's economy to support a second pair of princesses as soon Aegis and Blitz move out."

Gear Ratio looked at the pair of proto-queens with anticipation before the comment finally registered and she looked at her co-worker with disbelief. "Get out!"

"No lie," Caretaker Feather Soft replied manically, "Buz Bug's honor!"

"Girls, we're the luckiest caretakers to ever live!" Gear Ratio and the others squealed and dance-hugged each other for a few moments before an alert bell started ringing, making the drones jump back at the controls. "How about we celebrate _after_ we're off-duty."

"Agreed," the rest replied bubbly.

Gear Ratio took a deep breath before refocusing on her work. Ultimately it had only been a timer instead of a problem cropping up so she addressed the matter quickly. With little else to do but monitor the eggs, Gear Ratio looked out at the rows of incubators, and the two proto-queens who were close by. _I hope they really didn't hear any of that._

Any embarrassment was quickly forgotten when her eyes drifted over the proto-queens' wings, and seeing something was off about them. "Feather Soft, Jelly, come on, we need to perform our first proto-queen physical."

The group slid up next to Blitz who jumped a little at the sudden appearance of the three drones. "Alright you two, you know what needs to happen." Gear made a snapping noise with her magic causing Feather to start inspecting Aegis from top to bottom while Jelly assaulted Blitz with medical probes. Gear went over to Blitz's wings.

Aegis instinctively went rigid as her medic/caretaker started with a quick scan for irregularities. "Couldn't you guys give us a bit more time to admire our first clutch?"

Blitz took it in stride, completely at ease with the inspection. It helped that this was a bi-weekly event for them. _Probably going to be a daily thing now._ "Come on, Aegis, you know such rapid growth needs to go smoothly. Any complications now could take decades to correct if you hassle them."

Gear Ratio didn't get far before she paused at Blitz's wings. Along the mare's long prismatic gossamer wings, was an outline of Rainbow's all too familiar cutie mark, formed by Blitz's longitudinal veins. Before saying anything, Gear inspected Aegis' broader red wings and quickly identified she had an outline of Twilight Sparkle's cutie mark that was becoming more pronounced as the veins thickened.

At this point, Gear Ratio scowled and flew over to face the tall blue mare who now rivaled Princess Celestia in height as she stood on two legs. "Blitz, did either of you decide to alchemically alter your wings? You know how dangerous that can be during the proto-queen stage."

"What are you talking about?" Blitz turned around and flared her wings to see what the issue was. "I barely understand the alchemy of my design, let alone have any inkling on how to alter it safely."

Everyone started looking at Blitz's wings as their owner quickly quieted at the sight of the pattern. "Hey, sweet tat, Blitz." Aegis teased by ribbing Blitz. "I knew you loved your momma, but damn."

Blitz puffed her face in irritation before looking at Aegis' wings. "Well that's the pot calling the kettle black. You have Aunty Twilight's mark on your wings." She jabbed an accusatory hoof at her counterpart.

Before Aegis could compound the confusion, Gear Ratio cleared her throat. "Now, let's not get out of hoof here. This might just be a prank Aunty Rainbow is playing on us. In fact…"

As if on cue, both matriarchs of the hive entered the hatchery to find their prized royal daughters. Rainbow was quickest and charged in for a squashing embrace, nearly knocking the caretakers aside. "Ha, ha! Congrats, Blitz, you're a momma now!"

Aegis met Twilight halfway and the two hugged for a long moment. Aegis had to momentarily drop to all fours to do so properly. "I was so worried you might have been caught by Grogar's attack." Twilight pulled back to give her daughter a pride filled smile. _I'm so glad her hive presence is so much brighter now, it was impossible to miss her survival._ "So, was your first laying all you hoped it would be?"

Blitz blushed furiously at the embarrassment while Aegis laughed it off. "I couldn't ask for better than announcing to the whole world Blizzy and I are ready to enter the big stage via a public laying."

"I certainly can," Blitz shot back without any real malice. "But…" she heaved a sigh as Aegis climbed back up to two hooves. "At least it saves time on sending letters out, right?"

"Oh that's right," Twilight announced worriedly. "I was so caught up in everything I completely forgot to inform Rolled Scroll and Blue Flare _what_ to actually tell Celestia about Grogar."

With Twilight momentarily preoccupied, Gear Ratio took a moment to slide in between the royals and fix Rainbow with a knowing scowl. "Aunty RD, I have to ask, did you tamper with their alchemical formula without our foreknowledge?" she asked while pointed at the proto-queens.

"I tamper with lots of things," Rainbow countered innocently. "I can't be expected to remember all of them."

Gear flew up and gently tugged Blitz's right wing out to show the outlined cutie mark on them. "Then maybe this can jog your memory. Honestly Aunty, I hope this isn't your handiwork."

Rainbow lit up and 'ooo'd' at that sight of the outlined cloud and thunderbolt. "Interesting…" she purred with pride and delight, "but no, I didn't do this." Her inspection came to a quick halt and she turned to Gear Ratio. "Hey, GR, who's my consort for the day?"

"Ahhh," she shook her head to compensate for the subject change. "No one, not for the next two days."

"Great, then I'll lay right now." One of the caretakers ran off and returned with a pillow and a couple of towels.

If they were honest with themselves, both Aegis and Blitz felt a serious twinge of jealousy and anticipation at Rainbow laying a full clutch of fourteen eggs. With only changelings around, Rainbow had long since lost any reservations about laying in front of them.

By the time Rainbow fed her eggs and gotten cleaned up, Twilight reawakened from her communion with Rolled Scroll. "Okay, girls, I'm going to have my diplomatic staff and a few others sent over to Canterlot Archives to search for anything on Grogar as soon as Celestia gives them the go-ahead. As for us, we're going back to PR to put together a proper naval force."

Blitz was puzzled by that. "We're coming back here?"

This time it was Rainbow who answered. "Sis and I are, at least until Polybia is dealt with."

Twilight started where Rainbow left off. "I examined the remains of the body via proxy as I came onboard. There's strong evidence that the body hasn't held a soul for at least a month, but I'm not that familiar with necromancy, so there's no way to be sure."

"Don't you worry your eggbrain about that!" Rainbow jeered playfully while patting Twilight's head. "I already got a plan to find out if Polly Pocket is alive or not thanks to Sectovaria."

"Yeah, I know…" Twilight tried to ease up by reveling in the fact that Aegis was now a proto-queen.

Yet before she could voice her renewed good humor, Rainbow slid up next to Aegis. "It's almost a pity you started laying, squirt," she jeered while ribbing Aegis. "But at least now you get to have practical experience at long range command of a battlespace."

Aegis' mixed smile fell crestfallen. Blitz on the other hand was more than happy to avoid tangling with a necromancer that could bring her aunt to nervous shakes. "Maybe we could help with the archives research? With the rail line between the hive and the primary Equestrian network now complete, we could use incubation cars while we're there instead of relying on airships which will be needed elsewhere."

Aegis gave her counterpart the Ultimate Rage-filled Scowl of Supreme Displeasure. Why are you pulling us there when we have so much crap to do to make sure we mature properly!

With Twilight considering Blitz's preposition, it gave her time to respond. Because there's no reason we can't do that in Canterlot. Even if we have to be discreet around ponies who don't understand.

"I like it," Twilight said at last, making Aegis wilt. "Good thinking, Blitz. I'll order an incubator train car to move to Canterlot station immediately."

As Twilight started outlining her plan in more detail, Gear Ratio was getting tired of waiting and silently flew up and pulled one of Aegis' wings open to show the pattern to her mother. Aegis wanted to pull it back into a resting position, but Gear kept looking between Twilight and the wing, trying to get her to notice without having to resort to pinging her.

Aegis was about to snap at the chief caretaker when Twilight finally turned to see what her daughter and chief caretaker were silently fighting over. Gear Ratio finally stopped tugging when Twilight narrowed her eyes at the pattern. "What the…" She briefly used her magic to sniff out any disguise magic and found none. "Aegis, why is my cutie mark on your wing?" Much to Aegis' protests, Gear flew over to pull the other wing open. "Wings?!"

"So neither of you did this?" Gear asked worriedly.

"I may be more vain since becoming queen," Twilight answered hesitantly after thinking of all the artwork and architecture that decorated Phoenix's Roost, "but nowhere near _that_ level."

Gear Ratio's mane started frizzing out. "Complications are bad, really, really, bad! What if this gets worst! What if they start growing extra limbs or cancer!?"

Panic started rising in the room with Twilight at the forefront. Within seconds the vessel lurched into motion. "Okay, we need to get back to the hive, scratch Canterlot. Aegis, Blitz, you're restricted to your quarters until we get this sorted out." Resta, get sick bay set up for medical testing, pronto!

Out of all of them, Rainbow Dash was more confused at her sister's reaction, than the existence of the marks. "Why are all of you getting so bent out of shape? They just got cutie marks… in a really weird place that are copies of yours and mine. How's that a bad thing?"

"Of course it's bad!" Twilight flustered with spittle thankfully flying over Rainbow's head as she ducked down. "Changelings _don't_ get cutie marks! This could be a sign that something else is wrong, something we didn't account for! I have to tell mother, maybe she knows what to do!"

"Now hold on," Rainbow swatted Twilight with a wing before she could speak with Cadista. "You and I are still part pony right? That's the whole reason we can still produce love and all that," she stated while rolling a hoof in the air. "So I would _think_ that all of our kids, royal or not, are part pony then too right?"

"If that were true, then wouldn't the drones get these too?" Blitz offered while showing off her mark.

"Yes, that's right!" Twilight agreed, descending deeper into panic. "This might be a major problem with our bloodline that could only show up with royal daughters! UGH!"

Rainbow had seen her sister mentally spiral out of control one too many times to let it happen again. She smacked her sister with her wing again, this time a bit harder than before. "Twilight, you seriously need to chillaxe!"

Aegis, Blitz, and Gear Ratio cringed at the impact leaving Twilight speechless for a moment. The purple queen blinked a few times before using her breathing technique, something Blitz and Gear quickly mimiced. "Right… thanks, sis."

"Anytime, Twilight."

Twilight's mane continued to frizz out but her expression had settled down to mostly calm. _Can't work properly if I get too wigged out anyway._ Shoving her nerves aside, Twilight started scanning her daughter while Gear Ratio and one other caretaker inspected Blitz. "Okay… so, I only did minor work on your brains to make you more adaptive to shapeshifting hands and bipedalism, so I'll start there."

Out of the pair, Aegis was far less worried as she stared deeply at her wing pattern while scratching her chin. "You know… I _think_ I've seen this wing thing before. Like, when I was still a drone."

Twilight halted before she could grab a magical probe one of the caretakers had brought in. "What do you mean?"

It took Aegis almost a minute to place the memory. "I just remember seeing this pattern show up every once in a while in my sex partners' wings for a few moments after climax, but it never lasted long, and no one ever said anything about it, so I thought it was normal and didn't pay it much attention."

"Which partners?" Blitz asked quickly. "Because now that I think about it. I've seen the same thing a few times, but only with my clutchmates."

"I ahh… heh haha… I didn't exactly keep track," Aegis shrugged shamelessly and a bit sheepishly.

Rainbow snorted in amusement. "Well I've never seen it."

"Nor I," Twilight confirmed with mixed relief. "But if you've seen it since being a drone, this _might_ not be a disaster after all."

Rainbow scoffed at the whole issue and teased her sister by flicking her nose with a wing tip. "There you go again, thinking the sky's falling over a cutie mark that just wanted to move. Are you sure there isn't a pill for that?"

"I'm going to ignore that," Twilight stated with a harumph. Over the next few minutes, Twilight's scans failed to reveal any other complications, causing her to blush in embarrassment. "I can't find anything wrong so far, _but,_ " she warned with a raised hoof while her sister rolled her eyes, "this could simply be an early sign of something insidious. I can't go in too much depth with just my horn and this small scanner," she waved the brass tool for emphasis. Cancel that last order, Resta, sorry. _Sickbay doesn't have any scanning equipment the hatchery doesn't._

Pointedly ignoring her sister's 'I told you so' face, Twilight addressed her chief caretaker. "Gear, keep a close eye on them until we get back to the hive to do some proper inspections."

"Yes, my queen."

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes at the whole thing. "Honestly, I thought the appearance of a cutie mark was a _good_ thing." Twilight had already walked over to the hatchery control room to speak further with Gear Ratio. "Annnyway, when this whole cutie mark insanity blows over, as I know it will, maybe you two can customize them to fit you better."

Blitz was still concerned about it, but Aegis shared her aunt's jovial attitude. "What? You don't want your cutie mark displayed even more for the world to see?"

"Ha! No need for that when I have tens of thousands of kids with my coat, mane and wings of awesomeness. Even more so if Blitz never alters her coat or mane colors. Once you guys are full queens and can change it safely, I think you should personalize them. It's not every day somepony gets to choose their cutie marks… or should we call it wing marks?"

"Well I'm glad you two are having a blast," Blitz huffed. She glanced worriedly at her mother's cutie mark outlined on her wing. "I really hope you're right momma. I really do."

* * *

Deep in the fetid jungles, a small contingent of drones approached a cave entrance covered in wax along a jagged rocky outcropping. Reptilian eyes shone forth from the leader as she tried to locate the guards that should have been there.

Aside from the noise of lesser insects and birds, the jungle was unnaturally quiet being this close to Sectovaria's hive. _Has she relocated that quickly? Where could she possibly go?_ Fearing a trap, she sent two drones out in the open ground between her underbrush hiding spot and the cave entrance.

The pair made it across without incident, further worrying Polybia. As one, all twenty of her advance force charged into Sectovaria's hive. With only a few soldiers spared to cover her flanks, Polybia's primary puppet raced through the darkened tunnels, knowing exactly where to go.

However nothing barred the way, driving her fears ever higher. It was only when she finally arrived at the hatchery did she find other changelings. Two of Sectovaria's guards stood at the entrance, but Polybia could not see further in due to the large organic door akin to a sphincter sealing the hatchery away.

 _There's no way she'd negotiate with me, now that I've been labeled a rogue,_ she thought with renewed fury towards Chrysalis, _but I have to know the fate of my egg._

All of that crossed her mind between the time of seeing the guards and charging in to attack. The two guards tensed, but seemed to refrain from using their bladed arms or spines upon recognizing Polybia's drones. With their guard lowered, Polybia pinned the left one under her puppet's alicorn sized girth while the rest of her troops killed the other soldier before laying siege to the door. "Sectovaria, answer me!"

Having expected this, Sectovaria responded quickly by puppeting the captured drone. "Polybia. This may go without saying, but due to… recent events, our treaties and my fealty are nullified. I no longer answer to you."

"Rogue or not, Sectovaria, you better still have what belongs to me," Polybia growled with her horn glowing threateningly. "Or I will hunt you down to the depths of Tartarus if I have to!"

Even with it just being a puppet, Sectovaria cowered at the pool of dark magic gathering in Polybia's horn. "I'm not an idiot, Polybia. I kept your egg safe and sound. Although I don't know how useful it'll be once she loses her ability to love."

Polybia's drones confirmed the royal egg was alive and unharmed, lifting a massive weight off her shoulders. Not that she allowed that to show through her puppet. "Don't worry about that. I… thank you, for not killing or stealing it away. However little you take my word, I will leave you alone for it, so long as you stay out of my way."

"Y- you'll get no trouble from me. Not that I could do much to you anyway."

Without further ceremony, Polybia's drones retreated from the hive. Ultimately she was torn on Sectovaria. _Such a pushover, for a queen, and yet she has a loving daughter… What a cruel joke._

* * *

For her part, Sectovaria leaned back in her chair. The ship's cabin was starkly different compared to the welcoming comfort of soft wax, plush leaves, and glowing lichen of her home. _Will Polybia actually leave me alone? She looked sane, but no sane queen would ever get themselves declared rogue like that._

A large part of her mental power was devoted to moving her drones north, so she didn't notice Khirala tugging on her leg until she started whimpering. With a forced smile to hide her deep-seated fears, Sectovaria picked her up and started rocking her while feeding the nymph some love as she searched for the nymph food one of Rainbow's drones had provided earlier. "Don't you worry little one. You're safe now."

She continued to whisper soothing stories that ultimately got Khirala to drift off into a fitful sleep. _I hope all the stories of Twilight and Rainbow being too soft on their family are true. It'd be my luck to go from one psychopathic master to another._

Heaving herself up, Sectovaria made her way to the door and opened it to find two blue guards just outside. "Tell your queen that her fears were justified. Polybia is still alive."

* * *

Far removed from such dreadful events, Celestia was actually having a rather pleasant day at court. The nobles were noticeably less bothersome, the lobbyists pushing fewer one-sided bills, and most surprisingly of all, there were more than seven petitions and propositions that were genuine improvements. She tried to ignore the facts that six of them were done out of selfish aims, but she took her points when she could. _Why does Luna's court get most of the well-meaning lobbyists?_

Currently, she was silently reviewing a monument construction project proclaiming the harmonious peace between the known races to be built in Ponyville. "I have to say, I love the idea, Steel Chisel. I think a statue of all friendly races, including the immigrate sphinxes would go a long way towards continued harmony. I think Ponyville would be the perfect place for it."

"I knew you would, Princess," the dusty unicorn stallion replied excitedly at the prospect of a contract. "With Ponyville's recent growth though, you might need to rename it Pony City."

It was a horrible joke, and several royal guards' military bearing were tested to keep from groaning. Celestia was able to titter politely. "We just might," she agreed while signing the petition. "I will have my secretary provide you the detail on how to proceed from here."

"Thank you, Princess, you won't regret it!"

Steel Chisel departed with such a bounce in his step he almost missed the changeling ambassador, Blue Flare, barging into the room nearly tripping over the hapless sculptor. "P-Princess Celestia, there is an urgent situation from the jungles!"

Celestia put up a halting hoof towards the next supplicant as her brow furrowed along with her smile evaporating. "What happened?"

Not wanting to cause a panic, Blue Flare flew over, bowed quickly and moved to speak in the diarch's ear. "One of the other queens, Polybia, has gone rogue, and Aunt Twilight believes she is allied with an ancient being named Grogar."

"Grogar?" Celestia looked at the ambassador with bewilderment. Blue Flare nodded in affirmation. It took Celestia a few moments to place the unfamiliar name. "But he's just a foal's book villain I read to her once during Nightmare Night. He was never real. What is she basing this off of?"

"Just a giant cloud demon bearing his likeness assaulting the Summit. She said that it was even accompanied by the tolling of bells as the old stories go."

That got a troubled eyebrow lift out of the old alicorn. "That _is_ troubling." _'The Grim Tales' never was a very popular foal story collection. And has fallen even further into obscurity over the millennia. I highly doubt a changeling queen would use such an obscure image…_ "I assume Twilight wants access to the archives for research."

"I always tell Scroll that Aunty is too predictable at times," Flare replied with an amused smirk. "But yes, she does."

"Very well, and get Aged Page to assist you. If a fairy tale has come to life, he might have some insight on the matter. At the very least he'll get a kick out of it."

"Thank you, your highness. My queens send their gratitude." Blue Flare bowed again and departed, leaving many of the ponies, guards and court members alike, in an uneasy state.

Celestia quickly noticed the wave of concern chilling the room. _I really hope Twilight is wrong about this one,_ she thought now that the old story tales were being pulled from the depths of her memories. _Something like Grogar should stay imaginary._

* * *

Grogar festered in his cocoon prison as he was brought into a familiar chamber by a small group of drones. The room itself was vast with several tall pillars made from a sort of wax and rock based cement keeping the chamber stable. There were thousands of pods blanketing the walls and pillars, each containing prisoners from many races both near and far, average and exotic.

The necromancer's smoldering fury was dampened a bit after he passed by a sleeping sphinx. The oddity of seeing a new creature barely passed through his ancient mind before turning back to look at the destination.

In a small clearing, several pods had been harvested from the stores and lined up beside Polybia. He scanned the lot of them with mild curiosity. "What's this? Are you giving me a selection or a feast?"

"The latter," she stated distastefully. "With my rogue status, I will need more of your power than ever before."

"So you're trying to… fatten me up, as they say." Ultimately, he never got much of a rise out of her any time he spoke about feeding time. _To think there are mortal species out there with the same disregard for sapient life as my bedeviled kin._

"I know not their crimes, or even if they're guilty. Just eat your fill. I will drain you later."

With a quick burst of magic, Polybia activated an anti-magic barrier so powerful it even managed to give Grogar a migraine. Once done, the drones removed his bindings and sliced his cocoon open so he could move freely.

The old ram jostled his stiff limbs while casting his ears about, picking up the sound of numerous drones nearby, just waiting for him to make a wrong move. "And what if I don't desire to feed? I have no interest in your little war."

Polybia eyed him dangerously. "Then I will drain you anyway. The demonologist was quite specific about how close I can bring you to true death." She had two of her drones pull one of the captives off the line and threw it at Grogar's hooves. "At such a weakened state, even a demon of your power can be made to feel true pain."

"Child, I was ancient before your species even existed," Grogar replied with supreme disinterest. However he distinctly caught on to the demonologist comment. _That would explain things._ "I have experienced pain beyond your imagination, and you think you can do worse? You _do_ know which realm I came from don't you?"

He started lazily studying the offered prisoners more closely, starting with the one at his hooves.

"And yet you wander _this_ realm, rarely if ever leaving. You may not be from this world, but I doubt you are as indifferent to pain as you would have me believe. However…" Polybia walked over to him slowly. "Perhaps torture _is_ the wrong tool."

Grogar remained passive towards her advance. She stopped a few inches away. "If you're unwilling to fuel my war, I'll simply have to return these prisoners to their respective societies."

Grogar's ear twitched, but otherwise revealed nothing. "Why would you give up your food?"

"I have over nine thousand of the very worst criminals their societies have brought forth in various secure locations, Grogar. By far, too many for my own needs." She eyed him, searching for any sign of emotional tell. "And now that all of the other queens are arrayed against me, I can't keep them all. You keep telling me my sins weigh heavily upon me, so killing any of them in cold blood certainly isn't helping in that regard. In fact," she added with a knowing smirk, "the only logical thing to do would be to release them at various cities. I'm sure they can find new lives for themselves out there."

"...It _would_ be a shame if all that sin were to go to waste," he said with measured poise. His eye fell upon the prisoner below him. It was a minotaur bull with scars almost hidden by the pod's coating.

With practiced ease, one of the drones carefully sliced it open and pulled out a green gel covered arm. Ignoring the mess, Grogar bent down and sliced the arm to withdraw some blood. He licked his hoof, humming in culinary delight. "Murder, child rapist, and… Oohh, now that's a kink I haven't tasted in a long time. This will almost be worth the trouble you put me through, Polybia," he said as he turned his gaze up at her. "But don't think this buffet will win you salvation when all of this is over. I _will_ claim your soul one day."

"You still don't understand changeling queens, do you, Necromancer?" Polybia huffed in disdain. "We are not some common riffraff you can find in any other civilization. I don't _care_ about my fate." _Only that of my progeny,_ she added to herself.

"So you claim," he replied with a disbelieving tone. He tore open the rest of the sleeping minotaur's cocoon, scowling all the way. _Just a bit longer, Polybia, and your mind will no longer be your own._

Grogar's teeth sharpened into knives as he bit down on the bull's gut, and tore off a mass of flesh, forcing the minotaur to awaken screaming. Polybia watched in muted horror as the demon slowly devoured the bull, all the while keeping him alive as long as possible. Within short order, Grogar consumed the body, bones and all, and still looked famished for more. _Where does he put it all?_

Grogar repeated the process eight times, cursing Polybia all the while as he put the last few alterations to his mana. It was slow, tedious work under the anti-magic field, but hardly as impossible as Polybia believed. That plan was put on hold after he tasted a sphinx's blood. "Petty theft, and little else," he muttered quietly. He pushed the arm back into the pod. He looked at Polybia carefully, before adopting a disinterested look. "He's not to my liking. Put him back."

"I am not your chef, _demon,"_ Polybia stated darkly. "This one is producing only a trickle of love. He's of no use to me."

"Then I suppose you'll just have to release him back into the wild," Grogar returned with thinly veiled contempt.

"Fine then." Three drones grabbed the pod and made for the exit. "I wonder how long he'll survive the jungles."

Grogar appeared to not care in the least. However he used the distraction to alter his internal magic. "Not my concern anymore."

"Perhaps…" Polybia replied contemplatively. A few moments later she commanded her drones to take the pods back into storage. "You've eaten enough, in any event." Five more drones flew over and grabbed Grogar before starting to encase him in wax so Polybia could personally apply the wards and seals. "I will come for you shortly."

Grogar hid a satisfied smirk as he was carried away to the pool room. _It's taken quite awhile, but I finally altered my magic enough. We'll see who comes out on top, Polybia._


	58. Chapter 58

The Demonologist

Aegis liked to think she had impressive patience. After all, she suffered years of princesshood, biweekly medical checks, her mother and aunt's sometimes ridiculous tests, and then there was the "Cake Incident". She shuddered at the terror of so much cake batter.

All of the seemingly fruitless research wasn't exactly helping matters. Several paper stacks and old tomes dotted the ground floor with drained tea cups scattered about. Blitz wanted coffee above all, but the caretakers forbade it for the time being.

"Hold still, please," Gear Ratio asked while inspecting every square inch of the purple proto-queen's scalp. "Four bulbs. Excellent, your crown is growing in nicely."

Aegis started scratching the bulbs with those delightfully dexterous fingers. "They itch like crazy."

Gear gently smacked the hand away. "Don't irritate them. The bone hasn't hardened yet so if you mess with them, they'll break and you'll start growing in a second crown. Now, drop down so I can set up the probulator."

"Joy," Aegis grumbled as she reluctantly returned to her original quadruped stance. She eyed Burny, who was resting at her hooves, and picked it up in her magic to nuzzle her favorite weapon. _He just doesn't feel complete without a loaded fuel canister, but the castle staff keep getting all uppity about it._

Gear Ratio rolled over a machine as large as Celestia herself. Aegis would have blanched at all of the prods, needles, clamps, and various other implements of medical torture were it not a daily ritual Gear seemed to love doing, with an evil cackle at that. _Whelp, I know what_ I'm _banning the moment I start ruling my future hive._

A tittering giggle drew Aegis' ears towards Blitz who was getting inspected as well. A few weeks had passed since the Summit, and the group was now in their personal suite in Canterlot Castle. It was actually Twilight's old home before moving to Ponyville, which gave everyone a huge sense of wonder. Though that wonder was subdued for both proto-queens. "Aegis, you really need to just let the caretakers work. The sooner they're done, the sooner we can go back to our research."

Aegis grumbled and groaned, but otherwise quietly complied to be poked and prodded. _Mother neglected to mention how much the caretakers would probe us with cold steel tools. Actually, you know what? Screw it, my first act as queen will to make all medical probes double as sex toys._

It had already been late afternoon when the caretakers had begun, and by the time they finished, it was already well past sundown. A knock on the door was followed up by a voice. "Kitchen Service."

Feather Soft was the only one not occupied by the examinations, having been taking notes. As such it fell upon her to answer the door, only to find Princess Luna waiting on the other side. "Good evening, Caretaker." Feather jumped in surprise, but managed to speak without stuttering.

"Princess Luna, it's an honor!" Feather stepped aside to allow Luna and the servants entrance.

With a respectful nod, Luna stepped in to find the other caretakers abandon their physical while the proto-queens happily cantered over. Aegis more than the others after seeing the two serving carts laden with food being wheeled in by the servants. "Hey, Princess, what brings you here?"

The three royals exchanged brief hugs. "I've been so busy as of late, I've not had a chance to see you since you arrived." Luna sized them up. It was ultimately difficult to gauge the progress of the two changeling proto-queens towards full physical maturity since they were much taller standing on two legs. _It is a little odd feeling when they kneel down to hug, rather than go back onto four legs._ "I trust the city's been kind to you."

"Funny you should say that," Blitz answered with a face somewhere between humored and confused. "We went to go sightseeing this morning and ponies kept asking us if we were costumed minotaurs."

"Or a new species," Aegis continued with a snicker, "and that one kid who thought we were changeling infested minotaurs coming here for a cure."

Luna couldn't help but to chuckle as the caretakers took turns hugging Luna. "Well it is certainly better than pitchforks, and hazmat suits."

Leaving the royals to their chat, Gear Ratio shooed her staff over to set up the dining table. Blitz laughed only to slowly stop at Luna's serious expression. "Ah… Well, anyway, umm, I'm glad that didn't happen."

"As are we all," Luna replied with a brief sly smirk towards Aegis. "Archmage Aged Page is not the young stallion he used to be, so I have brought his latest findings with me," she said while summoning several pieces of paper and an old tome.

Aegis' face lit up at sight of the documents. "So he actually managed to find something? And here I thought we'd be stuck with fairy tales, ones that I _hope_ have been blown out of proportion."

Blitz hummed thoughtfully before her face lit up with an idea. "I think we should go over all of our information first, and you, Luna, can correct or add where we're lacking."

"Sounds reasonable," Luna remarked. "Why don't we try in one of your Linkscapes for better visualization?"

Aegis and Blitz were about to telekinetically grab the food Gear Ratio had brought over when Luna's comment made them all hesitate. "Wait a second, since when can you enter our hive mind?"

Both proto-queens were momentarily surprised they spoke in unison before Blitz shook it off as a fluke. "I thought your part in defeating Silandrus was just you piggybacking off of momma."

Luna shot Aegis a calm smile. "That is true. Nevertheless, you forget, because I am one with The Dreamer, I _am_ psychic. However, I view the hive mind differently than what's been described to me. To my sight, your hive mind appears more as lights and souls, rather than a choir, so I can't truly join your Link. However, I believe I can at least enter Linkscapes since they are likely just a different form of lucid dreaming."

"Incredible." Blitz stated with an amazed tone. "I think it's worth a shot." Blitz turned to Aegis who nodded in agreement.

"Just so long as you don't _actually_ join the hive mind. I really don't want to have to explain to mother that you've been enveloped like Aunty was."

Gear Ratio quickly set the plates down before quietly scampering off to join her staff. _Undoubtedly to gossip,_ Luna mused with a hint of laughter.

The trio ate for a bit as Blitz pulled upon Twilight's lessons and crafted a Linkscape in the form of a grassy meadow with rolling hills. "Okay, everypony, I think we're ready to start."

With practiced ease, Luna's mind departed her body with just enough intelligence left behind to keep eating. Since Blitz was not resisting her, Luna was able to enter the proto-queen's mind without incident, and followed the tether of her consciousness to the waking dream. The Linkscape appeared to be a blobby window to the meadow until she passed through into the faux dream world.

There she found Blitz and Aegis waiting for her with excited expressions written all over them. "This is too cool!" Aegis cheered. "I would say I wish we could have done this sort of thing with Aunty all those years ago, but" she squashed Blitz with a sidelong embrace, causing her counterpart to wheeze despite not needing to breathe. "Then I wouldn't have the best mare in the world for a counterpart." She nuzzled Blitz with deep affection, who couldn't help but to snicker and return it in earnest.

"I think it all worked out well for everypony involved," Luna replied diplomatically. This being her first time in a Linkscape, Luna took stock of her senses and mental condition, if only to have an excuse to _not_ look at her companions' lack of inhibitions. Luna wanted to make sure she wasn't slowly becoming too attached to the hive mind. _It never hurts to be cautious._ Sensing nothing out of the ordinary, but keeping herself alert, Luna turned to the heatedly amorous pair of future queens. She coughed loudly before speaking. "Show me what you have, if you have a moment or two."

Blitz suddenly remembered Luna was still there as she and Aegis were in the middle of an intimate kiss. She broke off and momentarily became vaporous to slide out of Aegis' grasp before reforming slightly away from her. "R-r-right, sorry. Okay, so, we'll start with the foal tale Celestia originally told Aunty Twilight."

Aegis giggled at her counterpart's insecurity about public displays of affection around non-changelings. You're so cute when you're flustered.

Hush, you, Blitz replied without any real force. Next thing you'll suggest is trying to fertilize each other's eggs.

Oohh, that would be an interesting position, what with lacking a-.

Focusing on the _princess_ now!

The image of a stylized ram portrayed in an oil painting appeared. He had dark blue fur, curling horns, and stark angry red glowing eyes. His maw was filled with knives, bearing a cruel hate filled grin. Upon his neck was a bronze metal band that had several thin bells on it, with a much larger one hanging from the bottom. Overall, he was only slightly larger than other rams Luna had seen in her day. Even then, he didn't quite match her in height. His fur was scraggly and unkempt, but it was impossible to know if that was just an effect of the painter's style or not.

"Necromancer Grogar," Aegis opened up with a calculating gaze upon her foe. "The three folk tales were all over the place on describing him, even in the same story, but I think we nailed down the most common factors."

Blitz circled around the portrait to stand at Aegis' right. "In one instance, he is said to be a ruler of sorts. His kingdom was called Tambian."

"It's Tambelon," Luna corrected as she waved a mental copy of Aged Page's notes. "It's supposed to be a subdivision of, or at least closely linked to Tartarus."

"The storybooks must have lost the original spelling," Blitz replied as she summoned a piece of paper into existence and scribbled on it. It disappeared a moment later when the amended text appeared above Grogar's head.

Aegis stared contemplatively at the demonic ram. "All the kiddy stories we found said he kills whomever he pleases, sending their souls to either Tartarus at large, or to be enslaved within Tambelon."

"I have no real information to add on that part," Luna stated with a worried frown. "Other than that it seems to be either both, or that he personally picks which place the victims are sent."

"The old stories also said that he raised the dead to destroy whole cities, or to gobble up bad little foals." Blitz created a ghostly pony, and a zombie one. "The legend says that with each victim he gained two more soldiers: the mindless corpse, and the ghost."

"That's roughly what the archmage uncovered as well," Luna added. "Though I have to question the validity of these legends. As you originally feared, it's all too likely that these stories get blown out of proportion. Did you find anything on his goals, or is he just an engine for destruction?"

"None that I could find," Blitz replied with Aegis shaking her head. "But judging by the language of the stories, the writer either fully believed he was writing fiction, or was so overloaded with superstition that everything they say is suspect."

"Yeah, _that_ one kept saying Breezies are heralds of famine and drought," Aegis scoffed. "The guy also said that Grogar was actually an earth pony originally, and also a minotaur for a while before becoming a demon."

"I noticed a similar trend in Page's notes," Luna stated with mounting concern. "But it's entirely possible that there were other spirits and demons either mistaken for Grogar, or were actively using his name to spread fear."

"I hope that's all we're dealing with here then," Blitz stated with waning fear. "Polybia might have secured an alliance with a demon or con artist posing as Grogar. For all we know, Polybia could have used the necromancer's image on purpose because she thought Twilight would hold us all back while we investigate Grogar."

"That's certainly a possibility," Luna agreed. "If Polybia went rogue in the manner you told me, I would expect a queen to use disinformation like this."

The hive mind chimed the late hour causing both changelings yawn sleepily. Blitz felt around the hive mind to find that Twilight was highly distracted in other matters. "Hey Aegis, do you know what Aunty's up to? She's usually very punctual."

"I can answer that," Luna said with deep concern. "Thanks to her sister's prodding, both Twilight and Rainbow are out exploring less… savory sources of information."

* * *

Intel 'la 'Gence, Ferrum, Counterspell, and Thunderfury strode through Lower Canterlot disguised as a quartet of pegasi drifters along a narrow mountain road. Lower Canterlot was perched the very slope of Canterhorn Mountain along northern face, opposite of the old monastery.

Taking up the rear guard, Thunderfury gazed to his left. Without even a railing, the thin road flanked a sheer drop for thirty meters before reaching the roof of another building below. During his training, Thunderfury gained much needed insight into the ground-bound lives of unicorns and earth ponies. This place is a death trap for non-fliers.

Had anyone been able to see through his disguise, they would have found Thunderfury bearing his mother's catlike eyes. Rainbow Dash was watching the expedition through him, but letting him remain in full control for the time being.

Twilight Sparkle kept her misgivings about this dilapidated community masked behind scholarly lectures. This place used to be called Little Griffintown. Celestia used to tell me stories about it's marvelous festivals and culture. Through Intel's eyes, Twilight silently mourned the glory days she never got to see. Now though… It's little more than a slum. I've only heard that something ruined griffin pride long ago, but I can't remember why off the top of my head. Celestia's planning on rezoning it all, but she's got to be careful or she might trigger a diplomatic incident.

Intel didn't look back at her squad mate to avoid giving any hints to their silent conversation. Like Thunderfury, she too bore her mother's eyes. Mother, are you sure Aged Page was right about all this? This doesn't look like the kind of place an 'unofficially' sanctioned demonologist would set up shop.

The path came to a collasped rope bridge, forcing everyone to fly across. Ferrum was outwardly bored but inwardly scoffing at his commander. And how many demonologists do you know?

Point taken.

Alright, kids, enough, Twilight fussed to keep them focused. We need to find an old mare unicorn with a cracked horn and a missing front leg.

Counterspell pulled his tattered cloak tighter across his face as he passed by a skeletal old griffin who had flies buzzing around his rasping beak. _Disgusting._ I don't think missing limbs are exactly rare down here. I say we split up to cover more ground. Going around as a group is suspicious.

Rainbow Dash hummed negatively. No way. I remember being down there a few times to locate some of our less disciplined Wonderbolts and a kidnapping case once where the local police asked for outside help. The only reason none of you are getting mugged is because you're in a group. It's more natural for this area than walking solo.

Intel kept trying to look suspicious of others but also nonchalant. Not something that came easy, even for a changeling. She spied a young pegasus colt no older than she was, chronologically at least, who eyed them like a hawk until the squad passed in front of a dilapidated house.

The path was so eroded and narrow that she had to take to the air to keep from falling. As soon as the last squad member followed suit, the group felt an overwhelmingly powerful magical force muscle past their natural resistance to telekinesis.

With a yelp, Intel was dragged into the house along with the rest of her crew to find a glowing mana engine holding them tight while three earth ponies with crude black market replica muskets held their weapons leveled right at them. A unicorn stepped away from the bulky engine's controls, bringing the changelings' attention to her and the Ponies for the Conservation of Equestria graffiti tag behind her.

"Well what do we have here," the unicorn announced with a drawl. "I would have thought the police finally realized they aren't welcome down here."

"What the hell makes you think _we're_ cops!?" Counterspell shouted accusingly. "Is there a badge on me that I didn't know about? Did someone tattoo one on my flank without my knowing!?"

Twilight and Rainbow tried to think of a plan, so the drones decided to stall. One of the earth gunponies snorted dismissively. "We saw the lot of you coming down from Middle Canterlot, and we've never seen you before. Besides, all of you walk too stiff to be riffraff."

Ferrum let off a terse laugh at Counterspell. "Well lookie there, CS, somepony thinks you look respectable."

"Will you two shut up!" Intel growled at them. She turned to the leader, forcing her disgust of the bigot down. "Look, we all got thrown out of the Guard for nearly beating some Ling Lover to death up there. We were actually coming down here to find work. There's always somepony needing some muscle down here."

"We should know," Thunderfury said with general disdain.

The earth ponies kept their weapons trained on the disguised drones, but they looked to the unicorn for direction. The mare glanced behind her, knowing the P.C.E. logo was clearly visible. "A likely story. I was in the Guard myself not too long ago, and I don't remember any of you. Who was your commanding officer?"

Using Thunderfury's voice, Rainbow Dash was the one who answered. "That old prick Captain March Step of the Forty Eighth Regiment. I couldn't stand the guy after finding out he had a griffin fetish."

Using Rainbow's information, the remaining three changelings gave similar stories about fellow guardponies and Twilight supplied some gossip on castle life until Intel was the last to speak. "And the old nag had the gall to tell me I was wrong, so I clocked her so hard she'll be needing a new set of dentures."

The earth ponies were smirking at the mental image, but had enough discipline to keep their weapons up. The unicorn still frowned suspiciously. "Enough!" she barked harshly.

The room fell silent as the mare studied each of the disguised changelings intently. Twilight started to fear that they had pushed the cover story too far, and were moments away from having to resort to violence. _Not sure how effective that'll be with the mana engine forcing our children to be sitting ducks._

The unicorn watched each of her hostages with a slow steady eye as her magic tightened around the engine's controls. She hunted for any sign of deception, no matter how faint. Eventually though, all she could do was huff bitterly.

"Fine... You proved you at least can act like former guards. But you're all from different units, so…"

The changelings watched as the unicorn returned to the mana engine's controls and let Counterspell fall to the ground. She telekinetically grabbed a spare rifle from behind her chair and gave it to him. "You should have no loyalty to any of them. Kill one, and I'll believe you. Don't, and I'll have you shot right here and now."

Counterspell stalled for time while verbalizing his disgust for the shoddy weapon in his hooves. Mother, have you figured out how to overpower the mana-engine?

Not without physically being there. That mana engine is some serious hardware. It's even got a counter-TK field in effect, so you can't simply switch it off from there. _It doesn't look to be of changeling make. This could be a bad sign._ Regardless, if the engine was our only problem, the four of you _could_ overpower it, but the earth ponies would notice and open fire.

Counterspell spotted a removable anti-telekinesis ward on the rifle. _A back up? These guys aren't fooling around._ Trust me guys, I got this. He narrowed his gaze at Thunderfury who started to wiggle futilely within the mana-engine's grasp.

"Now wait a minute! We just proved we're who we say we are, there's no need for this!" Thunderfury shrieked out of convincing fear.

The unicorn mare pulled a dagger from under her chair and leveled it at Counterspell's spine. "You've proven you were Guard. But now I want proof you're not undercover agents. Shoot him," she demanded of Counterspell, "Or we kill you and make one of your buddies take the next shot."

"Fine by me," Counterspell lied smoothly, "Never did like you much, Paddle Bat, you always bitched too much." Adopting the standard Royal Guard firing stance, Counterspell aimed and fired at the distraught false pegasus. With everyone so focused on Thunderfury screaming a death knell, Twilight used Counterspell's horn for a subtle alteration of the air, making it sound like the bullet hit flesh rather than the concealed shield. Rainbow Dash had successfully guided Thunderfury to fidget so his hidden shields were at an angle that caused the bullet to ricochet outside.

Noticing none of this, the unicorn only saw what they wanted her to: a simple execution. Satisfied, the mare had the engine throw Thunderfury out of the room and down the cliff before any blood could fall. "You're either very dedicated to your cover story, or you might just be legitimate. But there is one other thing…"

The trio of earth ponies readjusted their aim back towards Counterspell as the unicorn charged her horn. "There is one other group who has such disregard for the lives of others." With a pulse of magic, she bathed Counterspell in purple magic. Twilight instantly knew the spell, and couldn't help but to smirk. _My old disguise removal spell with quite a few nasty improvements. Honestly, did you really think I wouldn't have developed a counter to that root design?_

Having no way to see the distant queen's superior grin, the unicorn frowned when Counterspell remained a pegasus. "They're clean."

The earth ponies lowered their weapons, but kept them at the ready in case any of them wanted revenge for Thunderfury. With a few adjustments to the controls, the unicorn shut the mana-engine down and let the remaining two Queens' Guard drop to the ground. "The P.C.E. is always looking for new recruits, but Don Cannoli will want to know you're in the area first."

"And where can we find him," Intel growled, forcing herself to keep her eyes away from the door.

"You don't find the Don, he finds you. But all the same, go the pawn shop two levels down along Edge Street. You'll run into one of Cannoli's people down there before long."

"Yeah, sure, sure," Ferrum said dismissively as he made his way towards the door.

Intel leveraged every ounce of her self-control to keep from attacking the terrorists right then and there, instead opting to just silently leave. That left Counterspell to toss the spent firearm at one of the earth stallions. "We'll visit him soon enough."

"Don't make him wait too long," one of the stallions warned. "Cannoli doesn't tolerate disrespect and if you piss him off, you can forget about working with us."

"I'll keep that in mind," Ferrum replied before he too left the house.

Twilight was far more reserved about her distaste for the group. I can't believe they're still able to operate within any part of Canterlot.

The thought of any ponies calling the P.C.E. comrades made Rainbow's blood boil. I'll have the Guard notified immediately. If the P.C.E. is packing hardware like that, we got some flank to kick. But right now, you guys aren't in a position to take on a P.C.E. cell.

Can't we just talk to this demon guy later? Now that we know about the engine, we can storm the place, Thunderfury commented, sharing his mother's bloodlust.

We only know about four ponies and a single engine. There's no telling what kind of network they have down here, Twilight countered with her usual motherly tone.

Rainbow jumped in smoothly as her sister quieted. Right. And besides, if we did anything to them, we'd probably piss off some police chief or guard captain for ruining an investigation or something because the rest of the cell would go to ground. For now though, keep moving up the path. You should get there in a few minutes, barring any more foalnappings.

The three remaining false pegasi regrouped once the P.C.E. house and the suspected lookout colt were out of sight. They found Thunderfury disguised as a scraggly pale brown unicorn lazily leaning against the cliff. Even without their empathy, they could tell he was badly drained of mana.

He was wearing a new cloak that was even more ragged than his old one. Well that was _fun._ Momma's gotten worlds better at illusion magic. Had every lookout within half a mile thinking I'm still a corpse back there. He showed off his torn cloak as if it was a fashionable accessory. And I found some new digs to boot.

Getting shot is fun? Counterspell snarked. Must be why our enemies keep jumping in front of our guns.

Rainbow Dash ignored the banter. Keep going. Thunder, let them move on a bit before following after.

Copy that.

* * *

Shuffling through the rundown sections of Lower Canterlot, the drones finally reached a small storehouse with a sign reading 'Grizwalo's Junction'. By any normal standards, anyone would think the business went under long ago.

Intel rounded some broken wooden crates to find a beggar huddled around the cargo entrance to the building. The beggar was sleeping on her belly, seemingly oblivious to the midday sun beating down on all of them. Broken horn, missing leg, that must be her.

Thunderfury stopped trying to act like he wasn't tailing the group and moved forward to meet up with his squad as Rainbow Dash took full control over him. Twilight did the same with Intel before stepping up to the beggar. She had to keep up appearances of a new criminal so she adopted a harsh tone. "Hey, old mare, you know where we can find a friend of ours?"

A dry raspy cackle escaped the mare's parched lips. Her neck audibly cracked as she turned to look at Twilight with lifeless eyes. "What kind of friend? _I_ can be yours for five bits." Her crusted eyes looked over the other three disguised drones. "Ten bits for the lot of you, what do you say?"

Even for the free-love changelings, none of them wanted to go anywhere near that topic with her. "I think we'll pass," Twilight stated flatly. "We're more interested in meeting with Tobi."

The broken mare cackled loudly as if she was not made of bone and muscle, unnerving the drones. "So you want the _special_ do ya!? Well it's in the back. Come along." With surprising strength, the mare got to her hooves and pushed her way inside one of the broken side doors into the storehouse.

Twilight watched her go before turning Intel towards the rest of the squad. Counterspell, Ferrum, stay here and watch the exit. Make sure we don't get ambushed coming back out.

The pair sent their acknowledgements before taking positions around the building while Intel and Thunderfury followed after the beggar.

However, instead of stepping into a disused storehouse, the pair stepped into a candlelit library filled with dusty tomes, arcane diagrams on the floor and on paper, a few skulls of various species, and a young looking earth stallion bent over a stone altar. "Always horrible timing," he complained morosely.

Twilight scanned the room and looked back at the door to find solid stone with an ivory door frame. The frame itself had the magic scent of unicorn horns. Rainbow was equally confused, but left her sister to the exploration. She focused her attention squarely on the pony.

When Twilight finally gathered her wits, she took a closer look at the pony and his altar. Some glowing green liquid was slowly bubbling, as if it was evaporating in the open air.

Rainbow Dash's arcane senses told her he was using a glamor spell. _Feels like the spellwork is entirely different from our disguise magic, but the end result is the same. Is he a non-pony? Or has his trade of choice corrupted his appearance?_ "Fel-Weaver Schadenfreude, we're here because Aged Page said you're the one to go to for information of demonic nature."

One of Schadenfreude's ears turned backwards towards Twilight and Rainbow. He reached for a gnarled old staff with enchanted bones hanging off of it. With a rattling clatter, he stomped the butt of the staff on the ground, causing the glowing liquid to condense into a pool before slithering back into a cup he then set upright.

Finally, he turned around to reveal a very plain looking face with grey eyes matching his drab gray fur and mane. His cutie mark was obscured by a fine cloak. "Is that so?" His eyes flashed red for a few seconds before he returned the staff to its original resting place. "So what's your poison? I doubt he'd send you if all you wanted was to bargain your souls for power."

"We want all you've got on a demon named Grogar," Rainbow demanded bluntly.

"Grogar?" he asked incredulously before quickly masking his surprise. "Afraid I can't do that."

"Why not?" Twilight fished inside Intel's cloak and pulled out a decent sized bag of bits and threw it down. "We don't have any souls to spare, but we can pay your monetary price at least."

"It's not a question of money, Miss…"

"Call me Loki," Twilight said.

It took Rainbow a second to remember she was occupying a male body. "Rainy Days."

Schadenfreude gave Thunderfury a curt nod. "As I said, Miss Loki, I can't divulge anything about Grogar for another month. A client of mine paid for my extended silence regarding him, and quite handsomely at that. When you're in my kind of business, your word is all you have to keep ponies like the archmage from frying you where you stand."

"Even if that knowledge could save the world?" Rainbow rebuked harshly.

Schadenfreude made a dismissive sound and walked over to a filled wine glass and drain a little of it. "I'm a demonologist, Days, I follow my contracts better than any lawyer that ever existed. If it's in my contract, I abide by it."

"A snake who stays true to his word, can't say I expected that," Rainbow huffed. "But that is at least something I can respect." Schadenfreude merely shrugged at the derogatory name. It was beyond tame in his book, and suspected it was in his as well.

"As can I," Twilight began as she let her eyes wander around the cramped room. "But I have it on good authority that client of yours was a changeling. One, Polybia, if I'm not mistaken."

To his credit, Schadenfreude didn't react at all. "It's possible. My client base is quite large, so I wouldn't doubt at least _one_ changeling decided to request my services. And before you go flashing some obscure law at me, Aged Page and I agreed that I abide by my client's native laws and customs. Not necessarily Equestria's."

"Funny you should mention that." Rainbow saw her opening and took it. "Let's say that client _was_ Polybia. Are you familiar with the concept of rogues in changeling society?"

This time he actually chuckled. "Changeling society? Outside of those bugs down in the Everfree," he prodded with a knowing smirk, "there _is_ no society with them. Just a bunch of egomaniacal queens ruling soulless subjects. It's unbelievably droll."

"You'd be surprised," Twilight interjected with an unexpected grin at the stallion's flippant posture. "Being declared a rogue queen is a serious problem. You see, all of that queen's loyalties and agreements are considered completely null and void. Any and all contracts you have with her are no longer binding."

"How convenient." Schadenfreude settled down in a leather chair and sipped his red wine. "And why should I believe you?"

Sharing a nod between them, Twilight and Rainbow dropped their disguises with a flash of purple and fuchsia magic. Schadenfreude looked at them with not as much shock as they expected. "We are Queens Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash. I would like to think we know something about changeling society and its laws," they announced in unison.

Schadenfreude's amusement lasted only a few seconds before he slipped into an intrigued expression. "How very interesting… I admit this is the first time I've seen one of you Phoenix's Roost changelings up close. But even if you're right about this rogue law, unless you have some tangible evidence of my assumed client going rogue, I simply can't help you in regards to Grogar."

Rainbow Dash tossed an even heavier bag of bits at his hooves. "I'm sure you have your own way of checking."

Greed flashed through his eyes as he scooped up the money. "I'm glad you understand."

His glamor spell shifted slightly, revealing his teeth were razor sharp. Schadenfreude bit down hard on his foreleg and let his blood spill into his wine glass. **"Gelnath feltu, Feralian!"**

He threw his bloodwine onto the stone floor, splattering it everywhere and sending broken glass in all directions. Twilight flinched a little as one spec of the wine touched her fetlock. The stench of chemically burning fur started to fill the room before the blood pulled itself off her leg. The crimson liquid formed a pentagram beside Schadenfreude's chair.

Both mares waited nervously. Oily fel magic saturated every inch of the room, trying to claw its way into their minds. Rainbow Dash could feel the corruptive magic pouring out of a hole that formed in the middle of the diagram. The poisonous energy tried to crawl up their hooves, but Twilight burned it away with a bubble of holy magic. Rainbow followed suit, but her shield was actually much stronger than her sister's, much to Twilight's chagrin and disbelief.

Twilight watched Schadenfreude carefully as the stallion gazed deeply into the abyssal opening in front of him. The fel magic swirled around him, caressing him like a lover. Rainbow Dash had to suppress a gag. Grooooss! Who ever thought magic could try to hit on you.

"I would keep those barriers of yours up," Schadenfreude warned with a smirk. "Unless you want the demons on the other side to mark you. Once they do that, it's nearly impossible to avoid an exorcism. Unless you're interested in studying the darker magics?"

"Thank you but no. And you could have warned us sooner," Twilight growled. Using holy magic was highly difficult for her. Holy magic from the Silver City was drawn upon far differently than from the Elysian Fields of ponykind. _I don't get it though. I've seen mother pull upon the City's holy magic with such ease, and yet I have to work so damned hard to keep even this bubble up. If it wasn't for the other queens at the Summit…_

Finally, a diminutive shadowy figure crawled out of the floor portal. It spoke with a hollow echo that grated the changelings' ears. "Master… How can this one serve?"

"Go to the Record Keeper. See if my contract with client Ginger Bell is still in effect." Schadenfreude grabbed a raw and meaty bone off the end table to his right and tossed it at the small demon. It's mouth expanded to double its body's size and devoured the whole thing in one go.

"As you wish, master."

A whirlpool seemed to form, rapidly sucking all of the fel energy back through the portal along with the demon. The portal closed and the bloodwine cracked and dried in an instant. Schadenfreude got up to retrieve another glass of wine.

Rainbow Dash saw tiny shadowy creatures peek out from various nooks and crannies and take the remaining shards of glass away. "We shouldn't have to wait long," Schadenfreude explained as he poured a new glass. "I gave it a particularly tasty treat. I believe you can appreciate expediency." He waved a hoof at a pair of red velvet chairs across from him. "Please sit. I get so few high profile visitors… from this plane of existence anyway."

Twilight scanned the furniture and found no obvious traps before accepting the seat with Rainbow taking the one to her right. "This might be a dumb question to you, but how can you trust those things?"

He chuckled louder than Twilight thought proper while letting his true blood red eyes flash from behind the glamor spell. "Just like mortal beings, demons come in all shapes and mentalities. But unlike mortals, they are bound to any contract they sign to the absolute letter. Even if he wanted to, my little messenger could never lie to me." He briefly pulled a scroll out from his cloak before replacing it. "I keep _his_ contract close at hoof to make sure of that."

"I see," was all Twilight was willing to say on the subject. "Assuming this record keeper is up on current events, and he reveals you are free of your contract, we will still pay you handsomely for any useful information regarding Grogar."

"I'd expect no less," Schadenfreude stated flatly. He examined the two possessed drones with intense curiosity. "Tell you what. I'll offer you a discount in exchange for some information about the two of you."

Rainbow spoke before Twilight had a chance. "We're not saying a thing until word comes back from your bookie. If he's been slouching we're not giving information for free."

A wide toothy grin cleaved Schadenfreude's muzzle. "Fair enough. I'll be willing to offer this discount to any future dealings we have. It's obvious you hate even being in this room," he directed more so at Twilight than Rainbow Dash. "But I can offer a great deal of services, even to more… legitimate governments. After all, I wouldn't be on retainer with the archmage if I wasn't. He's getting along in years, even for a unicorn of his power. I'd prefer to stay off the most wanted lists, on the mortal plane at least."

Is this guy for real? Rainbow asked her sister. There was an air of disbelief in the warrior-queen's tone.

He is, Twilight confirmed. Celestia always told me that for all the good she tries to instill into ponies, criminals and worse have always been there. That's why she used to tell me 'Sometimes the only one who can find a rat...'

Is another rat, Rainbow finished with deep scowl. Yeah my C.O, Spitfire, gave that speech a few times back in the day.

Basically. It's not pretty, but Equestria will always need unsavory agents to help the rest of us combat beings like Grogar. Celestia likes to keep the really important 'rats' close at hoof.

Tch… Yeah, I get ya, Rainbow spat.

"We can start things off cordially enough," Twilight began with a thin smile after finally addressing the demonologist. "I will answer what I deem unimportant to national security."

Schadenfreude's grin never wavered. His eyes turned a smoldering red again. "You won't regret it. I know Page hasn't… by and large," he shrugged. "So tell me, your highnesses. The last changeling client I had, I could see her for what she was right away, even with her flawless disguise. But you two…"

His grin shifted from mirth to fascination. "To the best of my admittedly limited knowledge, your drones are typically carbon copies of their queens. The curious exception is that _your_ drones possess fully fledged sapient souls, but I'll get into that later. What I really want to know is how these carbon copies of you have souls as individualistic as normal ponies. You must be altering them somehow, but no one seems to know how. Not even _my_ contacts."

"So you want to know about _that_?" Rainbow carefully avoided using the word 'alchemy'. "If you think you can use that to improve yourself, then you better be ready to become a changeling to do so."

Schadenfreude's grin fell into a scowl and slumped back in his chair. "Is that so? What a shame." He saw Twilight was about to speak but waved her off. "I don't care to learn anymore about it then. I respect you, but I have no interest in becoming one of you." He took a long drag of his wine. "That being said… How does a whole hive of changelings possess souls that are are such seamless mergers of changeling and a pony?"

 _"What?"_ Twilight and Rainbow Dash asked in unison.

"Oh it's as plain as day to me, _now_ anyway. I knew exactly what you four were the moment you approached my door." Schadenfreude watched them carefully to sniff out any deception. "I don't identify people by their face, but by their soul. Griffins, ponies, zebras, and changelings all have such unique souls from one another. So I have to ask, humor me if you please, why do both you two and your little drones outside have such unique souls?"

"Well…" Twilight was still a little weirded out by the news, as was Rainbow. "My sister and I were converted into changelings, but I thought that was public knowledge."

Schadenfreude hummed in contemplation. "Yes, I know of it. I've personally seen a pony's soul be corrupted to the point where she was indistinguishable from a demon. A soul mutates to fit the mind and body, so I anticipated such a change in both of you. However, it's your children that fascinate me. _They_ also possess this smooth melding where instead I expected them to have predominantly changeling souls. I find myself wondering if I'm gazing upon a whole new species rather than a simple hybrid."

"A lot of people say that," Rainbow snarked. "Our whole body-change-science alters who we are. Sometimes the only thing the different hives have in common is that we all call ourselves changelings."

Schadenfreude deflated a little. "I see… So this melding is just a common side effect of your transformative abilities? It could be possibly tied to your original connection to the elements, but that, too, is beyond my… legal reach. Yet more disappointment. Ah well," he stated with mild resignation. "Then tell me this, did you purposely intertwine your souls or is that a side effect for pony to changeling conversion?"

"Entwined souls?" both mares responded in surprise. "What do you mean?"

Schadenfreude keenly noted that neither queen seemed at all bothered after speaking in unison. "You honestly don't know?" He slouched back in his chair, his interest rapidly morphing into dismissiveness. "I wouldn't worry yourselves over much. It's probably harmless."

This guy's screwing with us, Rainbow said before her sister could start to overthink it. Any sort of 'intertwining' is probably just a holdover from the elements. Just leave it be before he starts stringing you along.

Twilight was able to reign in her shock, and settled into a more passive posture. Yeah… maybe.

It wasn't long before some of Cadista's earlier remarks started to surface. Yumia was my other half… My soulmate. _Was mother just being dramatic, or was there more to it than just our old ties to the elements?_

 _Whatever it is, it can't be too dangerous. Our hive mind focuses on maintaining individuality, so a soul merger is unlikely. Even so, I'm going to need to speak to mother when our business here is done._

Fel magic started filling the room, emanating from the original portal. The tiny demon crossed over much faster this time, and crawled out almost immediately. "Master, the client committed a heinous act indeed, for the Keeper says the contract is void, but not broken… odd, no?"

Schadenfreude looked to the queens with intrigue. "Not really. You may go."

Wordlessly, the demon retreated back through the portal which closed after it. "So you're free to spill the beans?" Rainbow half-demanded impatiently.

"Indeed I am," Schadenfreude confirmed with a wave of his now empty wineglass. "I'll keep my payment in simple bits. For a demon of Grogar's caliber, five million bits sounds reasonable."

"three million," Twilight countered. "I should push for two and a half since you said you'd give us a discount."

He flashed a toothy smirk. "That _was_ with the discount. But… I like you two, your highnesses. I have a feeling you'll be good customers."

 _Fat chance of that,_ both queens mused while keeping their expressions from shifting.

"Fine, but three and a quarter million is my final offer. Business expenses, you see."

"Deal," both queens said in unison. "We'll open a bank account at the Canterlot Reserve under the name Fair Skies for you." Rainbow Dash levitated Twilight's unclaimed bag of bits on the ground and slipped it back inside Thunderfury's cloak.

"That is acceptable." Schadenfreude got up and walked over to his bookshelves while scanning the titles.

Rainbow hesitated for a few moments as something bothered her, more than the room at least. "Just out of curiosity, what did Polybia pay you?"

"Souls," Schadenfreude replied without inflection.

Both queens' hearts went cold, and it took Twilight a moment to speak evenly. She thanked the stars the demonologist's back was turned so he didn't see their pale faces. "Drone souls?"

"No."

…

…

Schadenfreude wasn't bothered by the heavy silence in the least. While he couldn't sense it, he just _knew_ the queens were probably ranging from horrified to furious. He was not wrong. At last, he reached the tome he was seeking and withdrew it. "Ahhh, here we are Grogar. Where would you like to start, hmm?"


	59. Chapter 59

Contingency

A dozen questions raced through Twilight and Rainbow after Schadenfreude told them of Polybia's method of payment. Most of them centered on disbelief and shock. _I know those other queens probably see non-changelings as nothing more than food, but this is a new low,_ Rainbow mused darkly. _Poly better hope I never get my hooves on her._

Schadenfreude ignored the queens' obvious anger as he pulled the relevant tome from the shelves and reclaimed his seat and wine glass after topping it off. He _was_ however, surprised neither of them were condemning him for accepting such payment. _Are they ignoring it so I can give them the information first, or do they actually accept it as standard business practice for me?_

In any event, he had no use for a client that was too furious to conduct business in a professional manner. "If it'll put your minds at some level of ease," he started flatly, snapping the queens from their brooding. "Most of the souls had already damned themselves. They were simply going to Tartarus a little early. Well… after I make use of them, anyway."

"Most of them?" Twilight asked darkly. "And what about the… morally salvageable souls?" It didn't sound quite right, but she didn't know of any other way to say it to a demonologist.

"I give them over to Aged Page, of course." He grinned behind his wineglass as both queens look at him in renewed silent scrutiny.

"Is that the other reason you're not on government wanted lists?" Rainbow half accused.

"I suspected that would be the obvious conclusion." His smug grin never left as he started searching the tome for the relevant information. "Ultimately it's not a terrible arrangement for all parties involved. Such souls… are less useful for my purposes, so I don't lose all that much, and the Archmage gets to soothe his conscience by giving those souls over to clerics or paladins, or whoever he gives them to, it doesn't matter to me."

Twilight shook off the creep factor of the demonologist's laughter at the whole thing. "As grateful as I am to hear of your… _charity_ work, I would prefer to move along to the Grogar issue." Twilight cleared her throat and nodded towards the notes.

Schadenfreude cast a overly humored smirk at her. "Down to business, I _like_ that. Now, Grogar. What would you like to know first?"

It was Rainbow who spoke up. "Did Polybia form an alliance with that goat?"

"Ram," Twilight corrected automatically.

Ignoring the sisters' quirks, Schadenfreude answered without even looking at his documents. "Based on what she wanted to know, I strongly doubt it. She came here looking for ways to bend him to her will. Cantraps, true names, the usual routine. Grogar isn't someone you can simply control, he is only a half demon after all. He may not have all of the powers a full demon possesses, but he doesn't have as many weaknesses either." He saw in their eyes that he would need to elaborate. "To the best of my knowledge, Grogar was originally an earth pony mare, though I know not his original name."

"A mare, you gotta be kidding me," Rainbow scoffed. _I know that sort of thing is commonplace among the hive, but outside of that?_

Schadenfreude smirked at the irony. "I've actually dined with him a few times. Fun fact, Chardonniegh is his favorite wine." He saw neither queen was interested in trivia. He shrugged at the lost humor. "In Grogar's own words: "gender is a construct of life, and I am necromancer by trade". He simply adopts the gender of whatever new body he possesses as his own because he doesn't see the point in changing it. Personally I think he'd change his tune if he bothered to get laid every once in a while."

"Fascinating… truly," Twilight said with an obvious lie. _If Polybia was looking for binding spells and tools, it's possible that there is no alliance, and she took control over him by force. Doesn't mean they didn't strike a deal after she met with Schadenfreude though._ "The sexual predilections of demonic necromancers aside, how do we defeat him?"

"That is a simple matter that is anything but," Schadenfreude replied, taking a moment to enjoy the queens' irritation. "Grogar is no more powerful than anyone else without his Band of Bells."

"Bells? Seriously?" Rainbow snorted in amusement.

"I'm sure bells took on a more significant meaning in whatever mortal culture Grogar originally belonged to," Schadenfreude shrugged. "He wasn't exactly forthcoming in that regard. Either way, because he is not a full demon, Grogar can't bring his full power with him every time he swaps bodies once the old one dies. So he locked most of it into his bells which, as you can imagine, is far easier to take with you from one body to the next."

"That's it?" Twilight asked incredulously. "Take off his necklace and his power is diminished?"

"Partly. The problem is that that power diffuses into his current body until the bells themselves are empty vessels," Schadenfreude clarified with a serious tone. "You would have to kill his body, then ward his bells from being summoned to where ever he has a spare body lying around. Taking the neckband without killing him would be largely pointless."

Despite such welcome news, Twilight couldn't help but to feel dubious. "If this is such a big weakness… How well known is this vulnerability, in your circles?"

"I do so love it when my customers ask the _right_ questions," Schadenfreude said with slightly growing respect. "It is very well known indeed. Grogar was not always as powerful as he is now. The nature of his self-altered soul means he's stuck with this particular problem, and many of his enemies have taken advantage of that over the centuries." He took a sip of his wine before grabbing a tobacco pipe and lit it with a candle. "I think it is a general rule of his to believe all of his enemies know about it."

"Can we reason with him, perchance?" Twilight knew her sister was going to rebuke that idea until she silently reminded Rainbow who they were talking to.

Schadenfreude puffed on his pipe, letting the throat burning smoke waft away. "But of course. He's as civilized as they come, so long as you don't anger him. I dare say he would be irked by our little discussion. Not that I gave away his secrets, mind you, but at how little you paid for them." Schadenfreude's eyes wandered up to the ceiling with that ever present unsettling grin plastered on his face. "He always assumed he would be worth at least half a billion bits. I must say I am writhing with anticipation on what his response will be once he discovers how much those secrets actually sold for."

"Just so long as he directs any vengeance solely upon you," Rainbow started with a smug grin of her own, trying to play his unsaid game. "I'd like to watch."

"Care to see if I'm worth a prolonged contract, your highness?" Schadenfreude's flat teeth were suddenly replaced by yellowed fangs. "I'm almost tempted to tell Grogar myself. At least once this whole Polybia issue he has is resolved. She wouldn't be the first to forcefully enlist his aid."

"This has happened before?" both queens asked with mixed levels of surprise and disbelief.

Schadenfreude let off a sensible chuckle. "His demonic half is a succubus… well," he paused with a head tilt, "incubus now, at least. If you ask me, I believe he quells the remaining incubus urges he has left with the bondage part of being a prisoner. Not that he would let it show."

"Are you saying he still possesses modesty?" Twilight asked with a sarcastic snort.

"Ha! You are not as blinded as most mortals, Queen Twilight Sparkle, I'll give you that." Schadenfreude entirely missed Twilight forcibly hiding her confusion at guessing correctly.

Rainbow Dash was admittedly not the sharpest bowling ball outside of combat, but even she could see something was off. "Wait a minute… how does a half sex-demon never get laid? I thought that was supposed to be their thing."

Twilight looked to Schadenfreude for answers only to find the stallion was for once at a loss for words. "You know… I never actually gave that much thought. Demons are creatures of emotions, but I suspect his use of necromancy has twisted his body to the point that such urges are smothered."

"Well that makes sense," Twilight added with a contemplative shallow frown. "All magic use influences the wielder, be it holy, arcane, or demonic if one school is used excessively over the others. Necromancy is no exception." She looked at Schadenfreude for confirmation of her next theory. "Even if demons are indeed creatures of emotion, they are still living organic beings. Since necromancy eventually renders the practitioner undead, most of those urges die with them."

"Quite an interesting idea, your majesty. I know of nothing that could contradict you."

"Okay, so we know he's an emotionless smart zombie demon." Rainbow drew upon Twilight's knowledge of necromancy to think of a meaningful question. "What about his… phylactery?" _I think that's how you say it._ "Can we find it and break it?"

"It's possible," Schadenfreude admitted easily. "If I read her right, Polybia was by far most interested in finding Grogar's phylactery. Not as impossible as ignorant ponies think. Even the most powerful necromancers have a limited range on their phylactery. If they go beyond that range…" Schadenfreude clapped his hooves hard. "His consciousness would be torn away from his vessel and pulled back into the phylactery.

"So if we grab it, we can just fly away with it to disable him?" Rainbow leaned forward in her seat at the prospect of a quick win.

"Assuming you find it, of course," Schadenfreude countered with a smirk. "He'd have to keep the soul vessel here on the mortal plane to keep the bond between his body and phylactery strong."

"So he can't cheat in hiding it?" Rainbow mirrored Schadenfreude's devilish smirk. "Now _that_ is something worth knowing."

* * *

Polybia stumbled into her hatchery, still glowing with the chilly mana of Grogar's power. The massive chamber was blanketed in her eggs, and those stolen from the most recent queen she had eliminated from before the Summit. Even if they were not of her blood, they were still viable soldiers.

Grogar's mana fought against hers as Polybia struggled to bring it under her control. _He's doing something with his mana. It's never been this difficult to subdue. Still, I need it's power before attacking Kreesus._

She summoned a pair of caretakers to help carry her so she could put more focus on the riotous mana. By the time she was brought to her destination, most of Grogar's power had been brought to heel. However it still lingered around her head, clouding her vision. She forcibly shook herself to clear it to little effect. _I guess he wants even less food._

Resting before her in a large alcove of the main hatchery were dozens of green glowing pods filled with pony captives. _Twilight may have gotten us to return all of the love farmed ponies, but loopholes are too easy to exploit._

The four dozen captives were not actually used for love harvesting, but for knowledge instead. With a hive of dimwitted, but surprisingly competent drones, there was always going to be something that would be impossible to accomplish with Polybia's direction alone. The ponies here were used for their assortment of talents. Farming, medicine, logistics, combat tactics, and anything else Polybia perceived as useful skills.

With her mental strength returning, Polybia perused over the mass of pods.

"Now… Which of you are the least important?" Looking over the gathered specialists and mulling over the state of her war torn hive, her focus fell upon two of her older pods. "Thanks to Kreesus' last raid, my farmlands are diminished to the point where I don't need as many agriculture experts. I can make do without you for a while yet."

She looked down at the pair of caretakers sitting beside her, awaiting to fulfill her wishes. "Cut those two from their pods and bring the royal egg to me."

"At once," they replied emotionlessly.

Carefully removing them from the ceiling, the caretakers moved the pods near their queen and went through the motions of awakening the occupants and carving them out of the pods. Polybia arched a disapproving eyebrow at the pair when enough pod fluid had been washed off of them to see them clearly.

As with all of her pony specialists, they had been partially converted by the pods themselves into changelings. Otherwise connecting them to the hive mind would have been impossible. However, it was impractical to completely stop the transformation, only immensely slow it down. As as result, these two captives had been in the pods for so long they had grown fully formed horns and glossimer wings. While their hooves were black chitin, the fur had only retreated a few inches above the fetlocks. Short fangs poked out from their mouths and their fluttering eyes were indistinguishable from any other drone. Outside of that however, they looked like normal ponies, save for their cutie marks being a garbled mess of color.

Polybia scowled at the hybrids. _Damn. Perhaps they've been in there for too long. I don't need mindless servants, I need someone who can act independently… for once._ A small spark of hope remained as she noticed the rest of their fur remained thick and strongly colored. The cutie marks were not entirely missing, that at least gave her some confidence and stopped her from ordering them back to the pods.  
"Quasi, speak!"

The pale greyish yellow furred stallion of the pair was big and nearly as tall as Luna without her horn. The pod had done nothing to diminish his toned build. "I hear and obey, my queen."

The curly carrot haired mare looked up Polybia with ghostly hatred in her eyes, but it was dwarfed by her devotion. "I live to serve, my queen." She had faint peach colored fur with turquoise eyes.

Polybia regarded the brilliantly red maned stallion with an inquisitive eye. "What do you remember of life before the hive?" She questioned hoping to find enough intelligence within them for her purposes.

"Ah worked a farm, but don't rightly remember what exactly Ah was farm'n," the stallion replied hesitantly. He wanted to rub his head, but the presence of his queen held him back.

"Do you remember where you used to live?"

The mare wracked her brain, and was able to mostly ignore her forbearance about rubbing her head. A frustrated scowl marred her features. "No, my queen. Only that I helped with the farm. Maybe we were farmhooves or we owned it." She looked at the big pale yellow stallion. "But I remember him quite clearly."

 _Perhaps you remember enough to be useful after all._ Polybia saw the growing spark of intelligence in their eyes as some of their memories came back. "Do you think you could reintegrate into pony society?"

"If that is your will, my queen." The stallion replied evenly.

"I - I would like that, my queen," the mare said with extreme reservation. "B-but only if you wish it, of course."

 _If they have this much emotion… well, the mare anyway, then this might work out acceptably. Stallions have always been able to get away with being less emotional in Equestria if I recall correctly._

 _Even so, their appearance could make it all useless._ Injecting the knowledge of disguise magic into the two quasi, Polybia was ready for her final test. "Disguise yourselves."

While the stallion accepted the knowledge without issue, the mare had to blink away tears of pain. Polybia saw the tears, but felt no will to resist from her. Grey-green flames washed over the stallion first with the mare recovering from the sudden migraine for a few seconds. The mare felt her queen's heavy glower hanging over her before she too hid her changeling features.

Polybia inspected the pair with a critical eye for several minutes. "Your plot marks are still garbled, and both of you are still earth ponies. From here on, you are to disguise as unicorns or pegasi only."

The pair replied with the stallion becoming a pegasus, and the mare a unicorn. Squaring her shoulders, Polybia had her royal egg brought before the former earth ponies. _Excellent. They have enough natural loyalty with that necessary spark of intelligence for the task at hoof._ "I have a mission of the utmost importance. From here on out, the defense of this egg and its occupant is your sole purpose in life." Polybia weaved a weak geas of devotion and loyalty before sinking it into both quasi. Any stronger and it would impede their mission.

"What would you have us do?" the stallion asked while the mare carefully took the egg in her magic almost instinctively.

"Take the egg north into Equestria, and wait for it to hatch within the next ten days." Polybia withdrew a hoof sized gemstone and a necklace with a diamond shaped into a heart. "I have a love collector in Middle Canterlot. Go there, you will receive more instructions as needed."

It didn't take the mare long to realize what she was holding. Some small part of her wanted to smash it then and there. Revenge for all the years she had been held captive would have been so very sweet. Another part fought against the first, wanting to protect the unborn life. The lion's share of her mind cared nothing for the internal war and held it's charge protectively as the queen had commanded. "But my queen, this is a royal egg! Shouldn't it stay here with-"

 _"Enough!"_ Polybia barked harshly at being questioned by an underling. The mare cowed towards the stallion out of fear. It took Polybia a moment to realize the mare had not actually disobeyed her, but was only expressing concern. _Good. This should work better than expected._ Still expressing her ire, Polybia lowered her voice. "You show independent thought. A dangerous thing to have for a quasi, but for this task, it is necessary."

Marred with confusion, the mare calmed down and gently placed the egg on the waxy ground at her hooves. Polybia made a few other commands over the hive mind before continuing. "I have tried raising a love producing daughter multiple times, but they have always ended as failures. As far as I can tell, they require a pony style upbringing to continue producing love. Something I realize is completely beyond me. So you two are my plan B. Go to exit forty seven. I have soldiers there that will escort both you and the egg into Equestria. Do _not_ fail me, quasi. Now go!"

"Yes, my queen!" the stallion replied quickly before scooping up the egg. He made to leave when he noticed the mare was much more hesitant.

"M-my queen. I-I don't think any part of Canterlot is a good place for us."

 _More questions? This is why I prefer simple-minded drones._ Taking a partial example from Cadista's bloodline, Polybia opted to heatedly explain herself rather than slap the mare into submission. After all, she was queen. Blind obedience was a fact of life, and a cherished one at that. "Deal with it. I have no other love collectors beyond the jungles. There has been no need to replace those lost with all of the prisoners I've collected."

The stallion glowered at the mare for angering their queen, but the rebellious spark within her flared with new life in defiance all the same. "I - I understand, my queen," she stated placatingly. "But all we know is farming. We know nothing of city life."

 _Did she simply guess I was going to have them stay there, or did she actually figure it out?_ Every fiber of Polybia's being and upbringing demanded that the mare be killed on the spot. _Unbound quasi are too dangerous._

A few motes of Grogar's mana swam around Polybia's head, clouding her vision and derailing her thoughts. It took her more time than she would have liked to clear the cotton from her brain. When she she finally regarded the mare shaking in terror, a different thought came to mind. "Perhaps you're right… Your assignment will be long term, and my royal daughter will be depending on you."

Polybia was struck with inspiration as her inquisitive wandering eyes fell upon the rest of the cocooned quasi. "Leave. I will find something among the rest of these experts with which to aid you. For now, time is short. Be gone!"

Surprised that the mare had not ended up as a red smear on the ground, the stallion pulled his companion up by her fore leg and led her to the exits with the egg in tow.

Polybia seethed at what she had to do. _Damn you, Twilight Sparkle. Just by existing you have torn changeling traditions asunder. Coddling upbringing for love, and now I have to suffer two high level intelligences being awake and aware in my Link, even if they are little more than quasi._ Polybia watched over her hatchery, trying to will her cocooned soldiers to hatch.

 _However, those same traditions dictate that I take this path. Better it is to have a love producing queen who's too soft, than a proper but love dependent daughter._

 _Still… If I happen to come out on top of this little war, I can always reclaim my daughter when she is of age._

In the end, Polybia knew love was not the sole reason she was sending her daughter away. A queen had to think of everything, and plan for even the worst event possible. _I know that look in Grogar's dead eyes. He wants revenge. That much is beyond obvious. Even with all of my contingencies in place, I will not leave my daughter vulnerable to him by keeping her in the hive._

* * *

A little over an hour after first meeting with Schadenfreude, Twilight and Rainbow departed from their children's' minds to return their awareness back to Twilight's royal chambers. (Only after Intel and Thunderfury found some privacy first, for modesty's sake.) The pair was resting against each other on the sofa. With the sun dipping below the horizon, the only light within the room was a single reading lamp on the far end and the lights of the hive below.

Rather than getting up immediately, Twilight leaned a little more heavily on her sister to enjoy her presence a while longer. Rainbow reciprocated without complaint and affectionately nuzzled her in return. Twilight became aware of Ratchet snoozing on her other side, and couldn't help but to breathe in contentment.

The two queens, and one prime consort, basked in each other's love. _I was blind for years before Rainbow became my sister. Maybe it's the Equestrian in me, or Celestia and Luna's example, but I feel so much more… complete with her at my side._

While it was never said, all it took was for Twilight to feel Rainbow's delicious unconditional love to know she felt the same way.

Yet with all things, the problems of the world conspired against them to end the moment of peace far too early. Gentle Touch spoke to the pair, dragging the sisters back to the present. My queens, I've finished recording all of the information Schadenfreude gave us and placed it in a partitioned section of the Linkscape Archives, as well as sent copies to the alicorn sisters.

Very good, Gentle, thank you. Twilight gently kissed Ratchet before gingerly extracting herself from the couch. The act forced a reluctant Rainbow Dash to do the same, but Ratchet slept through it all.

The heavy scent of lubricant and welding smoke still wafting from his workbench lent credence to his exhaustion.

Rainbow Dash stretched like a cat, buzzing her wings lightly to get the kinks out. Captain Darya, how are the bi-plane upgrades coming? With Captain Rourke and the _Deception_ acting as honor guard for the proto-queens in Canterlot, it fell upon the moderately inexperienced carrier captain. As a result, Rainbow had to walk her through a lot of it.

We just got the new Radial mark seven engines, and the updated wrench sets to the engineering crews.

Rainbow remained neutral. Did you make sure they use the same octavia grade?

...Ah, yes! The quartermaster has been informed of the request.

Twilight sniffed out the fretfulness in the shipmaster and left her sister to her duties with one final nuzzle before departing into the central corridor.

 _I'm sure Rainbow can settle anything on that front. It may not be combat, but she's gotten a lot better at directing the logistics side of things too._

It didn't take long before Twilight reached the door leading to her mother's quarters. Cadista's quarters were just a bit smaller than Twilight's personal workshop/bedroom. A short ping announced her a moment before entering.

Akin to her home back in Stripped Gear, Cadista had filled the walls with paintings over the last four years. Without a hive to rule, and the queenly pair more than able to run things on their own, Cadista dove more deeply into her artwork, at least when her work as the hive's economic trade advisor allowed it.

Currently, Cadista stood before an easel with a paintbrush clasped in her orange magic. By in large, most of her works were either cityscapes or renditions of the various machinery found around the technocity. So it was a pleasant surprise for Twilight to find her mother working on a piece of what looked like abstract art vaguely reminiscent of the baking disaster Pinkie's son had a hoof in some time ago.

Twilight remained respectfully quiet since her mother was completely engrossed in her artwork. For an empath, watching her mother express herself upon canvas was a breathtaking experience. _It's one thing to go to an exhibit and try to interpret the artist's mood, but to_ feel _those emotions as they're given physical form?_

Twilight gave off a wistful sigh, unwittingly snapping Cadesta out of her zen state. The sudden shift in Cadista's emotions made Twilight squeak out of embarrassment, but her mother took it in stride while putting her brush down. "Your aura is mostly clear. I assume your meeting with the demonologist went well."

"It did. Schadenfreude gave us enough information to deal with Grogar, one way or another."

Nodding in satisfaction, Cadista started cleaning up her paints and brushes, knowing she was unlikely to return to her zen state for the rest of the night. "I hope you didn't have to bargain away too much. Fel Shapers and summoners are always out for number one."

"Just bits, thankfully. It'll hold back the construction of the newest aluminum foundry by a few months, but that'll give the miners time to have rotating vacations for a little while. Explore Equestria or whatever they decide to do with themselves."

"Like hoofball?" Cadista verbally prodded with a smirk.

Twilight huffed in suppressed irritation. "Yes, even _hoofball._ Though I can't imagine why so many of _my_ kids find it fun." She tried to distract herself by looking out of the grand open balcony and down to the bustling hive below. _A sea of lights upon the inky backdrop of the Everfree. Canterlot's spear of light in the distance really ties it all together._

Cadista snickered over her daughter's harmless ire. "Reminds me of the old days." She almost said 'good old days', but Twilight and Rainbow's success was enough to trump the time when Yumia still lived. "Yumia and I used to joke how our eggs kept getting switched at birth. I never understood why so many of my children took after Yumia so strongly, and vice versa."

Twilight's ears perked up and she turned away from the view of the city lights. "Actually, that's part of the reason why I'm here."

"Oh?" Cadista asked while never turning away from her cleaning work. She moved on to sealing up her paint tubes.

"Yes… Schadenfreude said something odd. He mentioned that Rainbow Dash and my souls are intertwined. Rainbow is just passing it off as our old connection to the Elements of Harmony, but I…" She scuffed the ground nervously. "I wouldn't be bringing this up if it was just Schadenfreude's comment alone. I feel like Rainbow Dash is more than just a sister to me."

Cadista slightly turned away from her work to give her daughter a sarcastic sidelong glance. "So she's sending your heart aflutter?"

"No!" Twilight rebuked with puffed cheeks. Knowing her mother was teasing her, she buzzed her wings in short lived irritation. "Honestly, I think that would spoil it for the both of us."

"Really? Well maybe next lifetime then," Cadista added with an attempt to inject some humor.

"Back on topic," Twilight said with a slacking scowl. "I don't want to ruin the mood, but I feel so… _complete_ around RD. More so than when I'm immersing myself within the hive mind. I was wondering if you and Yumia experienced such a thing."

Cadista's smile faded and was replaced by an old pained frown. She was at least glad that her back was turned to Twilight so she wouldn't see it, even if she could sense it. "Yumia and I… Had something I've never seen in anyone else, though I admit I have seen some signs of it in you two. I wouldn't be surprised if such signs soon popped up between Aegis and Blitz."

It didn't take long before Twilight put the pieces together. "You think it's because we rule side by side?"

"That's my theory." Cadista finished with the paints and started putting everything away into cupboards. "The Equestrians have that phrase: soulmates. A romantic term to be sure, probably even true. But from what I've seen, it is only half of what two queens experience when they rule side by side. The bond they share is unbreakable, and that's not always a good thing."

Cadista turned fully to face her daughter and raised a hoof to cover her chest. "I'm not going to sugar-coat this, Twilight. I fully believe I carry a piece of Yumia's soul with me, even today. Just as she did with a part of mine. When she died," Cadista forced her tears back, but couldn't stop her eyes from going bloodshot. "A part of me died with her, in more ways than any pony could ever understand."

Twilight quickly embraced her mother with a crushing hug, partly to give her a daughter's love, and partly to keep her from getting any dark ideas. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have brought it up."

Cadista was taken off guard by the sudden heartfelt embrace. _Am I slipping, or is she reading me better?_ The topic and Twilight's mournful aura chipped away at Cadista's stoicism. _I can't let her see me like that._

Try as she might, Cadista couldn't reign in her deepening despondency. "No, no, it's better this way." Cadista blinked away a few rebellious tears, and took a deep calming breath. _Even after all this time, I still have tears to shed?_

With long practiced ease, she restored her composure; even going so far as to use disguise magic to hide her puffiness. "I was going to tell you, I needed to tell you, but I wasn't sure how or when. I didn't even fully believe it was happening between you two until you brought it up."

For a long while, Twilight held her mother close, giving Cadista time to rebuild her mask. The old former queen still had some of her pride, and bottled the old melancholy up as best she could. Eventually, she separated from Twilight to give her daughter a look that bore the weight of the world behind it. "You and Rainbow will be as close as two people can be, without being joined at that hip, but _never_ lose her, Twilight. _Don't ever_ lose her!" She tapped Twilight in the chest to drive the point home. "You'll lose all color in the world if that ever happens."

"I won't, momma." Twilight snuck in a brief nuzzle. "I promise you and Rainbow that."

"We made the same promises to each other, Yumia and I. You may not be the militant that Rainbow is, but…" Cadista trailed off, feeling any further words were unneeded. She wanted nothing more than to let her emotions drain out. "You might as well go tell her about it then."

"Yes, of course." Twilight made to leave, but hesitated at the door. She turned back to see Cadista stoically watching the city below. A small twinge of worry crossed Twilight's thoughts. "For what's it's worth, mother. I'm glad it happened with Rainbow Dash. I get the feeling that this is how we queens are meant to rule, side by side with another. Why else would it happen so naturally? I know RD is the happiest she's ever been."

Cadista debated whether or not Twilight was trying to simply make sense of it, or trying to comfort her in imagined guilt and unhealable pain. "Perhaps."

Twilight stood at the door waiting for Cadista to continue, but silence was her only answer. In the end, Twilight wordlessly departed to speak to her sister. This was not a conversation she felt would be sufficient over the Link alone.

* * *

Aegis all but threw herself onto the balcony lounge chair attached to her mother's old castle home. Her bones ached, her muscles burned, her wings hung limp by her side, and her mane was matted with sweat. "Why was that last lap so hard?"

Blitz flopped onto a large cushion on the ground next to the sofa, and was in even worse shape than Aegis was. "We're not drones anymore, remember? Our bodies are designed for fertility, hive command, and bipedalism, not physical prowess."

Aegis merely groaned loudly in reply. It was a coarse sentiment, but one that Blitz shared. "Now I know what Aunty felt like after finding out she was a royal." Aegis brightened considerably after seeing Gear Ratio canter over with a pitcher of royal jelly tea, the first she'd seen all week.

"Now I want you two to drink every last drop. This is fresh off the train barely an hour ago."

Both proto-queens needed no further prompting and used their magic to pour the cups and down their first round. Aegis wanted to use her hands, but she struggled to close a fist after the latest round of experimental exercises. _It's not exactly easy coming up with new workouts for muscles that never existed a few years ago._

Several minutes later, Aegis downed the last drop from her glass before sighing in culinary delight. "Ahh! Now that hit the spot. Another round, we got eggs baking here!"

Blitz drank the last of her share with far more social grace than her counterpart, which wasn't saying much. She stifled a yawn, and blinked blearily. Like Aegis, her body was still acclimating to oviposition, so between that, the exercise, medical examinations, and her body's rapid growth, Blitz was utterly exhausted. Unlike Aegis however, she didn't start off with an athletic body so she dragged herself to her hooves. She was actually amazed she was able to stand on two legs at all. The thought of walking off on four legs didn't even occur to her fatigue addled mind. "You go ahead, I need some sleep."

"Before you do," Gear Ratio stated while taking a clipboard one of her caretakers brought her, "I suspect you might want to hear our latest findings regarding your wing marks."

Summoning a little mental strength, Blitz flared her wings to look at her mother's cutie mark outlined on her wings. "Fineee," she half groaned at being denied her rest.

"It's good news, so I thought giving it to you now would help you sleep, Blitz." The proto queens perked up a bit as Gear Ratio finished scanning the important details on the report. "So far, I have seen no negative symptoms regarding the marks. Your wings are as strong to be expected. While everything else looks green, your mana seems to pool around the symbols, much like how mother and Aunty's magic is strongly tied to their cutie marks. I would still like to study them," the proto-queens groaned and sagged at the news, not that Gear Ratio seemed to mind. "At least until one month has passed after you've fully developed into queens. After that we can postpone them to simply monthly visits and maybe even phase them out entirely if no complications arise."

"A silver lining at last!" Aegis ranted before her attention suddenly snapped towards the star filled sky.

Blitz felt an alert go out over the four royals, but the message was focused on Aegis. "What's wrong?"

Shrugging off her fatigue as a wave of adrenaline coursed through her, Aegis moved over to the balcony railing and pointed towards the north. "Something's not right. There's an Equestrian naval ship approaching the _Deception_ unannounced."

Blitz and Gear Ratio followed Aegis' hoof towards the frigate. It was on station above the recently built naval airship dock that was adjacent to the Palace District. From this distance, it looked as if there was a tender vessel moving over towards the frigate.

Blitz tilted her head questioningly. "I didn't think the Equestrians had adopted tender vessels yet. It's still new to us."

"They haven't as far as I know," Aegis replied worriedly. She had to control herself to keep from flying off to figure out what was going on in person. She didn't exactly trust her wings right now, adrenaline or not. "But that ship's getting way too close. Since Aunty's not here, I have overall command of our visiting forces. I've already given word to have the local authorities drive them off, but ponies communicate so slowly it might take an hour. As for us, it's not like we can give warning shots over Canterlot itself, so I told a few crewmembers to go over to the other ship to tell them to back off."

"Why is it not slowing down?!" Gear Ratio yelled as the tender vessel was closing too quickly.

"It's an attack?!" Aegis freaked as her messengers to the other ship were getting fired upon by unicorn spells. The _Deception_ tried to bank away from it, but the armored warship was too sluggish. The tender vessel slammed into the port side, splintering against the reinforced steel hull of the frigate.

For a moment, Aegis gave a smug grin and pumped a fist in victory when the _Deception_ showed no sign of damage after it rocked from the impact. "Changeling engineering, baby!" Yet that smirk vanished when a huge explosion consumed both ships in a blinding arcane fireball.

Everyone watching the skies that night were dumbstruck as splintered wood careened throughout parts of the city.

The _Deception_ emerged from the fireball trailing the telltale blue flames of burning octavia along the port side as it slammed into the naval docks beneath it, destroying the airbags of two Equestrian warships. The weight of all three ships snapped the dock apart before they sank to the forests below Canterlot Mountain.

Blitz and Gear Ratio were utterly stunned while Aegis ground her teeth. Rage erupted within her as her mind cycled through possible suspects ranging from Polybia, the PCE, and even Chrysalis. She started barking orders over the hive mind for damage control and to set up rescue parties from the soldiers who were on leave in the city. The proto-queens' wings buzzed with righteous fury, their earlier fatigue forgotten completely. Aegis tightened her grip on Burny. "Blitz, when we finish rescuing the survivors, we've got some heads to collect."


	60. Chapter 60

The Wheels in Motion

Celestia sat alone at her rarely used war table, deep within Canterlot Castle. The oppressive pale marble of the windowless walls seemed to bear down upon her. The last of her advisors had departed barely a minute ago as she took a moment to organize her thoughts against the lack of sleep.

Several newspapers were cast about in front of her. While she knew much of what happened above the naval docks last night, a relatively new habit of hers was to read the headlines to see what the people knew.

ALLIES UNDER ATTACK!  
FLAGSHIP OF PHOENIX ROOST SUNK BY EQUESTRIAN NAVY VESSEL!

Celestia became heavily agitated by such an inflammatory headline, and hoped it was alone.

THE DECEPTION DESTROYED BY DECEPTION!  
ATTACK SINKS TWO EQUESTRIAN SHIPS AND CRIPPLES THE CHANGELING FLAGSHIP!

Celestia glowered at the dark humor, hating it even more when it stirred a ghost of a laugh out of her. She was about to gloss over a third newspaper when there was a rapping knock on the oak doors. She took the papers and shuffled them into a neat stack. "Enter!"

A pair of earth pony stallions emerged and bowed briefly before cantering over to either side of the Celestia. "I hate to tell you this, Princess" said the beige stallion with a non-descript black mane, "but I warned you this would happen."

"So it truly was the P.C.E?" she said neutrally, revealing nothing.

"Undoubtedly," said the albino stallion circling around to her right. "Our colts are still sifting through the bodies. We've only found three groups: the hybrid changelings, Equestrian sailors still garbed in uniform or sleepwear, and ponies in civilian garb." The albino heaved one of his saddlebags off and dropped it on the table to start pulling out records. "As I'm sure you already know, naval dress code regulation aboard ship expressly forbids civilian attire."

"The P.C.E. is also the only criminal group with entirely anti-changeling goals," his beige companion finished. "If I may be frank, your highness, if we had the funding and horsepower I asked for, we might not be in this problem."

Celestia fixed him with a measured scowl. "Director Mild Spice, your own reports confirmed that P.C.E. membership was at an all-time low, and due to recent efforts, public approval of Phoenix's Roost was nearly on par with my sister. All the signs said you didn't need a doubled budget."

Spice's accomplice cleared his throat. "I understand the needs of a balanced budget, your majesty, but with rogue griffin bandits increasing along the national border, and the monitoring of all Matriarch aligned dragons, our department has been stretched too thin to keep a desirable level of surveillance on the P.C.E."

"We can bicker about blame another time," Celestia stated tersely. "Right now, I want your plan on how to handle this. The destruction of two of our own warships, the docks, and the loss of the sailors themselves should obliterate any public support these…" It had been a long time since she had to use the word floating around in her mind. Bandits, pirates, mafia, and more were bad enough, but this one was the worst of all to the ageless alicorn. "These _terrorists_ had left. I want all of you to-"

A much angrier banging on the door resounded through the chamber, stifling any further discussion. _And here comes a glimpse of the future._ Celestia steeled herself, shoring up all of her diplomatic clout. "Enter."

Aegis all but kicked the door open as she stormed in with Blitz right behind her. "With all due respect, princess, what the hell?!" Celestia spied the heavy bags under Aegis' bloodshot fatigued eyes. Neither proto-queen had gotten an ounce of sleep after personally joining the rescue efforts alongside Luna and the Canterlot emergency services. "How could this happen right next to your castle!?"

"We're in the process of discovering that ourselves, Proto-Queen Aegis Altair." Celestia shifted her attention towards Blitz who was just as fatigued, but veiled her animosity better than her counterpart. "We will find out who did this, and punish them accordingly." She noticed no drones had followed after the pair. "I'd like to wait until your mothers can join us."

"They aren't coming," Blitz replied with some semblance of diplomatic grace. "That light show you might have seen above the Everfree… Well, let's just say Aunty Twilight doesn't trust mother to keep from biting somepony's head off and causing tensions between us."

 _And Aegis has more control?_ Celestia mused silently to herself.

"Plus Aunty thinks this is a good test for our crisis management skills." Blitz finished with a terse grimace. _Hell of a first crisis test though._

Aegis' horn flashed and Burny was summoned with a fully loaded fuel canister and its pilot light already lit. The two earth ponies jumped back a step after realizing it was a flamethrower, one of the most feared and controversial weapons the changelings used regularly. "Give me a target, a building, a suspect, _anything!"_

Unlike her subordinates, Celestia didn't believe Aegis would actually do anything rash, in this room anyway. "We need to be calm and collected. The last thing we need is you leading a charge along the streets breaking into houses looking for suspects. That would only play into the P.C.E's hooves."

"So it _was_ the P.C.E?" Aegis demanded heatedly. Her grip on Burny tightened at the prospect of using it.

Mild Spice did his best to appear unafraid. _By the goddess, who thought it was a good idea to make this pyromaniac a breeder?!_ "That is what my department's informants are trying to ascertain, but as of now we only have speculation to go on. I highly doubt the destruction of two pony warships and part of the naval dock was part the plan, so they're probably going to deny any responsibility on this."

"Then that's all the more reason to go out and bust some heads!" Aegis shouted with murder in her eyes. "We've got the best infiltrators in the game, but this is your turf, so give us something to do!"

Celestia glanced at Blitz to find the same call for blood in her deep scowl as well, and counted herself fortunate it wasn't directed at her or her ponies in general. _They aren't former Equestrians like their mothers. Aegis and Blitzkrieg will be far more difficult to handle once they form a nation of their own. They don't seem to possess the same conviction for peace their mothers have._ All it took was for several memories to surface of the recent battles Twilight and Rainbow had found themselves in ever since becoming changelings. _All the more reason to keep their ire in check and properly directed._

"Mild Spice has been requesting additional horsepower and funding for a while now." Celestia pointedly did not look at the smug 'I told you so' face he was making, and opted to gesture a hoof at him. "I admit we haven't tried joint agencies before, but if anything, now is the time to combine our efforts more closely."

Aegis was taken aback by the proposal while Blitz saw it for what it was. "'Turn tragedy into victory.' Aunty taught me that quite a few times. You want to use this as an excuse to tighten the alliance even closer."

"You disagree?" Celestia said in that thought provoking tone that always worked on Twilight in her youth.

Despite herself, Blitz gave a short chuckle with a half grin. "Not at all. Aegis and I of the same mind with our mothers. We want this alliance to strengthen to the point where ponies are as comfortable around us as the three tribes are to each other."

Aegis shouldered Burny after turning the pilot light off and crossing her arms. "Not to mention it'd be the perfect slap to the face against these bastards."

 _"Good luck with that if these changelings keep adding on more weird body styles,"_ Mild Spice's assistant whispered in his ear.

Ignoring his assistant's comment, Mild Spice stepped back up to the table. He gave both changelings a respectful nod. "The Equestrian Intelligence Bureau already has a taskforce assembled, but as the princess stated, we're short-staffed." He had to keep his mind off the potential of greater access to changeling technology. "We'll accept any assistance you can offer."

"The crown will offer expanded funds," Celestia added with a stern visage. "This attack was perpetrated right here in the Equestrian capital, and most likely by some of my own subjects. To do any less is irremissible. In addition, the EIB is a publicly acknowledged agency. I'll be making a statement to the press about this joint arrangement." It was Celestia's turn to put some fire in her speech and bang the table with a hoof. "I want the world to know that _nothing_ will break this alliance."

Aegis huffed in approval before taking a seat opposite of Celestia. She let Burny rest on the side of her chair as Blitz took a seat of her own. "Glad to see you're not taking the soft approach, Princess Celestia. I'll pull our best spies out of the neighboring kingdoms. I'd rather not have drones fresh out of the shell for this."

"A prudent call," Celestia replied as she smoothly reclaimed her typical warm yet commanding tone.

Mild Spice went about planning the cooperative element in his head while his assistance gave the proto-queens a puzzled look. "Begging your pardon. But I was under the impression Phoenix's Roost hadn't started its intelligence agency yet."

"We haven't, technically." Blitz replied with a hint of mirth across her lips. "Our meager team doesn't go after military or political secrets." _As if anyone except the sphinxes could be a military threat._

"They're out there assessing the markets," Aegis jumped in. "Honing their skills on more… legitimate secrets."

That didn't sound very impressive to either earth stallion, but Celestia had to hide a frown behind a neutral façade. _Luna warned me that changelings are naturally secretive. I can only hope that Twilight and Rainbow can continue to guide that nature along constructive avenues. So far so good though…_ "We'll get started on having all of our up to date information ready for your perusal then," Celesia said half to the changelings, and half to Mild Spice. "The sooner we root out the culprits the better."

Blitz hummed in thought for a moment before glancing at the princess. "Then might I suggest recruiting Aunty Applejack to spearhead the media front on this? Her dedication to the factual truth during the original public relations campaign earned her quite a bit of respect for brutal honesty, even among our harshest… opponents to the formal alliance. Even the P.C.E. could never argue effectively against her."

Aegis' wings buzzed in agreement while Celestia simply nodded with an impressed smile. "Must be quite a reputation indeed since I believe you were barely a hatchling back then."

Both proto-queens couldn't help but to feel complimented by Celestia's usage of the changeling term. Blitz flashed a simple diplomatic smile that Celestia instantly recognized as belonging to Twilight. "Mother and Aunty Twilight believe hatred is born from ignorance and fear. No pony has such conviction to the _real_ truth as Applejack. Besides, the public will almost certainly be expecting her to speak on this attack as everypony is going to start pointing at the P.C.E. very soon," she glanced at the scattered newspapers on the table, "if they haven't already."

Celestia marved at Blitz's reasoning. "I must say, Twilight has taught you well. I have a feeling you will make an excellent civic ruler."

Aegis scoffed playfully and snatched one of the newspaper with her magic. "I think we all have _you_ to thank for mother's savviness."

"Perhaps," Celestia admitted with a rare admission of ego. "As for Applejack, I have little doubt she'll accept the request."

* * *

Rainbow Dash was buried horn deep in her work trying to juggle the naval preparations and tightening security around the hive. Fuel, food, spare parts, border checks for non-changelings, bolstering the national guard, and focusing the patrolling gunships closer to the hive, all of it crossed Rainbow's plate with the mare taking it all in as best she could.

By themselves, it might not have been overly difficult, but Rainbow Dash was chomping at the bit to personally put those who killed her children and crippled her favorite ship into the dirt. Her seething dark mood wasn't helped by the fact that Twilight talked her into letting their daughters handle that matter. _I know my girl will jack them up, but by the First Mother, we should be up there, not stuck down here getting ready to trounce Poly Pocket._ "Grraaa! I can't even keep producing eggs once we move south!" Rainbow Dash raged as she leapt from her bed and started beating on a well worn bucking bag

Twilight Sparkle was snapped out of her Link-Trance by her sister's outburst. "I know it's tough, Rainbow, believe me I do, but it _needs_ to be our daughters that handle the attack. At this point it won't do us any good if you or I handle it."

Rainbow Dash kicked the bag hard enough to nearly strain her leg. She glowered at her sister with anger, although it was not directed at her. "Why? We have to show we're not going to take this crap lying down! A and B aren't ready for this kinda thing!"

"And we were, when we went up against dragons, diamond dogs, Discord, and then Chrysalis' army during my brother's wedding?" Twilight challenged with a little steel, forcing Rainbow to back down a bit. "Fact is, we're doing all we can to train them to be proper and competent queens. Not only do they need this to grow, but it will also allow us to focus on our more dangerous tasks."

"I distinctly remember _losing_ our fight against Chrysalis," Rainbow Dash muttered just loud enough to be heard.

"Which only proved how far we still had to go. But I gave this task to them for one other reason." Rainbow returned her attention to the object of her physical abuse and started beating on it again, leaving her sister to keep talking. "The public still sees the two of us as former ponies, and believe much of our loyalty to Equestria stems from that. However, they don't know what to make of our daughters since they have always been changelings."

"Wait," Rainbow stopped mid kick to look at Twilight with a conspiratorial grimace. "So you're using the death of our kids and the destruction of my ship for a PR stunt?"

"Way to make it sound dirty," Twilight half growled. "I'm _trying_ to make the best out of a horrible situation! We're not a group of friends with no pony relying on us to make big picture decisions anymore, and we haven't been for well over a decade." Twilight matched Rainbow's glower with her own.

"Then why can't we at least _look_ like we're personally going after both? That way we don't look like we couldn't care enough about our bloody _flagship_ getting crippled to do it ourselves!" Twilight actually hesitated her follow-up at that. Seeing she was gaining ground, Rainbow continued pressing her point. "I _get_ big picture stuff, okay? I'm not a fly by my tail daredevil anymore."

Twilight cocked a sarcastic eyebrow at that, making Rainbow fluster. "Your prank career aside, my point still stands. The fact of the matter is, sister, is that we need to let our daughters handle it."

"And _I_ say we need to make sure that the ponies don't think _we're_ just passing the buck like we don't care!"

Twilight glowered at her stubborn sister's scowling face before suddenly dropping her stern expression and turning away dismissively. "Very well, have it your way. You want to ignore focusing on Grogar and leave me to do it all? Go ahead, but…" A thread of fear surged through Rainbow whenever her sister took that tone.

Twilight's horn glowed briefly as she summoned a book. It wasn't just any book, oh no, it was the gold encrusted first edition Daring Do and the March of the Yao Guai with AK Yearling's signature right on the cover addressed specifically to Queen Rainbow Dash. Rainbow's eyes widened at the sight of the new book with her wings flaring instantly. "I - Is that the uncut version!?"

"It sure is!" Twilight replied with a coy tone. "Buuuut, since you'll be staying here, you won't have any reading time that steaming down to the jungle would afford, so I guess you'll just have to wait to find out what happens in the fight against the Legion of Doom. I'll just have to read it all by my lonesome…" She cast half lidded eyes at her sweating sister. "And announce spoilers throughout the whole trip."

Rainbow scrunched her muzzle in a patented Massively Uncool Scowl of Eternal Shame. "That's _low._ "

Twilight levitated the heavenly book to her side. "I mean it when I say this plan is for the best. I know you're itching to fight these morally bankrupt scum, but this is as much of a civic matter as it is a military one. Aegis has learned well from you, hasn't she? I know Blitz will do us both proud. So trust not just me but them as well. Do that, and the book is yours."

Rainbow chewed on the inside of her mouth for several moment. Her eyes darted between her sister's face and the seductive book right next to her. "I probably won't have time to read anyway with all the work I have to do."

All Twilight did in response was to waggle the book a little bit with a lopsided smirk that said 'I know you'll make the time'. Rainbow swallowed the lump in her throat before dashing forward and snatching the book with her magic before wrapping her legs around it, all while keeping herself aloft. "Okay fine, you win, cheater! This better not come back to bite us in the flank or it's on your head."

Satisfied, Twilight nodded with a thin smile. "I have every confidence that Aegis and Blitz are ready for this. They _are_ our heirs after all. The public will see that sending both of them on this task is evidence enough that we are serious about the attack, especially since rumors are already circulating in the other nations about the war brewing in the jungle. Without Silandrus keeping explorers out, there've been many sightings of non-ponies down there lately."

Neither queen got any further into the conversation when Captain Rourke spoke over the Link. My queens, I have the damage report on crew and ship ready.

Rainbow hung her head in exasperation. She focused entirely on Rourke, knowing full well her mood would be dictated by the report. Twilight got up and briefly nuzzled her sister to try and calm her down. Go ahead, captain. I'm glad your injuries were minor.

Thank you, my queen. If it wasn't for the starboard octavia engine, we'd have been as bad off as the two equestrian ships. Good thing we upgraded to it too, we were tilted so far off center the old propeller engines wouldn't have helped at all. Both queens carefully held out optimism after hearing that. While they sensed the loss of life over the hive mind, an exact count was very difficult to determine.

That slowed our descent for the most part, but the starboard engine was still destroyed by the final crash, so we'll need a tow back to port.

 _So the ship's still salvageable?!_ A different matter still clung to Rainbow's thoughts. What about casualties?

Rourke paused at the question. _I thought they'd be able to tell already. Then again, I don't know how a queen's mind works._ Twenty seven dead, sixty wounded including myself. Eight are in critical condition. That's nothing compared to the ponies though. Both crews were loaded up with soldiers shipping out to the Chaos Lands. Neither ship had any survivors outside of the pegasi who got clear before we all hit the ground, including a Wonderbolt squad.

Rainbow's earlier fury was renewed in earnest. Those bastards don't care who they hurt, not even the ponies they claim to protect from us! Not even the constant 'civil war' with the minotaurs is that _wrong._

Twilight shared her sister's revulsion until a dark realization hit her. _Oh no… What if this is exactly what the P.C.E. wanted? I hadn't even thought of what the other races would make of this. She's probably already suspected something, but I better warn Celestia about how the other nations will view this attack. At the very least our ambassadors should be taking careful note of anything unusual._

Not wanting to worry her already hell-bent sister any further, Twilight refrained from voicing the concern and quietly passed the news on to her ambassador Rolled Scroll. She got off her chair and looked towards the _Long Shot_ hanging off in the distance above the naval yard. Thank you Captain Rourke, keep us apprised of the situation.

Acknowledging the dismissal, Rourke bid her farewell, leaving Rainbow Dash fuming at everything in general. She took a sidelong glare at Twilight, but ultimately held no anger towards her. "Okay, okay, I get it, Poly and Grogar are the bigger threats. It's just that…" She groaned aloud in frustration. "They're more than just our kids, Twi. They're our _royal_ kids-"

"They'll have the princesses, some of our best infiltrators, the backing of Equestria, and our pony friends if the need arises," Twilight gave her sister the dark, fang-filled humorless smirk of a mother wronged. "Which is more than we had going for us up against Nightmare Moon and all the others back in the day."

Rainbow sat there in contemplation for several long seconds before growling dismissively. "Fine. I don't like it, but maybe you're right."

At any other time, Twilight would have been both proud and happy to see her sister learning to let their royal daughters carve their own path. Circumstances as they were, she'd have to settle for just pride. "How long until we're able to join the other queens against Polybia? They might be willing to wait, but Polybia knows she's on a time limit."

Rainbow grimaced as she quickly went over the various reports her drones were feeding her. "Ten days, tops, eight if we push it, but I don't like sloppy work, especially on those flimsy fighters."

"It takes time to steam south, they can fine tune it on the way," Twilight offered.

"That _is_ with them doing it along the way," Rainbow countered flatly. "I'm also counting on Poly to try and ambush us in some way before we even get to the jungle. Not to mention a hundred other things on my plate before the week's out. At the very least, it'll give me some time to keep an eye on Sectovaria before she crosses into the Chaos Lands a few days from now."

Nodding, Twilight made to leave her sister's room. "I'll leave you to it then. The girls may be handling who attacked us at Canterlot, but I need to personally handle the diplomatic fallout for the time being."

That was one battle Rainbow was more than happy to sit out. Unless it involved the minotaurs' 'aggressive negotiations', diplomacy was not her forte. Barring that, Rainbow buzzed her wings in acknowledgement to her sister before refocusing on her work, but one thing still nagged at her. Hey, sis, can we hold the Day of Mourning early, before we leave? I really don't want this hanging over my head.

Twilight wilted a little at her sister's morose tone. Of course, Rainbow, we'll do it the day before setting out.

* * *

Polybia stood atop a precipice at the very fringe of a rival hive's territory, northeast of her own hive. The jungles here along the leading edge grew unchecked by changeling hooves. The thick canopy shrouded Polybia from the glaring noon-time sun.

Ordinarily, the creeping vines in the area would be trying to latch onto the queen's legs to sink her into the earth for fertilizer. However Grogar's necrotic magic withered the vines around her while forcing others to shy away.

Polybia was becoming more discolored with her face and upper neck becoming a pale blue as she gathered the stolen magic together. _Violetia… I may not be able to attack Kreesus directly just yet, but I can return the favor for that raid against my farmlands by eliminating you with one fell stroke._

Summoning up Grogar's power, a massive deep roar resounded throughout the jungle, chilling the distant drones and their queen to the bone. Polybia's horn shone forth with icy blue magic as thundering steps cracked the rocky ground and shook loose rocks into the gorge below. Two massive Silence Behemoths emerged from the jungle, snapping trees aside to make room for their muscle bound girth. Their scaly grey hide easily snapped the wooden obstacles along their path, with their draconic tails swaying behind them. The once-proud natural predators against changelings now served a queen with all the devotion of a mindless servant.

The behemoths' ten eyes glowed with the same icy blue magic swirling around Polybia's horn. Huge gashes crisscrossed all over each beast, exposing muscle and shriveled organs to the open air. However, no blood leaked out of their cold dead flesh. Their Link-silencing power lay dormant for the time being as they flanked their master. Though they towered over her at more than fifteen meters tall, Polybia did not flinch, fully knowing they were in her thrall in death.

"Violetia, you should have sided with me all those years ago. Now you're going to pay the price for such a lack of foresight." She sneered at the prospect of unleashing her wrath, and savored the moment for a bit before finishing the marking spell. Now, every forest green changeling would be marked for death in the eyes of the behemoths. Bellowing another bone-rattling roar, the two beasts' talons cracked the rock beneath them before they leaped across the short chasm and charged forth to kill for their mistress. Once they were safely out of range, Polybia commanded them to reactivate their Link silencing abilities, ensuring the doom for any changeling in their path.

 _Excellent. Even if Violetia does somehow manage to bring down both of them, this will give my egg carriers enough of a distraction to flee without incident._

An idea struck her as she peered through her spies along Kreesus and Chrysalis' hives. Most of their drones were focused within the hives' territory, as if waiting for reinforcements. _Hmm… No doubt hoping Twilight and her warships will tip the scales. Well…_ one _warship now. What fortuitous timing. Perhaps I can devote more forces into this assault after all._

Polybia summoned up an army of drones to her position, awaiting the behemoths' defeat. Not only her living drones, but the undead corpses of other drones answered the call of their mistress. The mass formed up behind the tree line near Polybia. "I think it's time to add another crown to my collection," she sneered at her expected victory.

As the sounds of battle started ringing out, Polybia started flying back to her hive, content to watch the violence unfold from the eyes of her living drones. _The other queens can act like they're allied with each other all they want. None of them could set aside their pride to pool their forces in one place, so I will pick them apart like the prima donnas they are. I will earn your forgiveness, First Mother, for being declared rogue and losing your blessing._

As much as she hated the other queens for it, Polybia couldn't deny she was legitimately marked as rogue. _All of this must be another test from the First Mother. It has to be. These trials over Grogar and being rogue have to all be part of her plan to mold me into her perfect instrument._

Polybia gazed up at the midday moon where she believed the portal to the Silver City rested. "I _will_ regain my honor as queen. The others will either vote to restore it, or will die by my hooves."


	61. Chapter 61

The Home Front

Canterlot. To most it was a city of marble and the seat of Equestrian power, hanging off the side of a mountain. For the quasi mare, crouched behind a shrub along the road up the mountain, the city looked like a fortress. A ghost from her memory. The palace sitting near the crown was deeply familiar, yet the sight of smokestacks along the middle section of the city chilled any fond memories she had. She wasn't sure of the reason, as she loosely recognized it as a sign of industry, but the mare didn't like the sight of it.

Her stallion counterpart was at her side, keeping out of sight from passersby while holding Polybia's royal daughter on his back. The recent hatchling was stabilized in between his gossamer wings. Not that he had too much to fear of her falling since he was laying on his belly. There were only a scant few travelers along the road since most took the train, but there were normally a decent number of patrols as well. Thankfully, the local guards weren't examining any travelers along this route too intensely. The exodus out of the jungle had been exceedingly exhausting.

Fleeing the jungle and evading Equestrian notice had taken longer than they had hoped. The egg hatched a few days ago, leaving the quasi's escorts in bad shape. Within the span of two days days the princess demanded far more love than any of them could provide. One by one, the drone escorts sacrificed themselves to give their entire love reserves to the ravenous princess until they all dropped dead. The quasi escaped this fate, only by virtue of not necessarily requiring love to survive.

At present, the stallion carefully watched from behind the thick nook of shrubs as a light blue unicorn cantered by as she pulled a gaudy wagon behind her. Some part of him felt a thrill of excitement at seeing the stage wagon but that thrill struggled against the deadened feel of his nerves. Without love neither quasi were capable of more than sluggish movement that could make a drunk pony look like the pinnacle of lucidity. Thankfully for both of them, their minds were still as sharp as before starvation set in and could not die from love starvation directly.

The two quasi were resting, panting for breath from their week-long exodus from the changeling jungle. Dodging roving changeling patrols and the jungle denizens had been difficult compared to the comparatively lax security in Equestria. _Could have saved a day of travel if we could have passed through Phoenix's Roost, but the queen forbade it,_ the mare mused bitterly as she weakly checked the nymph's breathing by raising her fetlock near the princess's mouth. The geas induced pressure in the back of her mind softened slightly when she reaffirmed that the little royal still lived. Every effort from both quasi was geared not only to keep the princess alive, but also asleep. It was not a difficult task since the princess had passed out from love starvation hours ago.

In one of the brief moments the princess wasn't dominating her thoughts, the mare's will to defy her queen raged within her. It grew constantly, and yet it was still a weak voice compared to the dominating voice-of-command of her queen over the hive mind. _If only I could rid myself of her control, but…_ The quasi reached up and tapped her changeling horn, still feeling weirded out by its presence. A pang of maternal concern washed over her as the geas flashed in her mind, making her double check the sleeping princess. Fearing his fatigue would let the sleeping nymph fall, he asked the mare to assist him in moving her. They opted to keep the princess snug alongside him. She fidgeted sluggishly as her little body hibernated to save itself. His deep fear over the nymph's welfare was carved into a heavy frown, even as sweat rolled off of him.

The geas was only making it harder on the mare who could do nothing to help the little nymph. She tried to break the feedback cycle of mounting fear for the princess' life by focusing entirely on herself.

With the mad dash from the jungle hive, it was only now that she had a spare moment to actually reflect on herself. The most prominent thing she latched onto was the spike that always hovered at the top of her vision. _I remember some old class lesson about unicorn horns. Part of your brain is in them... or maybe it's a separate nerve cluster?_ She heavily rubbed her temples in exasperation at how hazy her old memories were. The lesson itself stuck out to her, but her teacher, classmates, even the name of the school was trapped behind a cottony haze that refused to lift. _Either way, ain't no way Ah can cut this off without killing mahself. There ain't no way in Tartarus Ah'm off'n mahself after being freed like that. Ah want to live, dang nab it!_

"Hey," the stallion said calmly, breaking the mare from her brooding. She snapped her head up to look at his undisguised self. She felt a pang of sorrow seeing him like this, but suspected he was content with his changeling half. "Ah want to know where you stand in all this."

"What're you talkin' about?" she replied genuinely. It was rare to hear him speak aloud. He usually preferred speaking over the Link, but Polybia despised such high intelligences speaking over her hive mind.

"The geas may compel you to protect the princess. But Ah know somethin's off about you. Our queen may not be able to sense it this far from the hive, but Ah can tell. You're aura is growing more sour every passing day." While his tone was accusatory, his posture remained neutral. "Our lives belong to both Polybia and her," he said nudging the princess, "and their will is our own, no matter who we used to be."

"It's not that," she lied unconvincingly. "Ah'm just terrified the love collector might not reach us in time to save the princess."

That much was convincing to him, but he suspected that was more the geas talking than her. "She'll be here soon. It'll be close, but the queen is sure that the princess will survive." The pressure of the geas on the back of her mind softened a bit at the reassurances. "But that ain't the whole story now is it? Spill!"

The mare turned away, somewhere between shame and relief. "Ah'm overwhelmed with the prospect of being around ponies again. Just wish it was in a smaller town again."

As with his companion, the stallion was also resenting the cloudiness of his thoughts. His unquestioning loyalty to Polybia was unblemished, yet as of late, he regretted his harsh treatment of his companion. _Like it or not, mah queen decreed that we work side by side. Better for the princess that we remain amicable._ He glanced out of the shrub to find no one in sight before finding a level soft patch of grass to rest the weakened nymph upon. Despite the princess' miserable state, there was little he could do until the love collector arrived. _Truly the queen was wise to make the geas weak or Ah'd be crippled with worry._

Refocusing on the mare, he tried to remember how to comfort others. His memories were sadly lacking in that regard, not even Polybia granted him any knowledge in that field, so he opted to lightly place a hoof on her withers. "Look – Ah – uhhh – Ah know it's rough. The queen asks much of us. We don't have the same clarity of purpose that pure drones have, Ah'll givya that. But she's count'n on us ta get this job done. If we do good, she might start letting us speak over the Link more, or, or…" He searched his limited knowledge of her for some comforting words. "-Let us find a more outta the way place to live since ya don't like the city and all. Or heck, she might even give us names!"

The mare was dumbstruck that he was trying to comfort her at all. It was nice, familiar, something she desperately longed for, but she couldn't help but to question the reasoning behind it. _He's probably just saying all that to make work'n together easier. Ah wish Ah could really believe he cares about me._ She gave him a stink eye while casting worried glances at the princess to make sure she wasn't going anywhere. "Speaking of names," she stated dismissively, "We need some if'n we're going to spend any time around ponies."

Feeling rebuffed, the stallion huffed while looking at his ruined cutie mark. It looked like spinach and mustard smeared over his flank. Any semblance of an icon was long gone. _Well that's no help._ "If Ah recall correctly, Canterlot is mostly unicorns. So we should pick names like them. Ah'll be… Paint Brush?" he half asked, still trying to make sense of the splotches of color on his flank. "Unicorns are big time artsy ponies, right?"

"I'd rather have mah old name," the mare fumed aloud. "But if Ah have to make a new one…" She was about to pull a name out of her plot like Paint Brush did, when her original name slammed into her thoughts like a freight train. _Ah know who Ah was! Or at least mah name anyway._

Paint Brush started testing a low maintenance version of his disguise magic, keeping his pony aspects alone, and simply hiding his changeling features, save for replacing his changeling horn with that of a unicorn. "Well? Just think'a something before the love collector shows up, or worse, a patrol." Fearing just that, he started looking for an alcove to hide the nymph in, but their hiding spot was painfully sparse in the already cramped hiding place.

Now more than ever, she wanted to keep her pony guise that of an earth pony, but for now, she'd settle for the name. "I'll go with Pear Butter," she said with finality. "It'll go well with my fur."

"Don't match your fuzzed up cutie mark," Paint warned with a grimace. "Not that much would Ah guess." He spotted a few travelers coming up the pass. He tried to pass himself off as someone just looking to get out of the sun for a bit in case they spotted the quasi. "Sides, we gotta go in as unicorns, and Ah don't think they're usually named after food."

"Ah know that!" she barked, caring less for being spotted. "Who's to say a unicorn can't be called that, huh? Ah'm going with Pear Butter and that's that!"

"It's gunna get us caught!" he growled under his breath to avoid drawing attention. "What kinda unicorn gets an earth pony name?"

"Me, that's who!" Pear Butter stomped her hoof, stubbornly holding her ground.

Paint Brush wanted to argue, but felt it was useless if her conviction could get that much of a rise out of her even with her being so badly weakened from love starvation. A ping from nearby made the words catch in his throat if only because Polybia had been the only one to ever do so. Tossing away the leaves, he instinctively tried to make the unconscious princess look more presentable. the nymph's short rainbow hair was starting to get tangles and her fur had little pieces of plant matter that he couldn't remove in time.

Pear peered through the shrub to find a forest-green pegasus headed straight for them. "That's our contact." She made sure her disguise was in place with Paint Brush following suit.

The pegasus mare landed softly within the shrub and dropped her disguise to levitate several pink crystals out of a saddlebag. "Give her here, quickly."

Obeying, the quasi did as instructed and watched in silence as the undisguised drone took the simple crystal necklace from around the princess' neck and fed crystal after crystal's worth of love through the necklace before it moved on into the nymph. Pear Butter saw that the entire left saddlebag was bulging with love crystals.

The pile of discarded crystals piled higher and higher around the drone's hooves. Neither quasi knew much about love feeding, but even they could tell that using over thirty crystals with no sign of stopping was a bad news. The pair were starting to lose hope when the pile started to reach the drone's fetlocks. The drone was starting to scrape the bottom of the bag when at last the princess could take no more, leaving the latest crystal with a faint glow remaining.

The princess stirred, but remained asleep with a much more peaceful look on her small, blue-furred face. The drone sighed in relief. "I almost feared I didn't bring enough." It took one look at the sagging quasi before picking up the last six crystals and gave three to each of them. "Here, you need your strength to keep from drawing attention."

The feeding had been exactly what the quasi needed. With her nervous system's strength returning to normal, Pear Butter felt her muscles come alive again with renewed vigor. She flexed her legs to get the stiffness out with Paint Brush doing the same. As they did so, the drone wrapped the nymph in a blanket and deposited her in the other saddle bag, hiding her from view, while gathering up the crystals and returning them to her bags.

"We should move, we've lingered here for too long as it is." Without another word, the drone doned its original disguise of a pegasus mare and started walking up the path towards the city. Pear and Paint jumped to followed after her. "Keep your heads down and your posture relaxed. We need to get into the city without being targeted for random checks. Ever since the attack on that warship, going in the normal route is safer than sneaking in."

Pear Butter was put off by the mare's feel over the hive mind. It wasn't the dim but sharp voice of drones, instead it shared a lot in common with Polybia herself, only several orders of magnitude weaker. She waited until a passing wagon went out of earshot to speak. "Ah thought our queen despised intelligent minds over the Link."

"Free standing ones, yes," the love collector replied without inflection.

This time, Paint Brush shared in Pear's curiosity. "You mean like conscious quasi like us, Miss…?"

She gave him a long disapproving stare before turning front again. "You can call me by my cover name, if you must. I'm Stopwatch." A modicum of sorrow colored her voice. "And you have my sympathies for not being pure drones."

Pear Butter bristled, but held her tongue about it. "So what does that make you?"

"My body has all the brainpower and more of a typical pony, but it is my deeper connection with our queen which gives me the spark of intelligence. In essence, I _am_ the queen, but only a partitioned part of her mind in a separate body."

Pear Butter dropped any further line of inquiry while Paint Brush burned with envy. "What an honor! Not only to know you always have the queen's favor by simply existing, but to be a part of her as well!"

 _And be killed on a whim or if Polybia ever dies? No thanks._ Pear Butter fell into silence for the rest of the journey towards Canterlot. The small rebellious voice continued to gain strength with every passing step. However, she couldn't help but to feel troubled every time she looked at Paint Brush and his unwavering devotion to Polybia. _Why do Ah feel this need to… to do something to help you. But help you do what, exactly?_

* * *

Aegis Altair paced back and forth within a crowded third story hotel storeroom presiding over a sting operation down in the streets of Middle Canterlot via a window. With Rainbow Dash placing the best of the Queen's Guard under Aegis' command, the proto-queen felt confident in this sanctioned raid being successful. _If there's anything we have over the ponies, it's combat experience._

Camped out with her was Intel's squad, Caretaker Feather Soft, and a single thestral acting as liaison for the Night Guards stationed one floor below. For all of their built-in natural subterfuge talents, espionage was more of a matter of racial honor than actual skill for the changelings of Phoenix's Roost. As such, it was actually the thestrals who were not only keeping watch on the suspects' apartment building, but calling the shots as well. Aegis' forces were to be the muscle behind the coiled punch that was waiting to be thrown.

 _Just as well,_ Aegis brooded as she couldn't see much activity outside. _Blitz was right that the ponies should be in charge of this while inside Canterlot. Still, if it were up to me, we'd have stormed the place by now. The police have already built enough of a case to justify the raid on top of Celestia and Luna's blessings._

Intel double-checked her gas mask and trio of tear gas grenades. While the drones had gas masks, the ponies didn't. _I still don't get those guys. Just because they don't have any training fighting with the masks they tell me to only use the gas as a last resort instead of part of the breaching action? By the First Mother I wish Aegis was calling the shots. At least they let me have authorization to use them instead of waiting for the commander to give the order._

Putting aside her general distaste for Equestrian rules of engagement, Intel refocused on rechecking her quad-barreled shotgun. The rock salt loaded weapon was a finicky prototype so she had to make sure nothing was clogging the gearwork. Even with her maintenance check, she was keeping a close eye on her tensed proto-queen. You're not going to do anything stupid I hope. I know you haven't laid today's clutch yet. She glanced at Feather Soft who looked decidedly out of her element among so many warriors. She was trying to distract herself with a game of solitaire.

Aegis turned away from the window to look at the Guard Captain with a bemused expression. Like her mother before her, Aegis' royal blood gave her no overall authority over her siblings, but she still found such candid comments amusing given her position. Come now, you know me. I was all about eggs waaay before becoming a royal. Her tone became a lot more strained. I –it's fine that I have to stay here until that happens. That just means your squad has to be on point since I can't be there to cover your sorry rump.

"Pah," Intel scoffed aloud as she wiped down the excess lubricants with a small rag. "I'm running the outfit better than you ever did," she said with playful mockery.

Aegis rolled her eyes and turned back to the window. "Only 'cause you have more experience now, than I did back then."

"All I hear are excuses," Intel teased back with a grin.

"She's got you there, sis," Ferrum jabbed, earning a raspberry from Aegis.

When a bit of activity outside grabbed their attention, the room fell back into silence. It ultimately was just a dog being let out of the apartment, but no one started talking again. Aegis kept rubbing her lower belly in some vain attempt to speed her clutch along.

The thestral liaison had been working with changelings since the beginning of the formal alliance, and yet he still couldn't get used to those conversations constantly switching between Linkspeak and vocalized Vespid. Instead he resigned himself to waiting for the 'go' order. In the meantime he couldn't help but to marvel at the oddity of mainstream pony architecture in regards to Aegis. _You'd think with everypony being so much shorter than those bipedal queens, they'd have to duck everywhere they went, but most rooms and doors fit them well enough. …I wonder if that's so minotaurs can be accommodated in any given building for some odd diplomatic reason._

The other thing that occupied him were the oblong cylinders across each changelings' combat harness that gave him an involuntary shudder. He remembered the after-report about tear gas usage on the monastery, and had reluctantly agreed to it's use as a semi-last resort. _Command loves their new guns, but balks at giving us time to train with gas masks because they might frighten the civilians? It's not like we're using it on non-combatants. Aegis is right, we should be using the gas first thing, but it's out of my hooves now._

For the time being, the targeted four story apartment was quiet. A few shapes passed by curtained windows, but otherwise the occupants were making it difficult to get a headcount. Aegis' empathy sensed the gathered changelings were a mixed bag of emotion. Intel was masking her nervousness well enough to seem calm and collected from the other drones, but Aegis' royal blood could sniff out her true feelings. _Mare or stallion, Intel always gets like this before an operation. She'll fall into place once things get moving._ Thunderfury was overly excited, and was practicing various shield stances, but kept his magic low to keep the arcane sense of any unicorns in the target apartment from possibly noticing him.

Aegis didn't get a chance to assess the others when she saw two ponies and a single Grecian sphinx tom down in the street approach the apartment lobby. Aegis strained to get a better look at him, but it was impossible to see any real details without a spyglass. However she was still able to make out the large triangular object on his back that was wrapped up in thick white cloth. No doubt a crossbow, but what's a sphinx doing with these guys?

Ferrum joined her at the window with an equally confused expression. Maybe he's a mercenary. Just hired to do a job.

Intel shoved her head in between her two clutchmates to take a look for herself. Word has it that the Federation military was being restructured from the old system of separate nations into a unified one. On top of that, our diplomat's found out that a massive chunk of their military budget is being shifted to R&D. I bet you anything that there're a lot of out of work soldiers out there looking for any jobs they can find.

Aegis scowled at the news. I bet you there's plenty of them who are still bitchy about how our mothers showed them up at first contact.

Not to mention most hate psykers like us, Ferrum added coldly. I bet the P.C.E. took advantage of that in a heartbeat.

The trio of suspects waited by the front door after knocking. After several long seconds, the door opened revealing an orange earth pony mare with a black mane who had half of her left ear missing.

The weathered mare meant little to Aegis, but the thestral who was watching from the other window bristled. "That's Knife Point. She's wanted for several murders including an attempt on Prince Blueblood's life. This is the first we've seen of her joining up with the P.C.E. though."

The group watched intently as the newcomers exchanged words that were lost to the wind. There appeared to be some minor bickering at first, probably details on payment Aegis surmised, but the trio was admitted entry shortly thereafter.

The door of the hotel room opening behind them all made the changelings turn back to see a mare thestral Night Guard in riot armor carrying a quarterstaff with a stun enchantment. Aegis remembered she was the task force commander. "We've waited long enough, and the perimeter around the building's been established. Intelligence says most of the residents will start leaving for the night shift jobs soon. We go in now and sort them all out later, let's move!"

* * *

Applejack stepped off the train at Canterlot station with a purpose in her step. The throng of ponies boarding and departing the train swarmed around her in a mass of color. The long train ride always bothered the farm mare. Lounging around for hours on end was reserved for sleeping and just about nothing else as far as she was concerned. She turned around to gaze back into the train car. "Woooawwee! Good to be able to stretch mah legs again." She would have loved to do some practice bucks, but the dense crowd made it impossible. "Come on Apple Bloom, you don't wanna miss your honorary cousins now do ya?"

A soft yellow mare with a stark red mane decorated in a pink bow pulled her way out of the press of bodies trying to exit the passenger car. "Sorry, it ain't exactly easy ya know, with all the- aahhh!" Apple Bloom squeezed through only to stumble to the dirt under the weight of her luggage. "Ow," she moaned from under it all.

Applejack chuckled at her sister before cantering through the crowd and gave Apple Bloom a hoof to pull her back up. "There ya go, Sugarcube. No harm done." The farm mare relieved her sister of a few suitcases loaded with books, spare pink bows, and other essentials.

"Thanks." Apple Bloom's cheeks burned with embarrassment, even if no one else seemed to care outside of having to walk around her.

Applejack took a moment to indulge the pride she had in Apple Bloom. Her sister had grown into a fine, proud mare. Her mane was ruffled, and still bore her trademark pink bow, though it looked far smaller on her now than during her foalhood. As befitting a proper lady, her coat was immaculate and her posture, although dampened by the heavy saddlebags, exuded strength and proper upbringing. Well, proper as far as Applejack was concerned, not Rarity.

Liquid pride fell from Applejack's face as her muzzle curled into a smile. "Look at you all grown up, ready to start fancy school'n. Ah can't tell you how proud Ah am to see you go'n to Twilight's Engineering College. Yer goin' to be top a' your class, Ah just know it!"

She hugged Apple Bloom with all her might, making it hard to breathe. Apple Bloom returned the embrace, but kept an eye out for any ponies her age that might be in the area. It wouldn't do to get an embarrassing nickname so early. "Well, Ah'm just glad the farm's go'n be okay without me. Ah couldn't live with mahself if Ah put the farm in jeopardy by leave'n. Ah promise to make the family proud!"

Applejack wiped her tears away and led her sister towards the station's interior. "Ah know you will. You got a knack for buildin' and tinker'n Ah ain't never seen before. And even better, Sweetie Belle should be in Canterlot as well, attending Luna's school for Gifted Artists. Kinda odd name for including singers too if you ask me, but all the same."

Apple Bloom gazed out at the white marble splendor of Upper Canterlot before the train station obscured it all with their entry. "Yup, and with Scootaloo already a trainee Wonderbolt, the three of us will be able to hang out together all over again!"

The two sisters lapsed into small talk as they made their way through the station's early evening traffic. Neither of them were strangers to cities or large crowds, but it was rare enough that Apple Bloom felt an electric current running through her at the prospect of refining her special talent. _Ah can't believe Ah finally made it! Right here in the big city. Sure there's Phoenix's Roost, but_ this _is where Twilight's biggest co-op university is._

Her eyes fell upon one of the reasons the crowd was so dense a ways up towards the front of the train. A minotaur delegation centered around Crown Prince Cho'Gal was milling around as servants stacked the luggage. There was an angry scowl on Cho'Gal's face that worried the young mare.

"Ah there you are!" a familiar voice called out, stopping both earth mares in their tracks and pulling Apple Bloom's attention away. They didn't have to search long before spotting the bipedal changeling bearing Rainbow Dash's colors. Blitz's thin, albeit tall, profile allowed her to easily slip through the crowd as the Apples moved over to join her. It also helped that most ponies were still put off by the notion of what appeared to be a minotaur changeling, and gave Blitz a moderately wide berth. The proto-queen grinned widely at the two old friends. "And you came too, Apple Bloom?"

"Ayup!" The trio quickly exchanged hugs. "Ain't no way Ah'm missin' orientation."

Blitz giggled at herself. "Oh that's right, well, congratulations on your acceptance. I only wish that was the only reason for your visit."

Applejack huffed with a mix of pragmatism and irritability. "That downright despicable attack on that ship a' yours and the princess' request meant we ended up sharing a ride together. Speaking of which…" Applejack glanced around at the passing ponies nervously. More than a few of them gave Blitz a weary look. "Don't you think it's a mite dangerous to be out here all by your lonesome?"

"Oh it is," Blitz replied with a lopsided smirk as she tapped a finger on her clockwerk vambraces and jingled the necklace on her neck. "I have my own defenses in place without the need for obtrusive guards. I am the civic queen-to-be after all. Celestia taught me some pointers on how to read a crowd."

Apple Bloom marveled at the proto-queen's forearm armor, knowing full well that changeling equipment was never to be taken at face value. The vambraces were brass colored steel, if Apple Bloom's keen eye was correct. It was, over all, simplistic looking save for the high quality straps and the shallow indentations along its surface that were almost lost in the overall smoothness. _If Ah had to guess, Ah bet those're maintenance panels, and the real magic is all inside. There ain't nothing that changelings make that can be taken at face value._

"If it's all the same though," Applejack stated friendly enough, "we should get move'n." She spotted a few sphinxes in civilian dress up in the rafters giving the changeling hate-filled looks. The majority of Federalists never bothered keeping their hatred of psykers a secret. At the very least they mostly directed that hate at the queens alone due to their superior psionic capabilities compared to the drones. Unfortunately, that did little for Blitz and her tell-tale reptilian eyes.

"We stick around any longer and somethin' is bound ta' happen anyway," Applejack warned as she put in a little more speed to her gait.

Blitz followed Applejack's gaze towards the sphinxes who jumped a little in fear of her. The group bid a begrudging retreat, but tried to make it look like they were leaving anyway. Blitz shrugged. "They can fester all they want. A requirement of any sphinx immigrants is to spend five months at the hive. That way we know there won't be any "problem children" gaining citizenship. Any visitors wouldn't dare attack me. If not out of fear of the alliance reprisals, then the Sestapo deters them enough." _So far anyway._ "But you're right, there's no need to risk it. We should go to the university first," she directed at Apple Bloom.

A mass of activity over the local hive mind on Aegis' corner of the Link jerked Blitz's head to the north. "Actually, it looks like something's going on right now after all."

Blitz started walking towards a carriage with the Apples following close behind her. Applejack didn't like how Blitz kept stealing glances to the north every time the line of buildings broke to allow her to see past them. _Ah know that face. Aegis is gettin' into trouble something fierce._

* * *

Intel raced through the open window of her team's hotel and across the street like a purple spear. Sheathing herself in a cone of lavender-orange mana, Intel was joined by seven other changelings causing many of the ponies below to have flashbacks of the first invasion of Canterlot. An equal number of thestrals and local police ponies followed in their wake.

The changeling squad smashed through windows and solid walls with a great crash of shattered glass and masonry. A single pegasus police officer barked orders through a megaphone. "This is the Alliance Domestic Police Force, surrender immediately, you are all under arrest!"

Intel only barely heard the warning as she smashed into a game room complete with a billiards table. Three stallions jumped back in shock at her sudden entrance and fell back at the sight of her shotgun. Intel quickly assessed the two earth ponies and one unicorn. "Keep your hooves where I can see them, and don't even try to use magic," she directed at the unicorn.

The two earth stallions quickly dropped their pool cues and onto their haunches while lifting their forelegs up. The craggy muscle bound unicorn however magically shoved his companions at Intel while bolting for the open door.

The thestral ponies that followed in after Intel arrived barely in time to see her vault over the two living projectiles and fire a shot at the fleeing unicorn. "Go after him, I'll secure these two!" the first one barked at her.

"Got it!" Intel yelled back as she took cover by the door right as two mana bolts sailed past her head. The thestrals settled in at the opposite side of the door waiting for her signal. Alarmed shouting erupted from the room beyond as well as scrambling hooves and clattering items.

Intel rolled into the common room and fired off a couple of her own mana bolts at the fleeing unicorn, conserving her ammunition. There the unicorn barged his way through a collection of two dozen scrambling individuals, composed of multiple species. Several poker tables had been overturned, chips covering the ratty carpet like snow. A scant few of them surrendered immediately at the sight of not just Intel, but three other changelings and a pair of thestrals emerging from exterior rooms of their own.

However the vast majority of the beings, ranging from ponies, zebras, minotaurs, and even a scant few sphinxes jumped up to fight, heedless of the warnings. Intel brought up a circular metal shield in her magic and charged forward with the rest of her kin following suit.

The unicorns tried to raise arcane shields of their own or fire off kinetic bolts, but Counterspell lived up to his name by slamming the butt of his warstaff on the ground and muttering his mother's incantations, destabilizing all unicorn style magic save for telekinesis within the building.

Without the enemy's mana shields, Intel fired at a minotaur bull charging at her with his fists at the ready. The rock salt did little to pierce his thick hide, but a few particles got into his eyes making him flail around wildly. Thunderfury weaved into the charging crowd like a needle to hit the biggest threat. His shields crackled with power as he slammed full force into a second minotaur bull, shocking him into unconsciousness.

Thunderfury would have gotten swarmed by the other criminals were it not for the four thestrals and one pegasus guard that raced in after him, further disrupting the hasty defense. Thunderfury grinned wickedly as he worked. His shields ripped through the air against his unarmored opponents stunning everyone it touched with electric wrath.

The police were hardly idle. The thestrals' staves whirled around, smashing against targets constantly. Thunderfury saw a sphinx jane about to clobber him with a chair right when his shields were out of position, but a blast of rock salt from Intel threw the jane off balance long enough for Thunderfury to finish her off with an electric shield to the chest.

Right as it seemed that the police were wrapping things up to start their arrests, one of the Egyptian toms that had feigned surrender at the beginning used the commotion to slip behind his large chair, pull out a repeating crossbow and leveled it at Counterspell. Thunderfury tried to get his shields between the two of them, but the tom acted first and fired off three rapid bolts.

The first bolt carved a thin grazing line across Counterspell's face while the second was deflected by the staff. The third however sunk deeply into his chest, defeating his thin armor as if it were paper. The moment he cried out and collapsed, the unicorns in the room varied between forcing the police off of their brethren with shields and reviving those too stunned to fight.

With Counterspell's incantation gone, Intel and the other changelings brought up their own shields to deflect the incoming storm of arcane bolts from the hostile ponies. They aren't panicking like they should be! We might have to use lethal force. CS, are you alright?

She desperately wanted to check on him, but the P.C.E. demanded her attention. Oh you know, just a punctured lung. Nothing- He coughed up blood, but the act was lost to everyone when a thestral mare bellowed a challenge, forcing the rest of the police force to go in after her.

Intel took the time to fire off a few supporting arcane bolts while painstakingly reloading her shotgun for the larger sphinxes and minotaurs. Her real objective was to remain beside Counterspell as Ferrum tried to move him out of the room. We need a medic!

She barely had a single barrel loaded when an Egyptian jane broke through the line of police ponies and made a beeline straight for the wounded Counterspell with a short sword held high.

Intel fumbled to pull the ramming rod out of her weapon as the jane closed in. "Psyker filth be purged!"

Ferrum turned on his hooves before reaching Counterspell to face down the jane with a sneer. The swordling growled a challenge and pulled his brother's skysteel longsword off his back and angled it to block the downward thrust of the jane's blade. The runes flashed upon impact, sending secondary kinetic impact through the blades, knocking her sword out of position. "You come to our land, you leave that bigotry at the rutting door!"

"Sphinx or changeling, all psykers must-" **Boom** The jane was abruptly cut off by Intel's shotgun at near pointblank range, ravaging the sphinx with lacerations all over her left side and shedding her clothing and burying themselves within her. The salt itself redoubled the pain making her cry out in sheer agony, giving a newly arriving police pegasus to cuff her.

Ferrum dropped his weapon to pick up his bleeding squadmate. Intel started reloading her weapon again and gestured Ferrum towards the new holes the task force was creating. "Get him out of here, I'll keep your sword."

With a nod, Ferrum made for the exit while Intel started giving new orders to the squad. Even with the new arrivals, the suspects were rallying even stronger than before with an organization Intel thought impossible. She growled at the sight of a police pegasus getting pulped by a minotaur's hammer. _This is getting out of hoof._ She started pulling her gask mask on while priming three tear gas grenades. Gas! Gas! Gas!

The other drones backed off to quickly put their own masks on, feeling pity for their pony allies.

* * *

Aegis paced in front of the window of her lookout room with her wings buzzing impatiently. While she was still unable to piggyback on a drone's eyes, she could still hear the chatter going on from the task force.

Every iota of her being wanted to be down there with her clutchmates. Every time she heard a spell go off, a gunshot, or cry of battle, she had to check herself before racing over with Burny in hand. "I can't do it. I still haven't laid today's eggs yet. Damn it, after that whole siege of Stripped Gear crap, the worst problem my princesshood has endured was the toilet backing up! And now when we have the P.C.E. being dilwads and that Grogar guy, yet I'm stuck here at the whim of my eggs!"

Caretaker Feather Soft was trying to enjoy a spot of tea off in the corner of the room. With the soldiers-turned-police gone, she was finally able to get a sense of peace. Much like her clutchmate, Blue Flare, Feather Soft had a dignified mane style, but didn't wear clothing, mostly because the nature of her work would soil them far too regularly. "And here I thought this was exactly what you wanted, sister," she said with obvious sarcasm. Due to the tight relationship the two queens had, the purple and blue changelings felt more like siblings than cousins. "To spend days, weeks, or even years on end laying eggs for all eternity." Feather swooned dramatically with a weak hoof to her forehead, much to Aegis' annoyance as she shot her a sour look that could curdle milk. "Such is the dream life for me, as you always said."

Aegis groaned loud enough to put her mother to shame. "Is there anything you can do? Make me start laying now, or make it so I can actually hold onto the eggs for an hour or so, or delay their production for just as long?! I should be down there doing my job wrecking face!" She turned back to the window and winced when she saw one of the hotel's windows blow out from magical fire.

Not even Feather Soft could ignore that one as panic started spreading through the streets. She cringed at the screams and stampeding hooves from all those who briefly let their curiosity superseded their caution. "With all due respect, Aegis, your job right now is to wait out your maturation until you're a full queen."

Aegis scanned the area around the P.C.E. structure, looking for any way to contribute. _Giving orders right now would just distract them._

The grocery store adjacent to the hotel across the street had ponies fleeing into the streets when a whole section of wall from the P.C.E. building collapsed and fell onto the store, causing more noise than actual damage.

It took Aegis a moment to see that one of the Guard pegasi had been tossed alongside the wall, and remained still. One Grecian jane and a unicorn stallion leapt down from the new hole. Intel, we got two runners on the west side, can you get to them?

Intel slammed the butt of her shotgun into the jaw of a minotaur bull who took the hit like it was tickling him. No can do, we just happened to raid a damn recruitment center. We need reinforcements more than anything else.

"That's it, I'm going down after them!" Aegis was halfway out of the window when what felt like a giant vice clamped down on her tail and started to drag her back inside.

"Oh no you don't!" Feather grunted with effort from the other side of the room. "You'll just get hurt if you start laying in the middle of a chase! You know you can't fly properly while laying!"

Aegis yelp in pain, but kept trying to force her way out. "I can't just let those two escape, what if they were the ringleaders?!" Weaving a spell her mother taught her, Aegis easily vanquished Feather's telekinetic hold.

She locked eyes on the two suspects, yet before Aegis could even get out of the window the familiar feeling of eggs descending into the ready position halted her in an instant. "Not _now!_ "

She shuffled back inside and skidded along the wall as her eggs starting coming. "Why didn't you come like ten minutes ago, come on!"

The heavy sound of dozens of feathered and leathery wings upon the air filled the air outside, making Aegis try to look outside. A large number, no less than twenty by Aegis' count, of police ponies converged on the suspects filtering out onto the roof in an effort to escape. Her efforts were halted entirely as Feather Soft raced over to start cleaning up the three eggs already present. "Let Intel and the ponies handle things. You have your own job to do, sis."

Even from her poor angle of the window, Aegis was able to spy several Royal Guard ponies arriving on the scene, but none of them seemed to change direction to intercept the two suspects she had seen. If the sirens flooding the streets were any indication, the paramedics were on their way as well. The worst part of it all to Aegis, was sitting on the sidelines, as if she couldn't fulfill her obligations as the militant queen. _This is going to be the longest eight weeks of my life._

* * *

Blitz daintily stepped out of the public restroom of a fine diner barely ten minutes' trot from the train station with a sheepish grin as she approached the awaiting Apple sisters. Thankfully the room had been empty at the start, and the two earth mares were more than enough to ward away any of the restaurant's patrons for a several minutes, along with a healthy tip to the manager for the inconvenience. A grey-furred caretaker with a closed egg crate bid a hasty retreat right after the proto-queen left to make her way to the train yard.

"I'm really sorry about that," Blitz said with a brightly flushed face, so red she almost looked like a beet. "I can't really control when that happens just yet."

Applejack snickered and clapped a hoof on Blitz' back before walking for the exit. The proto-queen lifted herself back up to two legs as she left the restaurant behind. Apple Bloom was enamored at the sight of her forehooves morphing into hands. "Shoot, girl, Ah may not be hanging around Phoenix's Roost as often as RD did Stripped Gear before she went Ling, but ya don't need to feel embarrassed about that 'round me."

Apple Bloom nodded in agreement as the trio made it back into the street. "After sum of the stuff mah friends and Ah crusaded, that's not weird at all. Sides," she added with an elbow bump on Blitz's leg. "If it weren't for you guys, Ah'd a never found mah cutie mark." She waggled her hip, showing off the gear shaped red apple.

Happy to see her family friends so understanding, Blitz momentarily dropped down to four legs and squashed them both in a tight hug. "Thanks. But I think you would have found your mark without us, Apple Bloom."

"Pshah, not as cool as this one though," Apple Bloom countered with a light-hearted smirk.

"Well, now that delay is out of the way," Blitz turned to Applejack. "Let me escort you to your palace suite to drop your luggage off before taking Apple Bloom on a tour of the university."

Applejack sighed with a mix of determination and old anger. "Fine by me. Ah got a lot of thinking ta do on what to say about this whole sabotage attack on the navy. Bunch of backwards thinkin' cowards if you ask me. They're willin' to go on a suicide attack, but can't get it that you changelin's are the best thing to happen to Equestria since Luna's return? It's sad more than anythin' else."

Apple Bloom noticed a passing thestral in the air. "Ah mean, just the Jiyya fruit was huge. Let alone all the fancy new gizmos around the farm that makes Apple Buck season a breeze. I mean, even Granny Smith is in love with that so called 'new-fangled whatchamacallit' that carts off all the apple buckets leaving us free to keep bucking the trees."

Blitz's heartfelt smile was radiant at the praise, and when her empathy told her both earth mares were truthful in their accolades. This was the real reason Blitz wanted to have the same connection to ponykind that her mother had. The Apples were true friends that Blitz would hold onto dearly. It also helped that by her very nature, the changeling wanted as many sources of genuine love as possible. "Thank you, really. Most ponies know about that part of a queen's life, but it's more of a tolerance and 'out of sight out of mind' thing than any real acceptance."

"Ah don't see why," Apple Bloom tutted as they made their way past a pair of massive elevators suspended on meter-thick cables that brought ground-bound passengers between the various levels of Canterlot. The sheer density of pedestrians made their progress slow down considerably, even if it was still the best way to get to the palace. "Griffins lay eggs, and no pony minds that. You'd think all of the old wars ponies and griffins would have more of an effect than Chrysalis' single invasion. Not to mention that griffins used to _eat_ us. Ah'd think that'd be worse than emotion sucking… ah, no offense," she added with a sheepish chuckle.

Applejack and Blitz couldn't help but to look about nervously at the throng of bodies. Even with Blitz's safeguards, all it took was one assassin to get lucky. Apple Bloom relaxed with Blitz merely shrugging at the unintended insult. Feeling that the conversation wasn't going to start back up until they were clear of the dense mass of ponies, Apple Bloom started looking around at all the sights of her home for the next four years or so. The first thing that caught her eyes was mint green unicorn mare several paces ahead of them who had stopped dead in her tracks. Her utterly dumbfounded expression was giving her earth pony friend a half worried, half irritated look. Apple Bloom followed the unicorn's gaze towards Blitz. At first Apple Bloom feared the unicorn was a bigot, but then noticed a maniacally wide grin cleave her muzzle as she started bouncing on her hooves. _Weird._ The earth pony dragged her gushing friend away right as Apple Bloom's group walked past them.

Wanting to keep her mind away from the odd mare, Apple Bloom looked down a shallow flight of stairs to one of the massive elevators. They were quite open to the sky, and could easily fit forty ponies side by side five ranks deep. Their gold colored frames and elegant metal artwork sang of traditional pony art style from the classical period several hundred years ago, but the elevators themselves were only half a century old.

Apple Bloom's eyes danced this way and that, but came to a stop when she saw two ponies on the closest elevator. There was a pale yellow stallion with a bright red mane who was as gigantic as her big brother, and a peach mare with an orange mane that reminded her of Applejack. There was a strange ghost of familiarity about them, like she should _know_ them. Then it finally clicked. _Wait a second… they look like ma and pah from those pictures Granny has in her album!_ Apple Bloom was inches from asking her sister to look at them until she saw both ponies turn their heads to talk to a pegasus and revealed their unicorn horns. _Oh. Weird. Ah must be imagining things._ She shook her head and turned away. _Honestly, Apple Bloom, it ain't like they're the only ponies to have those colors ya know._

Seeing her friend and sister were getting away from her, Apple Bloom raced through the crowd to catch up to them.

* * *

Pear Butter rocked on her hooves as she and her two traveling companions finally entered the love collector's domicile, directly above a bordello. Every fiber of her being wanted to just slouch onto the old moldy couch near the door, but the huge part of her still loyal to her queen kept her on her hooves, waiting for orders. The effects of the love feeding faded in lieu of true muscle fatigue from the exodus.

"This room is safe, and I have an arrangement with the madam of this establishment." Stopwatch took the wrapped up princess out of the saddlebag and inspected her carefully to make sure everything was in order. "You may drop your disguise and rest."

Both quasi complied with Paint Brush staying by the center of the room awaiting further instructions. While Stopwatch's preferred disguise was that of a mare, her true form was more of an 'it' in Pear Butter's eyes. _Probably so she doesn't have any qualms about… servicing any client._ Pear Butter flopped onto the moldy couch in a heap. It stunk to high hell and it felt grimy, but at that moment she was too tired to care. The rest of the room had that faint scent of the hive she originally awoke in, but it wasn't strong enough to identify if one didn't know the origin. _I doubt she services anypony in here._

"As much as you may want to," Stopwatch stated at Pear Butter after placing the resting nymph in its waxy alcove and hiding it behind a tablecloth. "Do not form any wax cocoons. I know those are more comfortable than these pony-style beds, but they are far too conspicuous to the madam who visits me up here every so often. I'll need your assistance in getting rid of the princess' wax bed once she's been relocated."

Pear Butter cast a wary eye at Stopwatch, noticing with a touch of dread that the love collector was solely directing that warning at her, and her alone. "Do I even want to know why you're saying that first part to me?"

Stopwatch cocked her head at the question. "You mean you don't know how we make wax? Well, I'm sure you'll find out on your own before too long. Just be sure to clean it up when you do. It's bad enough we need any wax at all for the princess, because a crib would have been hard to explain away to the madam."

The collector started scrounging up some food after sequestering away empty love crystals. While Stopwatch was doing that, Pear Butter pointedly distracted herself with observing her lodging. Stopwatch had the whole top floor to herself, no doubt marking her importance to the establishment below. The entry hall led to a number of rooms, which Pear suspected was where Stopwatch brought her clients. This room, however, was more of a small condo. From the couch she could see the moderately well-stocked kitchenette, the hidden alcove, and a rickety dining table with equally flimsy looking chairs. The wallpaper was a bland brown that matched Stopwatch's chitin and disguise's fur color. A few rooms branched off behind the kitchen.

Seeing that he wasn't going to be getting any orders, Paint Brush cantered over to the kitchen. "Is there any way I can assist in cooking?"

"Do you even remember how?" Stopwatch asked while grabbing a pot and several items from the icebox. "I may be a subdivision of the queen's mind, but I cannot inject knowledge into you. I doubt Polybia would bother either."

Paint Brush shook his head sadly. "No, I can't recall any cooking ability, but I can at least observe. Our queen gifted us with knowledge of mating habits for various races so we could support ourselves."

"Fitting," Stopwatch replied. "The Madam is in need of another escort." She turned to briefly glance at Pear Butter. The former pony had heard every word, and was holding her hind legs tightly with her tail pulled close. Stopwatch sniffed dismissively and returned to her food preparation.

"It's perfect work for us really, although it would look too suspicious to speak for two new employees at once. There are many eyes out there looking for our kind. These Equestrians may permit those from Phoenix's Roost, but they will be suspicious of any one who looks like a half changeling who doesn't have purple, blue, or grey fur. Not to mention that running into either of those runs the risk of identifying you as not part of their hive mind."

The conversation petered out as Stopwatch started instructing Paint Brush on how to make a simple yet filling stew. Pear Butter settled on staring at the body length mirror next to a fireplace. Her eyes fixated on the gnarled tan colored horn jutting out of her head. She brushed a fetlock against it, still acutely aware of how alien it felt. It was wrong. It didn't belong there, it _shouldn't_ be a part of her. Her wings fidgeted as if to remind her of the other part of her that was wrong.

Now that she wasn't running for her life through the jungle or fearing detection and death slinking through Equestria, these festering thoughts clung to her mind's eye like glue. _I shouldn't be like this. I know I used to be a pony. A normal pony. Not some_ thing _corr-changed..._ Her rebelliousness swelled, but her built-in loyalty was not going to fall away so easily.

Pear Butter stared at her hooves. The tan chitin shell stood in stark contrast to her gold fur. _It's like my queen started from the inside and her mut-changes only recently started showing on the outside. Am I nothing more than a changeling with pony skin, or is there something more of the old me inside?_

The old Pear Butter and the new quasi tore at each other within the mare's head, vying for control. Yet with the hive mind still active within her subconscious and the geas Polybia placed upon her, rebellious thoughts was all she could muster.

Pear Butter lost all track of time as her old personality struggled against the compulsions of her new anatomy to the point where a loud hoof stomp nearby startled her back to the present. She found Stopwatch glaring at her in disinterest with a steaming bowl held aloft. "Here, you will need your strength."

"T-thank you." Pear sat up properly and took the offered bowl and spoon into her magic. A small part of her twinged in irritation at how natural she slipped into using telekinesis.

By now, Paint Brush was already eating at the table with Stopwatch joining him. "Pear Butter, you used to be farmer. How well do you think you could perform in carpentry?"

The mare sucked on the first bite of agreeable stew for a long moment to think. "Ah think Ah could do that. Ah probably had to do a lot of that on mah old farm, Ah'm sure it'll come back to me."

"Good." Stopwatch took a few bites before continuing. "I'll arrange an opening for you down by Split Beam's shop in Upper Canterlot. That will put you close enough to the target house to keep watch over it without being conspicuous."

"Target house?" Paint Brush queried as he wolfed down his food so he'd be free to speak. Pear Butter sat up a little straighter in expectation.

"More like target family." Stopwatch downed the last of her broth in one long swig. "The hatchling princess needs to have a massive amount of love to survive, as I'm sure you noticed. However, I alone can't do that. I fed her two months' worth just to satisfy her today. No matter how many clients I service, lust just isn't as nutritious as actual love, but it can serve us in a pinch."

"But the princess can't make do with just a pinch, right?" Pear asked already knowing the answer.

"Exactly. So I've been scoping out families across Upper Canterlot for the perfect surrogate parents." Stopwatch got up and cantered over to a desk, rummaged through it before producing several manilla envelopes. Each one had a family name and crest on them. She took one envelope and deposited its contents on the table: maps, photographs, charts, and other data sheets. "Given the imminent timing of the princess's hatching, the Harthworth family is the ideal family to raise the princess to ensure she retains the ability to produce love."

Paint Brush sifted through the charts, which he quickly realized were the target family's finances. "Ah guess the money won't be a problem. A twenty five thousand bit a month profit? Gaw dang that's a hefty sum."

Pear Butter checked over the dozen pictures. Only two unicorns were in all of them. A stately if haughty looking yellow stallion with a slicked back brown mane. The wife was much better looking to Pear's eyes. She had a gentle warmth about her in all the pictures, but the most telling attribute was her advanced pregnancy. "You're going to put the princess with this family as a sister or somethin'?"

"No, a replacement."

Stopwatch's flat statement made Pear's veins run cold with ice. Her rebellious self surged forward to speak her mind, but Paint Brush unwittingly cut her off.

"So we're switching foals? Seems easy enough," he forced out with a neutral face. "Ah assume we have some way of giving the princess a long term disguise."

Pear was livid and stamped her hoof on the carpeted floor, but her geas concerning the princess's well-being silenced her scathing tongue. Stopwatch saw the furious mare, but made no effort to ease her mind. "Actually no, the child was stillborn."

Pear wilted under the news and said nothing, leaving Stopwatch to continue uninterrupted. "The family is in mourning, and emotionally vulnerable. A client of mine told me several old family friends of theirs are expected to visit tomorrow so we have to act fast since I believe this family is the best candidate. I stacked the deck by bribing the weather captain to push the next rainstorm to coincide with the visit."

Stopwatch tapped the photo of the Harthworth manor's front door. "Ponies are notoriously herd minded creatures, and bleeding hearts to boot. I'll be leaving the disguised hatchling princess on the doorstep of their house during the friendly visit in the middle of the rainstorm."

Paint Brush let off a dark chuckle. "That's pretty smart a' ya. Between wanting ta' take in a new foal, the very presence of the family friends adding some guilt to any thoughts of abandonment, and the cold, wet rainstorm to makin' them even less likely to reject the foal. Hook line and sinker."

"That's about the size of it," Stopwatch concurred.

Pear Butter sagged in her seat as guilt weighed down upon her as if the world was on her withers. "At least the family gets a loving daughter out of it."

"See?" Paint Brush added. "Everypony wins. So it's just Pear and mah job to keep a loose eye on her from a distance then. Should be a cakewalk."

"Only if we do things right," Stopwatch warned before looking at Paint Brush. "Now give me the items our queen gave you for the princess. I'll need them for when the princess wakes up."

* * *

Aegis fumed at everything in general as she listened to the earth pony police chief give her an after-action report with Princess Celestia and several other ponies sitting around the same table.

The group was in the original palace conference room where Celestia, Twilight Sparkle, and several other officials had discussed the changeling threat after the wedding all those years ago. While much of Celestia's focus was on the police chief, the timeless mare couldn't help but to see the dark irony in it all. _Here we are, with Twilight's first royal daughter discussing the threat of radicals acting against changelings rather than radical changelings acting against us. Yet another joke the universe shares with no one._

As a show of unity and trust, Celestia had Aegis seated to her right while the police chief was at her left.

"...Moving on to the preliminary findings," Police Chief Hoofcuffs drolled on as she had been for the past hour. "This was an unexpected timing for all of us. If our prisoners' comments during the arrests are to be believed, we interrupted a large meeting between several key crime families, two rogue mercenary companies, and three radical groups, including the P.C.E. Unfortunately we only caught minor soldiers and a couple of lieutenants. The real leaders of each group either evaded capture or weren't present yet."

 _"I could have stopped at least two of them from getting away,"_ Aegis growled under her breath. _"There were so many fleeing the building that the perimeter guards couldn't catch all of them._ Even with so many arrests, the proto-queen looked about as glum as a certain bald donkey. _At least none of my siblings got taken out, but a few came close._ Her thoughts momentarily shifted to Counterspell before she tossed them aside to focus on the present.

Although it wasn't meant to be heard, Celestia managed to catch the whole thing. "Very good chief. Continue your interrogations and keep me appraised of any news. Be they ponies or otherwise, we can not accept such a strong presence of the criminal element in the capital of all places."

"As you order, your highness." Hoofcuffs nodded curtly before resuming her seat.

Celestia turned to a earth mare who was scribbling furiously on a notepad. "Administer Field Runner, how is the public handling the raid?"

The mare quickly nestled the pencil on her ear. "Mixed at the moment. Several reporters are getting eye witness accounts of ponies wishing the chaos would stop in the city, others are glad we're taking such quick action, and a small minority is saying we're only making things worse by such open violence on the streets of Canterlot."

A scrawny stallion with crooked glasses leaned forward for attention. Celestia quickly identified him as her primary speech writer. "I anticipated this development, your highness, and have several speeches outlined and being delivered to your personal study for your perusal as always."

"Excellent, thank you, Silver Tongue. If there is nothing else?" she looked around the assembled ponies and single changeling for any comments. When none were forthcoming she banged the table three times with a gavel. "Very well. Dismissed."

The various officials hastily gathered up their papers and shuffled or flew out of the exit, eager to get back to work, or go to the nearest bar and drown the coming night away. Unsure of what to do, Aegis began to rise to leave as well, but a brush from Celestia's wing gave her pause. Aegis saw Celestia's desire to speak in private written on her face so she slumped back down.

The ageless alicorn knew better than to patronize the brooding proto-queen. She had seen it all before in Twilight's youth. "Aegis, your mother and I shared an open-door policy. If you ever need an ear outside of your hive-mind to speak to, please feel free."

Aegis sighed heavily and traced a circle on the table with her index finger. "Were you around before the Hearths' Warming Event?"

"Barely," Celestia confirmed. "I was among the immigrants who left the old lands, barely old enough to remember the exodus. My sister and I became alicorns that same year though." She levitated the condensation-covered pitcher of water and refilled Aegis' empty cup. "It was a hard time for everypony."

Aegis gave a small nod of thanks, but didn't touch the glass immediately. The setting sun cast the room into brilliant oranges and yellows that would have gotten a rise out of the pyromaniac any other day. "How long did it take before the three tribes stopped hating each other? How long did it take before ponies like the P.C.E. stopped existing?" Aegis gave Celestia a pleading look that made Celestia forget for a moment that she wasn't speaking with Twilight. "How long am I going to have to attack and kill ponies before we can truly be united with the three tribes?"

Celestia took a big risk and moved close enough to drape a caring wing over Aegis shoulder. It eased her heart that Aegis leaned into it slightly, but largely only accepted it's presence. "It took centuries, Aegis. I'm sorry for that. The three tribes largely found cooperation a better alternative fairly quickly after Hearth's Warming. As it was then, and as it is now, most modern ponies find the Alliance between us to be better than the alternative. But for groups like the P.C.E. to fade away? They never truly do. Even now there are small groups trying to promote one tribe or the other above all others."

"But those are the minority right?" Aegis asked hopefully.

"Yes, they are quite impotent most of the time. So long as intelligent beings exist, there will be deviants that go against what is ultimately best for society. Although…" Celestia affixed Aegis with a soft smile. "I'd imagine it's easier for you with the hive mind as a point of unity."

"Maybe not, Princess," Aegis replied with a ghost of a smile. "But you have a more fascinating focus of unity that I still can't fully wrap my head around."

Celestia arched an eyebrow at the unexpected comment. She knew of many facets of unity and harmony between ponies, but she wanted to hear Aegis' point of view. "Which is?"

"I don't really know," Aegis answered truthfully. "None of your subjects have a built-in compulsion to obey your will. There is no clear unifying voice to look to for in moments of doubt, no guiding song of the consensus for when the queen is too busy to respond." She gave Celestia a studious look. "Personally I think the fact that a nation of individuals has grown as large as Equestria, let alone for it to prosper as much as it has, would be impossible without all this evidence to the contrary."

Taking on a tone of casual debate she used so often on Twilight Sparkle, Celestia took a few sips of her tea to give the impression she was thinking. "So you think it is dumb luck we ponies have stumbled onto a working system?"

Aegis huffed dismissively and snatched one of the biscuits at the center of the table. The spread had been exhausted by the other officials over an hour ago. "I don't know. All I _do_ know is that for all your failings at keeping a tighter consensus, you have a leg up compared to us in at least one aspect."

Celestia reheated her tea with a touch of magic. She had dealt with Twilight enough to know when to strike at the point instead of dancing around it. "You mean my ponies are less affected by a poisonous consensus, and can resist it. Or if _I_ ever became unstable or evil, my subjects could better resist me than drones to their queen." The bitter memories of banishing her sister came to mind.

"Rutting hell," Aegis exclaimed while trying to rub away a headache. "You don't pull any kicks do you?"

"Not if the situation calls for it," Celestia cooly replied.

Aegis stared agape at her for several moments before recovering. She managed to claim a ghost of a smile. "That's exactly it, yes. The drones of my kin may be sapient and strongly individualistic compared to other hives, but we are all ultimately influenced by the will of our queen-mother." She gave Celestia a stern grimace to press her point. "It is for that reason I wanted to keep my drone-like loyalty to my mother hard-wired in my reborn self. It is also why I convinced them that the only royal children any of us should ever have are reborn drones because it is inconceivable to me that my queen-mothers would ever act against Equestria. And by extension, it is almost impossible for Blitz and I to do so as well."

The massive form of the cloudy ram towering over the Summit crawled in her mind. A place so sacred to every changeling being defiled and vandalized by the monster's corrosive breath sent shivers down Aegis' spine. "There's nothing more frightening to think about than a hive mind divided by warring queens." _I can only imagine the damage Polybia could have caused if we were all joined in a single hive mind._

Celestia frowned deeply at the information, vowing to herself to take it to heart. "I can only imagine, but that leaves you vulnerable. Even my sister, as kind and passionate as she is, succumbed to darkness. How would you react if Twilight or Blitz suffered a similar fate?"

Aegis downed a few sips of water only to discover she was famished with a curtain of fatigue washing over her, making Aegis yawn loudly. Her sour mood deepened as she contemplated recent events. "You want my blunt opinion?" She searched Celestia's passive face to gauge her reaction. "I honestly don't know. I might be able to keep following the right path, or I could just as easily follow them down that dark future. All it takes is one queen, one Polybia, one Chrysalis to cause a whole hive to suddenly turn on everypony else. For my bloodline though, one queen could cast our entire nation into shadow."

Aegis hesitated at the mental image of a nightmare overtaking any of her fellow royals. The specter of Grogar possessing any of them froze her heart with fear. "I - I think I should lay down." She got up, bowed respectfully towards Celestia. "Gotta go eat something first or I'll never hear the end of it from Gear."

Celestia returned the sign of respect and climbed to her hooves as well. "And I must be ready to lower the sun. Sleep well, Proto-Queen Aegis."

"You too, Princess, and… thanks for the talk," Aegis said before slipping through the door. At the moment, she wanted more than anything to lean against a wall and rub her head to try and ease the tension. Sadly the presence of so many castle staff and other officials forced her to trudge up to her quarters.

 _Things were so much simpler in my drone days. I ate, fought, guarded, and did whatever I wanted to._ She kept a neutral face as she passed by several ponies, and saw a serving cart. She swerved over and snatched a strawberry and cream hors d'oeuvre from the cart, and thanked the waitress. _I never really paid much attention to all the crap momma and Auntie Rainbow put up with outside of combat before getting mother's blessing. Maybe if I had, I would have thought twice before convincing mom to rebirth me._

 _But there's nothing for it now. I just hope I don't ruin all the goodwill mother's worked so damned hard to achieve._


	62. Chapter 62

Not at All According to Plan

Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash stood within one of the two medium sized dry-docks normally used for freighter construction. The yawning well-lit chamber was alight with activity as drones of all colors worked on the metal beast housed within.

Sadly for Rainbow Dash, it was the mostly fangless tender vessel known as the _P.R.N. Breadbasket_ that had only two light defensive guns on the ventral and dorsal sides. Like its sister ship the _Cornucopia,_ it was painted with inverted colors of purple and blue trimmings on brass colored primary paint compared to the actual warships. The ship was several meters shorter than the _Deception_ and thinner too. What set it apart from the _Cornucopia,_ however, was the primary cargo bay that ran the entire center of the ship had both of its port and starboard doors pulled open with large docking booms extending outward making the ship look like a cross.

Twilight studied the _Breadbasket_ from not only her eyes, but that of the shipwrights putting the modifications through the tests for deployment. "You can't help but to see the irony in this," Twilight half teased her resolutely stoic sister. "Converting a tender vessel to a gunship carrier even after always saying the _Longshot_ is a miserable warship?" She cast Rainbow a wry smirk. "What would Aegis say to this?"

Rainbow arched an extremely sardonic eyebrow at Twilight while flicking her tail in anxiety. "She wouldn't dare say a word. You know as well as I do that until the _Deception_ can be repaired the gunships are our biggest weapons."

"Still don't trust the bi-planes to get the job done?" Twilight asked with more seriousness than Rainbow expected.

She had to take a moment to remember that Twilight really trusted her on such matters. Even if it should have been expected, it still helped Rainbow's mood and pride. "No, I don't. They're fast, I'll give them that, but there will always be a need for big guns."

"To beat back any big things Polybia or Grogar might throw at us?" Twilight said with more statement than question.

"That, and it's the perfect deterrent." Rainbow gazed out to the west staring past the dry-dock's walls. "I don't think the chimp-cats would have backed down at the sight of a few gnats."

Thinking on it for a bit, Twilight eventually nodded. "I can see the logic in that. How soon will the _Breadbasket_ be ready?"

"Tonight actually," Rainbow replied with a touch of pride. "The engineers have been pulling triple shifts, so we'll be able to fly out at first light tomorrow."

"Good… good," Twilight said at length while rubbing her chin. "The sooner we take care of Grogar and Polybia, the sooner we can fully focus on the P.C.E."

Both queens stood in silence for a few moments, simply to take comfort in each other and enjoy the ever present sounds of industry. Yet the moment didn't last when Blitz pinged both of them. Aunty Twilight, momma, I hope you're doing well.

Rainbow was always happy to hear her royal daughter's voice and wished she was there to physically hug her. Can't complain outside of the obvious, she half growled at the recent sabotage of her favorite warship. For now though, just overseeing the final stages of the expedition prep work. How about you?

Did Applejack get to Canterlot safely? Twilight added.

Yes, she's fine. Applejack's going over a few things before her media interview after lunch today, while Apple Bloom is settling nicely into the university dorms. I extended your apologies for not being able to be there in person, Aunty.

Thank you, Blitz, it's been a whirlwind of activity down here getting everything set up. Even through the hive mind, Twilight's fatigue was painfully evident.

I can imagine, Blitz replied with a note of good humor. But I contacted you for a different reason. A friend of yours, Lyra Heartstrings, wants to ask a favor. Rolled Scroll and Blue Flare are standing by for puppeting if you need.

Lyra? Twilight's ears perked up at the name of her friend and smiled. I can always spare a few moments to talk to her. Twilight locked in on her son's voice in the Link and slipped her consciousness on through.

Rainbow Dash was about to leave it at that, but ended up shrugging. _Meh, since Flare's already there, I might as well see what this favor is. The dock crews got it handled._

* * *

The two queens found themselves in Twilight's old condo within Canterlot Castle. Much of the old architecture was the same as it had been for centuries; marble walls and floor, grand windows, the massive timewheel, and the sheer scale of books upon books. The early morning sun cast light on several recent additions, namingly Blitz's worktable covered in minor gadgets that she tinkered with to distract herself from the P.C.E. issue, and a few clockwerks were scattered about, standing at attention or carrying various items for their creators.

Sitting on a sofa in that awkward style that Twilight knew her for was the familiar mint green unicorn Lyra Heartstrings with her blue and pink maned earth pony friend (whose name escaped Twilight at the moment). The instant Lyra saw Rolled Scroll's eyes change she ran over and hugged the puppeted drone. "Twilight! Ah, it's been forever, you silly bug you, how've you been?!"

Twilight took a moment to recover from the hug attack, but managed to return it before separating. Rainbow Dash snickered at the whole thing from Blue Flare's position a few paces away in a chair. "About as well as can be expected given recent events." Lyra's beaming smile weakened a little. "But fine otherwise, what's up?"

"It's always so weird hearing you speak with a stallion's voice," Lyra snickered, earning a mildly impatient half frown from her old friend. "Anyway, I know you're busy these days, and I wouldn't call you up like this for just a social visit." Lyra faltered a bit as if her carefully planned sales pitch was useless. It didn't help her that she only just realized Twilight had asked her a question. "Well, you know, my life's about as normal as it gets for me."

"So not at all?" Twilight teased with a growing smile.

"Ha! Don't you know it!" They both giggled for a few moments, causing Lyra to fall into small talk. "I just finished up a concert tour from Fillidelphia and the like." She turned to the earth mare. "You should have seen Bon Bon when she got so drunk she clambered onto the bar that night and danced with a shot glass in her-"

Bon Bon shoved her way into the conversation, bumping Lyra enough to derail her story, and gave Twilight a friendly smile and nod. The two were more friendly acquaintances than actual friends, but that wasn't a free pass for social embarrassment. "Good to meet you again, Queen Twilight Sparkle," Bon Bon bowed and repeated the greeting to Rainbow Dash.

"Likewise," Rainbow added briefly.

Twilight said much the same before returning her attention to Lyra. "I'd love to catch up, but as you guessed, I've been way too busy lately. What did you need?"

Lyra rubbed her foreleg nervously, but made a valiant attempt to keep her expression positive. "I've seen Aegis and Blitz walking around on two legs for a few years and I was hoping you could do your changeling transformation stuff to give my hands back."

Both queen stared wide eyed at first Lyra, then each other, then back at Lyra. "What do you mean 'give them back'?" Twilight asked with confusion written all over her.

Lyra took a deep breath to steady herself for possible rejection. "You know that mirror you keep under lock and key in your castle? I'm originally from the world on the other side of that."

For the longest moment, Twilight stared at Lyra with a blank face only blinking once. "What?" Her head jerking back and her eyes shrank. "Wait, _what?!_ "

"I know you've at least been researching the mirror, if all that equipment around it is any indication," Lyra added with a knowing tone, yet kept her face friendly. "I figured either you or one of your kids _had_ to have found a way to go through at least once, am I right?"

"Aahhh…" Twilight sweated a bit at the question. _That was supposed to be classified!_ "This is what I get for giving you nearly free reign in my castle," Twilight glowered. "Yes, I've been to Canterlot High and beyond several times now. _But!_ I also saw that world's version of you at the school, and _that_ Lyra acted like she'd never met me before the first time."

"That's because we switched places, like, a long time ago before we started at the School for Gifted Unicorn. You remember that time I asked you to help me relearn how to use magic after an accident? You even got Moondancer to help with that."

It took a few moments, but Twilight remembered the incident quite clearly. "Yeah, you just said you got zapped by some bad guy. It was like teaching a foal, a weird experience, since I was barely a filly myself."

Unlike her sister, Rainbow Dash was giving Bon Bon far more attention. The cream colored mare had none of the surprised expression Rainbow expected of her. _So she's here for support rather than truth dumping on everypony at once, eh?_ "So why did you and your clone switch worlds?"

Lyra let off a nervous giggle and fumbled with her hooves as she sat down. "Well, it may seem silly to everypony, but it's a common thing for girls that were my age back then to love unicorns and ponies in general. So when I stumbled my way into this world and _became_ a unicorn, I was ecstatic. Long story short, I bump into this world's Lyra and she had a thing for hands, so she went to my world."

"What about your friends and family?" Blitz asked with sudden worry about Lyra's seeming abandonment. "You gave all that up?"

"Not by choice," Bon Bon jumped up in her friend's defense. "She didn't know about the thirty moons thing."

Lyra nodded sadly. "The two of us bounced in and out of the portal for those two days, she brought bits and a couple of magic trinkets to that world and I brought some of my father's engineering books to show off tech I couldn't carry with me. After the portal closed, I thought I was stuck here forever, so I took up my other self's life, and I bet she did to mine."

 _Now I get what she meant by getting her hands back._ "Well I set it so the portal can be activated at will," Twilight announced with a reassuring smile. "I wish you had asked me sooner, I wouldn't have kept you from going back home."

Lyra teased a lock of her hair for a bit. "I would like to see how my original family's doing, but Equestria is my home now." She smiled a Bon Bon. "Besides, I couldn't leave my new friends and family."

What understanding Rainbow had gotten from her sister's offer was now totally blown away. "If you want your hands back, but don't want to go home, then what _do_ you want?" _She can't possibly be asking for what I think she is._

 _Here goes nothing,_ Lyra mused worriedly as she turned to face Blitz. "I want to be reborn into a biped like her."

The room went dead silent.

Lyra tried to act like she wasn't nervous while both queens were dumbstruck by the request. For her part, Blitz was caught between surprise and a touch of flattery. However the reality of it all put a damper on her mood. "Sorry to tell you, Lyra, but that would probably be a bad idea."

"I already thought it over for years since seeing you and Proto-Queen Aegis running around for the past couple of years. I-I'll pay handsomely, of course, I know it's expensive." Lyra glanced at Bon Bon for support. Her confidence returned at her friend's nod.

"It's not that simple," Twilight explained as she tried to let her friend down easy. "The rebirth process can only create a changeling, it'd be impossible for you to remain a pony."

"I've already thought it over with both my parents and Bon Bon here," Lyra countered with a stoic grimace. She still glanced at Bon Bon for support, and was thankful when her friend nodded. "Besides, I already went through one species change, I think I'll do even better a second time." _It helped that my parents in both world are hippies._

Twilight half-glared at Lyra's attempt to be dismissive. "And what of the memory loss I told you about? Putting it all in memory crystals isn't the same, and I'm not in the habit of having unplanned princesses."

Awww, did I really put you off having wild nights with wild stallions, Twilight? Rainbow was snickering so loudly she got a chastising glare from her daughter and sister. Rainbow just rolled her eyes and let Lyra say her piece.

"Y-yeah, that's a problem, sure," Lyra stumbled a bit after Rainbow's outburst, but she had been working on this pitch for years. "But I know you've been working on that problem. You've fixed it at least a little right?"

 _I don't remember telling her that._ Twilight's glower soured, but ultimately she didn't deny it. "A little. The research is embarrassingly frustrating. The brain is so enormously complex that the rumors from the Imperial thestrals kinda scares me as to what the royal family of the Moonlit Empire were doing to their test subjects. However…" Twilight briefly debated with herself on whether or not she should even say this next part. "I've managed to get it so a drone rebirth can still retain one year's worth of memories." _More like stumble on it,_ she mused irritably. "Everything else is wiped clean."

Blitz remembered being part of that research team. "You can put everything else into memory crystals of course, but it's just not the same."

"I know the risks," Lyra pleaded towards Twilight. "Come on Twilight, you know me! You really think I'd ask for something like this without knowing what was involved?" She was inches from getting on her knees to beg, and Twilight saw that in Lyra's misting eyes and slightly quivering lower lip.

Even so, Twilight studied her old friend for a long minute of silence before sighing sadly. "Lyra, because it's you, I'm going to try to ignore the fact that you hid this from me for so long." The mint green mare's ears wilted at that. "You aren't the first person to come to us for rebirth or some form of body modification after Aegis revealed her current incarnation." Twilight tried to say this next part as gently as possible with an expression to match. "But I'm going to have to tell you the same thing I've told everypony else: no."

Lyra forced herself to remain strong, hoping for some argument to come to mind. To buy time, she tried looking to Rainbow Dash who vigorously shook her head. "Uh uuuuhh, no way. I'm not fighting Twilight on this one."

To the surprise of the changelings and Lyra herself, Bon Bon stepped up towards Twilight. "Memory isn't the only problem, you're worried about political backlash aren't you?"

Lyra curled her lip in a sneer at no one in particular while Twilight nodded sagely. "Exactly. We _just_ got attacked by the P.C.E. Rebirthing a pony is the worst thing we can do right now."

Rainbow gave a dismissive snort. "I can just see the headlines now of the Pony Inquirer: Changelings Advance Conspiracy to Convert Equestria." She started rubbing her temples expecting a headache to pop up at just the thought of it.

Lyra gave Twilight a stern glare of steel. "You're not really going to let those punks dictate what you do, are you?"

"It's not a question of-" Twilight started but Lyra stomped her hoof for her to stop.

"It is, Twilight! You can say you're not negotiating with those terrorists all you like to the press, but everypony knows that you tiphoof around trying not to anger the P.C.E. Why do you think they've grown so bold lately? They've got you running scared of them!"

Rainbow Dash was thrown into dark brooding by the scathing statement while Twilight tried to remain diplomatic. "Maybe we should be, Lyra," Twilight added with a glint of steel in her tone. "They brought down my flagship in a single act! We need to be more careful now more than ever, and poking the beehive by rebirthing you would be like shooting ourselves in the hoof! And believe me, it would be front page news for somepony."

Bon Bon hugged Lyra trying to get her friend to calm down and try again later when Rainbow Dash jumped off the couch and marched over to properly join the conversation. "No. Actually, I think that's the last thing we need to do!" Everyone, even Blitz was rendered confused. "I'm not one for politics, but I know battle. The P.C.E. is just like another army. What little we've gotten out of the interrogations have told me they've wised up since the monastery. They've built up, they've planned, they've recruited, they've done it all right under our noses. I say provoking them is exactly what we need to do, and rebirthing Lyra would be perfect for that."

Twilight gave her sister a bewildered head tilt. "I don't think I heard you correctly. Are you saying we should do the exact opposite of what we've been doing for the past decade, a plan that Celestia _herself_ said was the best plan!?"

"Times change, sis," Rainbow countered with a sidelong smirk. "Everypony who's level headed enough to see we've got the best interests of the Alliance at heart is cool with us. The ones left are die hards who will _never_ see the truth."

Lyra and Bon Bon felt the two queens were inadvertently pushing them out of the conversation as Twilight pressed a hoof against her sister's chest. I appreciate your input, Rainbow, but there's a word for this kind of 'battle' and it's called diplomacy. How would it look to those we _have_ won over to our corner to start taking a more militant stance?

"They'd say it's about rutting time we showed some backbone!" Rainbow rebuked by shoving the hoof off before begrudgingly switching to the hive mind. _Look,_ between you and the princesses, these ponies have had twelve years to see the light. If Celestia herself can't get these ponies to see straight by now, then your kid gloves won't help either.

You know the world's more complicated than that, Twilight countered weakly. Ponies have always been slow to change. As misguided as the P.C.E. is, they still think they're doing what's best for Equestria.

Misguided is right, Rainbow snorted in distaste. Ignoring the good we're doing, ignoring the princesses, and fixating on Chrysalis' invasion as 'the only time we ever showed our true colors'? Pretty much every prisoner from the raid was saying that.

Twilight felt like she was punched in the gut. Some part of her wanted to believe her hive's actions over the years had at least put some inkling of doubt in even the worst members of the P.C.E. They all said that? They had to have at least some doubt, right?

Wrong, Rainbow stated firmly, making Twilight wilt. Face it, sis, you can't handle these guys like everypony else. They don't think within your tight and compact rationality. They think it's _rational_ to get rid of us! They've done enough mental gymnastics to paint themselves as the good guys! Rainbow gave Twilight a smirk somewhere between sarcastic and revulsion.

Twilight admitted to herself that she hadn't listened in on the prisoner questionings. Rainbow's words struck a chord with what she really hoped wasn't true about the P.C.E. mindset. "Just-just give me a moment, please, I need to think." Twilight shuffled over to the couch, her eyes unseeing as she mulled over some additional information Rainbow shared with her covering the interrogations. Knowing how her sister could get, Rainbow Dash decided to leave her sister to her thoughts.

As much as she loved the idea of provoking the most reviled of enemies, a position Rainbow originally assumed only Chrysalis would ever occupy, her honed military mind knew she had to plan carefully. _That's assuming Twilight does continue to try and do it all herself again._

Rainbow stepped away from Twilight to speak with Lyra. The unicorn's worried yet hopeful face belied the fear of rejection. "Yo, Lyra, let me just get this straight, for the record." Lyra nodded quickly while Blitz intently watched on since she had been out of the loop during her queens' argument. "You're seriously hard core on getting hands and two legs back, knowing full well that there's more to being a changeling than getting wings and wall walking right?"

Seeing her chance, Lyra put on a brave face, only glancing at Bon Bon for a brief moment for her approval. "I am. I've talked with a whole bunch of your drones over the years. I know I'll most likely have to be connected to the hive mind, and be rather dependent on it."

Rainbow Dash looked back at her sister who started half listening. "You will, yes. My sister and I have a reputation to maintain, and while you may be an old friend of Twilight's, that doesn't give you a free pass to start acting like a fool."

Lyra nodded, having already long since accepted that condition. "There's the compulsive loyalty that goes with it, cause I guess there's no chance of me being a queen is there?"

Rainbow's thoughts darkened, but kept her outward expression neutral. "Do you want to be a queen?"

"Pah, Lyra's already a drama queen," Bon Bon joked in a poor attempt to lighten the room. While Rainbow let the corner of her lips turn up, it was Lyra's exasperated 'stop it' face that made her cringe. "Well, I mean… I'll be quiet now."

"Anyway," Lyra started again, "no I don't." She couldn't help but to sweat under Rainbow's scrutiny, knowing full well the queen was probing her with her empathy. "I'm sure you two find it rewarding, but I really want to avoid having foals.. or nymphs in that case."

 _Good. If that's what she wanted I'd give her the door, pissing off the P.C.E. or not._

When Rainbow didn't show any disapproval, Lyra felt her hopes rising. "And then there's the compulsive loyalty every drone has," she counted off out of a very old habit with her hooves. "But everypony knows you guys are in tight with the princesses, so it's not like you'd ever betray Equestria. Well, everypony with half a brain knows that anyway," she added with a short lived chuckle. "Plus there's the love feeding, and where a female drone makes wax, and then-." Lyra paused when Rainbow Dash gave a mildly bewildered look. She couldn't help but to fume a little. "Hey, I did my homework here, I _know_ what I'm asking for here."

"It's true," Bon Bon added in as she stepped up to be beside her long-time friend. "I made her wait and think on it for the past two years to make sure she wasn't being impulsive."

Twilight cut her musings short after hearing Bon Bon. "Really?" She turned to Lyra. "Even with Rainbow's idea sounding better the more I think about it, I was still going to say no. You always jumped at things and forgot about the details too easily, Lyra."

"Well not this time!" Lyra flared with surging hope. "I admit Bonny here," she wrapped the earth mare into a squeezing side hug, "made me really do some research on it, but even with all the other stuff, I still want to go through with it."

Twilight mulled over the idea some more while meeting her sister's gaze. A conversation passed between them that needed no words, not even the hive mind. It lasted barely a minute before Twilight eventually faced the thus far silent proto-queen. "Blitz, since Lyra is a musician, I think it would be best if she was reborn under you."

"So you're really going along with this?" Blitz had to ask. Her eyes danced between her two queens before throwing her hands up in surrender. "Alright, sure, but you gotta be willing to work outside of music," Blitz directed at Lyra in some hope that she could persuade the unicorn away from this plan of action. "You can do what you want in your free time, but we don't operate like ponies. You'll be free for about a year or so, but after that Aegis and I will be starting to build our hive. I won't be able to spare anypony to take up a career in music until Tradewinds is on it's hooves. Are you sure that's what you want?"

 _I half hoped I'd be allowed to keep living in Ponyville, or at least Phoenix's Roost where I could still focus on music…_ Lyra forced her ears to stay upright, refusing to let the changelings catch even a whiff of doubt. "If that's what it takes to stay in this work and get my hands back, then I accept!"

Sensing that one of the changelings might use some other means to dissuade her from her course, Lyra summoned a rolled letter, her trump card. "And before you say it, I already got signatures of endorsement from both Princess Celestia and Princess Luna!"

Everyone, even Bon Bon was startled by the revelation. "When did you do that!?"

As Twilight unfurled the letter to read, with Rainbow Dash hovering over her shoulder, Lyra gave Bon Bon a smirked with half-lidded eyes. "Just a little extra insurance, you're the one who gave me two years to think on it and build a case."

Bon Bon pulled in to hiss into Lyra's ear. _"And you never thought to tell me you were bothering the princesses about this!? Why didn't they tell Twilight or Rainbow?"_

Lyra rebuffed her friend's exasperated frown with a playful grin. "I asked them not to, and that I wanted the reveal to wait until your two-year waiting period was up."

Yup, that's their hornwriting alright, Twilight said to Rainbow with an impressed tone. Luna even left a little bit of her magic attached to the letters.

I _thought_ something was up when Luna kept snickering like she had pulled a prank a few weeks ago, but nothing ever came of it. Rainbow Dash took the letter as the final straw needed to put her plan into motion. She looked to her daughter and Lyra. "Alright, we'll do it, _but,_ " she warned before Lyra could jump for joy, "are you willing to play this up to the media and likely become a target of the P.C.E?"

Even with the warning, and Bon Bon's surge of worry to the point where she huddled near her partner, Lyra didn't wilt from her manic grin and swishing tail. "You're going to use that to give them a good thrashing right? Payback for the _Deception_ and all that."

"That's right," Twilight reluctantly confirmed even though the plan made her nearly sick with worry. I don't like this since most of our military's going south to fight Polybia.

Then it'll be the perfect time for our friends in the Equestrian military to demonstrate the same loyalty we've shown them. Plus, it might even make the P.C.E. bold enough to do something stupid, Rainbow countered before giving Lyra a firm nod. Big time.

* * *

It was a dark and stormy night, as planned. The Harthworth Estate's normally cheery atmosphere of carefully manicured rose bushes and trees cut into various animal shapes was subdued by a brooding depression that Stopwatch and Pear Butter could feel even without their innate empathy.

A small number of carriages were trotting around the long circular courtyard where servants waited with umbrellas to whisk their high society guests in and out of the rain. From their hiding place in one such carriage across the street, the two mares cradled the sleeping nymph who was being kept that way by a spell.

"Even the lights of the front porch feel moody," Pear mused aloud as she turned away from the scene after closing the carriage's curtains. The downpour made it difficult to hear the coming and going of ponies thanks to the distinct noise the rain made on the roof.

"Then we'll give them the perfect gift to brighten their day," Stopwatch replied mechanically.

With her deeper connection to her queen, Stopwatch pulled the necessary information she needed to fulfill her goal. Taking the pendent Polybia had given the quasi, she formed a unicorn mare disguise with a deep red coat and black mane and tail. "You're originally a pony, how does this look for the princess' disguise?"

Pear Butter cringed at the sight of it. "You've been spending more time among ponies than me, why can't you make the guess?"

"Because I only deal with adults," Stopwatch snarked with a superior tone. "We have to make the child look appealing to increase our chances."

"Ah see…" Pear Butter gave the changeling a once over before shaking her head. "Ah don't like it, but Ah've always been a fan of purplish blue fur on fillies. Just makes them so cute," she mused aloud, giving herself an all too brief escape from her trapped reality.

"You remember that much?" Stopwatch asked as she cycled through various shades of color until Pear waved for her to stop at a dark shade of purplish blue.

"Well, not directly, no, but Ah remember seeing this one mare yesterday that had a fur color Ah'd die to have." Stopwatch gave her a sour look, making Pear's ears wilt. "Well, if Ah had a foal, Ah'd love that color all the same."

'Hmfph, fair enough. Now, what about a mane?"

"Ahh…" Pear started at Stopwatch, trying to think of a good combination. "Maybe navy blue? Solid color."

Stopwatch adapted her disguise to match and tweaked it until Pear Butter was satisfied. "There, that should do."

Pear Butter watched in fascination as Stopwatch held the pendent close to her chest with her horn glowing faintly. Her disguise seemed to liquefy and poured into the bright ruby within the pendent. Stopwatch's chitin started to show through as the watery magic dripped off of her only to be soaked up to the very last drop by the now glowing ruby.

She waited a minute or two for the glow to shift from the dark purplish-blue of the fur to the standard acidic green of typical changeling magic. "There, now it's ready for her." Stopwatch gently placed the golden chain around the nymph and pressed the jewel onto the base of the princess' horn. Both jewel and horn glowed together before the liquid magic burst forth again to completely cover the child. "Alright then, with the queen's modifications, not even the archmage or Twilight Sparkle herself could sense this disguise, let alone defeat it."

"What about a cutie mark?" Pear asked as she subconsciously rubbed her flanks. "How will she get one if she's a changeling?"

"Simple, the spell is designed to wait until early adolescence and takes what she subconsciously desires or is passionate about and pull a relevant image from her memory."

"But…" Pear Butter was crestfallen and looked at the poor nymph with pity. "It won't be real."

Stopwatch stopped working the final steps on the permanent enchantment to give her quasi companion a flat, almost annoyed face. "No, but otherwise she'd, at best, live her pony life as a blank flank, or worst, be discovered and killed."

"Right…" Pear Butter decided to push the possible future out of her mind and refocused on the estate. By now, all of the guests had arrived and there were no guards or servants keeping watch outside. The only thing standing between them and the door was a large gold painted gate and the hammering rain that made detection unlikely.

Pear Butter idly watched lightning crackle above, and took a simple pleasure in the sound of heavy rain. There was a strong whiff of natural scents about it that sang to an old memory that she desperately tried to bring to the surface. Any part of her old life was precious, and she knew that the more she remembered, the more independent her will became. _Ah was able to bend the rules Po-Po- mah queen,_ try as she might, Pear was having difficulty thinking of Polybia as anyone other than _her_ queen. She _put down, Ah just need to break free enough to try and rescue Paint Brush from it next._

"Keep watch," Stopwatch announced just loud enough to startle Pear Butter. She wanted to pout at the drone, but Stopwatch had already wrapped the nymph up in cloth along with her pendent. The drone slipped outside after disguising herself as a pegasus stallion.

Pear Butter watched on as Stopwatch crept forward and bounded over the gate with a few flaps. She raced over to the front door, and checked the windows to see how close any servants were to the front doors. Stopwatch waited under the dense downpour waiting for a passing servant to walk towards the next room. At that moment she canceled the sleep spell on the disguised nymph and gently laid her down on, of all things, a welcome mat. Enchanting her hoof, Stopwatch proceeded to bang on the door so loudly Pear could hear it over the rain.

Cold and hungry, the princess started wailing and thrashing around as Stopwatch raced off to hide in a bush. It wasn't long before the pegasus maid responded to the noise and opened the door. She stepped back in astonishment at the foal she found on the ground, and scanned the front courtyard for the parents, and upon seeing none, she scooped the princess up in a wing before sequestering her inside.

Stopwatch waited almost half an hour for anyone inside to lose interest in watching from the windows to sneak her way back into the carriage. "There, now we wait to see if the child is kept or sent to an orphanage."

Pear Butter gave her superior a towel and watched the estate as she had been. "Let's hope it works out. It'd be suspicious if we had to hypnotize a family to adopt her from the orphanage."

Stopwatch lifted the front seat up and withdrew a small basket with cucumber sandwiches. "True, but if it comes down to it, we need to find a home for her, one way or another."

She gave Pear Butter her half of the meal while falling into silence as she ate.

There they waited.

And waited.

And waited some more.

Eventually the rain briefly lessened enough so that the tolling bells announcing the late hour from deeper in the city could be heard. The road was barely visible, save for the spots of yellow light cast from the streetlamps. Their usually bright candles, dampened by the wind and rain, truly only served to illuminate themselves. Through it all, the guests at the Harthworth Estate had not left yet, and the window lights flickered in the distance.

"Well no pony's gone out to take the princess to the orphanage, or kicked her back onto the curb, so that's a good sign, right?" Pear Butter looked to Stopwatch only to find her asleep on the seat. Pear slumped in her seat, more out of exhaustion and boredom than anything else.

Pear wanted to rest too, but she felt the geas compelling her to stay awake, to make sure the princess was secure. _Stupid spell. It's strong enough to make me do stuff, but too weak to make me like it._

She felt as if it was almost time for the bells to resound again when at long last, the front doors opened to let the first of the guests depart. Pear quickly sat upright and tried to identify what was going on, but her night vision was as poor as most ponies. So she jostled Stopwatch with a hoof, making the love collector awake with a jump-start. "The guests're leav'n. I reckon the new mother will be hold'n the baby." Stopwatch pulled herself up to watch. "That's what Ah'd do if Ah were her."

"Most likely," was all Stopwatch said in return. It didn't take very long before a worried scowl crossed her face, making Pear fidget with concern.

"What's wrong?" She tried to peer out there, the streetlights were making her naturally poor night vision even worse.

"Could be nothing…"

"But…" Pear trailed off.

"I see the new father at the door, but he looks more like he's bowing and apologizing to the guests as they leave. The wife isn't there."

"Maybe she's asleep with the princess," Pear offered hopefully. "Ah know for a fact that new mothers will sleep with the baby, bonding and all that."

"You would know?" Stopwatch inquired with a disbelieving tone.

Pear Butter stopped trying to look out the window and slumped in her chair. "Ah don't remember their names, but Ah _know_ Ah had been a mother back before…" She scowled at her body, the act entirely missed by Stopwatch, "all this happened to me."

Stopwatch stopped paying her much attention as she continued her observations. It wasn't long before her ears fell and her wings involuntarily buzzed. "Oh no."

Chills ran down Pear's spine, even without the geas causing it. "What? What's wrong?" She tried looking out at the departing nobility, but all she could make out were grey blobs.

"One of the guests has the princess, First Mother curse them!" Stopwatch slammed a hoof on the carriage wall, growling all the while. "They didn't accept her!"

"H-how?!" Pear was floored by the news. "Did the disguise fail or something?"

"Damned if I know." Stopwatch put on a earth pony mare disguise and got ready to start pulling the carriage. "All I could see is the nymph was still covered in the blanket. We have to follow the purple stage coach. We can't let them dump the princess off the side of a cliff or give her over to an orphanage."

"They wouldn't actually do that would they?!" Pear called out as Stopwatch threw herself outside and tried to hitch herself up without being suspicious to the departing nobles. With the rain in the way, Pear was left without answers.

 _Even if she's a mind enslaving royal, that girl still deserves a chance ta' be a better person than that bi- my queen._ With nothing else she could do besides worry herself into a stupor, Pear moved to the front of the carriage to watch the princess-takers' stage coach as Stopwatch followed after them at a distance.

* * *

While Pear Butter was still quite unfamiliar with Canterlot's layout, especially during a rainy night, even she could put some of her fears at ease when she noticed the nobles' carriage was not headed for the sheer drop on the side of the city. Instead it was heading closer to the mountain.

 _Seems like they're headed deeper into the royal district._ Her mind exploded with worst-case scenarios. _What if they're going to the palace to turn her over to the alicorns!? They_ must _have discovered the princess isn't a pony!_

Stopwatch seemed to come to a similar conclusion and the carriage started to speed up, only to fall back again when the nobles turned off the main street towards some of the more aristocratic manors.

Even with her weaker empathy, Pear Butter felt confusion waft off of Stopwatch, which mirrored her own. After passing several houses, the nobles finally pulled up to one of the manors.

Stopwatch made note of it and continued pulling the carriage until they could turn a corner before unhitching herself out of sight. Pear Butter stepped outside as the drone waved her towards the manor. "Come on, we need to see what's going on."

Nodding, Pear joined Stopwatch in running through the thunderstorm. "Maybe the Harthworths were too distraught, and this family adopted her instead?"

"I can count the number of 'noble' families who would do that on one hoof, and that included the Harthworths. The other families on my list would have needed some blackmail or hypnosis to take what they'd see as a street rat. That or too dangerous to the princess."

This time, there were two well armored guards posted just inside the closed gate. However, Stopwatch didn't need to get up close to know who they were, and stopped dead in her tracks. "Oh come **on!** Why them? _Why?!_ " She stomped on the slightly flooded street, splashing enough water to draw the attention of the guards, but she didn't care anymore. "She's going to disconnect me for sure when she finds out!"

Pear Butter sheepishly waved at the distant guards and pulled her irate superior away from the brick walls to placate the guards. "What's wrong? Is the family evil or anti-changeling or something?"

Stopwatch slumped in defeat and let the quasi drag her back to the carriage in her magic. "I don't know if this is better or worse than that, but it seems that the princess was just taken in by the Sparkle family."


	63. Chapter 63

Needs More Twilight Sparkle

If there was one thing that Night Light had missed other than the smiling face of his former wife (before her descent into madness), it was the laughter of children. The Sparkle Manor's dining room rang with the woefully missed cheer that had been absent for far too long.

Night Light was perched on the edge of the long mahogany dining table with the bubbling little unicorn filly spouting baby babble and waving her hooves around trying to catch the spoonful of applesauce.

The bright sunny morning was a very welcome change, even if the angle of the sun was causing a glare that stabbed into Night Light's eyes. Yet it wasn't enough to make him move as he focused entirely on the infant. "Here comes the airship, make way at the dock!" The filly opened as wide as she could as the small spoon came closer, right before Night Light was going to give her the food, she lunged forward and snapped it up.

He was mildly startled, given that neither of his children would leap at food with such gusto. "My, you must have been hungrier than I thought."

The child only giggled and beamed brightly at the caring stallion. She tried to wiggle out of her highchair, something Night Light had kept from Twilight's childhood, in an attempt to get at the rest of the bowl of applesauce.

Clopping hooves upon the stone tile floor heralded the family butler's arrival. "Might I suggest letting the little miss have the bowl, sir. She looks about ready to gnaw the spoon."

Night Light let off a happy chuckle that only Azure Skies could ever bring out of him lately. "Perhaps you're right, Pranceston, she must have had it very rough to be so snappish towards food." As suggested, Night Light brought the bowl over to her high chair. The little filly gave a long, almost childishly evil, cackle at the bowl that was as big as her head before dunking her muzzle into the sweet fruity mush.

Pranceston's unflappable flat expression was marred by a single raised eyebrow. "The young miss is a spirited little one, isn't she?"

Night Light's fatherly instincts forged a glowing smile at how happy the filly was. "That she is."

"Have you selected a name for her yet? If you're serious about the adoption, I shall need one for the paperwork."

Night Light's answer was cut off by the approaching hoofsteps. Azure Skies looked like she had grabbed hold of a Tesla coil. Her hair was sticking up all over the place with sleepy bags still under her eyes. "Foooood."

Pranceston hummed in mild disapproval. "I shall see that the kitchen is alerted to your request." He turned to Night Light. "Your morning paper, sir."

"Thank you, Pranceston," Night Light replied before addressing the disheveled mare. "I heard you kept little Stellar Drift nearby while you worked last night." Pranceston picked up on the name on his way out, and made a mental note of it.

Azure slumped heavily in her chair and leaned against Night Light while humming affirmatively. Night gently wrapped a foreleg around her, pulling the sleepy mare in tight. "She didn't fall asleep until-" *yawn* "well after midnight. Just glad I don't have to go into the observatory today."

The middle aged mare nuzzled against Night Light while keeping one eye on the foal currently annihilating the applesauce, spilling it everywhere in the process. "I'm so proud of you, Nighty, for taking in Stellar like that. Ginger Slice's behavior was horrendous."

Night Light sighed sadly at the memory of last night. He used his magic to pull some of the applesauce off the highchair and Stellar Drift's coat and put it back in the bowl only for her to repeat the process. "You really didn't meet Ginger at her best, Azure. On any other day she's the kindest mare one can be, albeit with a mild arrogant streak, but… She gets paranoid when she drinks."

"Still though…" Azure glanced about to see none of the servants were in earshot, then leaned in conspiratorially. "Thinking changelings poisoned her unborn child and then tried to push Stellar on her as a replacement?"

Night Light had to remind himself that Azure didn't have an aristocratic upbringing, and had little reservation about speaking of such scandalous topics. _Actually, scratch that, the noblemares are worse by far. I can only imagine the scandal they'll bring up after this adoption becomes widely known._

Even so, he wasn't going to hold it against her, there were just some battles not worth fighting. "It does seem rather farfetched. While it is true that there are other queens out there, apart from Rainbow Dash and my daughter, that doesn't mean they are the source of all our ills. Besides," he added dismissively, trying to change the subject, "everypony scanned Stellar Drift with the latest disguise countermeasures posted by the Royal Guard. Cadance and Shining Armor proved to all that Stellar is just a normal little unicorn."

"I thought I felt my ears burning," a gruff voice called out from the dining room's open entrance. All eyes turned to Prince Shining Armor who had a small tray with a steaming coffee pitcher and a few cups. Azure Skies licked her lips at the tantalizing aroma of Neigher's Coffee. Shining walked over slowly with a confident swagger.

Stellar Drift looked up from her bowl, face completely covered in applesauce, and spouted happy baby babble while fidgeting in her restrictive chair, trying to get to Shining Armor. Night Light eased Azure back into her chair before getting up for a hug. "Good morning, my boy, how's your better half? She's usually up before you are." he asked teasingly with a wink.

Shining Armor had the biggest grin on his face, and wasn't fazed in the slightest as he put the platter down and gave his father a massive hug. "She's feeling a little under the weather at the moment," he replied with a sudden down turn in his expression, though Night knew his son well enough that the frown was forced. "And is probably cursing my name at the moment."

Stellar Drift had not left Shining's field of view, and the little filly was starting to rock the chair trying to free herself, shouting all the while. Brotherly instincts jumped to the forefront, allowing Shining to bypass his father's confused grimace. Shining freed the excited filly from her chair with his magic and brought her over for a hug. "You making sure that applesauce knows who's boss?"

The filly peeled off a girlish squeal fumbling in the air until Shining gently placed the messy filly on his back. Years of watching over Twilight and the filly's clingy nature made it easy for him to take the spreading mess of applesauce across his back with little more than an amused snort.

Night Light wasn't going to let his son's last comment go by unanswered and flashed a disapproving frown. "I didn't see Cadance drinking last night, so why is she sick?"

"Let alone cursing your name?" Azure Skies added.

 **"YOU!"** Shining's reply was cut short by Cadance leaning against the doorway. "I'll get you for this!" Night Light and Azure Skies took an involuntary step back from the irate alicorn. The ill mare raced forward and grabbed her husband by the neck, nearly causing Stellar to lose her grip, and planted a massive kiss on him. "I can't believe you made me wait so long!"

Night Light was at a loss, but Azure Skies recognized the twinkle in Cadance's eye. "Wait... are you? _Really!?_ "

Cadance let her husband go, if only to make sure Stellar didn't fall off. "Yup, just tested myself this morning!" Cadance picked up Stellar Drift in her magic and spun in circles. "You're going to have a niece or nephew!"

Applesauce started flying everywhere as Stellar giggled madly at all the attention. Night Light originally thought the news of a pony grandson or granddaughter might have been deadened by the sheer number of changeling grandchildren. He silently thanked Celestia he wasn't so jaded yet. With a deep belly laugh, he clapped Shining Armor on the back. "Congratulations to both of you! Don't hesitate to ask for any advice, Celestia knows your sister never bothers to ask," he added with a harmless grunt.

Cadance imagined Stellar as her future foal and squashed the little unicorn in a big hug to which the child eagerly reciprocated. "Thanks, Nighty. Knowing him," she said tilting her head at Shining, "we'll need all the help we can get."

"Psh," Shining huffed dismissively. "I'm an awesome big brother, and going to be an awesome father, just you wait. Besiiides, we've got a castle full of staff to help out, we'll be fine."

"Passing the buck as usual I see," Pranceston drolled from behind a food cart laden with breakfast dishes. He wheeled the cart over to the table with the ever present professional air about him. "It's a wonder you ever made it into the Guard, let alone it's captain." Shining rolled his eyes as the butler turned to Cadance. "You have my congratulations, princess. Couldn't have happened to a nicer mare."

"Thank you, Pranceston," Cadance replied with a playful smirk directed at her husband. She grabbed a wet washcloth off the side of the cart with her magic and sat down to start liberating the apple sauce off of Stellar Drift.

Azure Skies levitated a cup of coffee and a scone before sitting down next to Cadance and Stellar. Cadance had to fumble with the towel as Stellar kept trying to run away to play. "You mind if I help, princess? She can be a hoofful."

"Yes, thank you." Cadance couldn't help but to smile at how much the astronomer was trying to learn the ropes. _She really must be more serious about Nighty than I thought._

As for the stallions, Shining armor took a seat near his wife while gathering some food as his father did the same. Pranceston ducked under the food cart and rummaged around. Night Light pulled his eyes off of the giddy filly when his butler brought over a yellow trimmed piece of paper. "Sir, it seems the Canterlot Times has just sent out a breaking news insert for today's paper, with a rather interesting article."

"Really? They usually don't do that unless it's something big." Night Light latched onto the news insert while nibbling on some toast. Shining Armor scooted over to read over him. Night started reading aloud for the mares' benefit.

Even with the morning coffee only barely starting to jump start her brain, Azure was intrigued by such a rare thing as news that couldn't wait for tomorrow's paper. She listened in while finishing up Stellar's grooming with Cadance. "Breaking news from Phoenix's Roost. Pony volunteers to be reborn as a changeling, and her request is… accepted?" Night had to admit he was rather stunned by that.

"I thought Twilight said she didn't want to do rebirths," Shining Armor commented in between sips of coffee and bites of a bagel.

"I thought so too," Night replied as he took a seat to keep reading. Both mares let Stellar Drift play around the room with Twilight's old toys as they joined Night Light in reading the article. "Ever since the Equestrian Alliance was established, the stance of the two changeling queens has been to deny all requests for rebirth, citing personal reasons. However this newspaper has just received confirmation that this 'closed door' policy has changed. There is currently no statement regarding the reasons for this sudden change in policy which has reporters clamoring for answers. At present, both Proto-Queen Blitz and the pony volunteer, by the name of Lyra Heartstrings, will be holding a limited press conference tomorrow evening at Canterlot Castle. No official statement has been given by the princesses, except for the fact that they approved of Lyra Heartstring's request before she ever approached the queens on the matter. No date as to when the rebirth process will begin has been given."

Azure Skies scratched her head trying to make sense of it all. "I was wondering when they were going to cave in and start doing that, odd timing though."

"Very odd," Night agreed. He sighed while continuing to read silently. "I _was_ planning on telling Twily about Stellar Drift but if this little stunt is what I think it is…"

"Might be best to hold off for a while?" Shining Armor asked already suspecting the answer. "With both her and Rainbow Dash going off to confront that rogue queen, Stellar might be too distracting."

"That might be for the best," Cadance concurred reluctantly. As much as the sisterly instinct told her otherwise, it was Cadance's leadership experience that made her agree. "We'll tell her after she returns. But this rebirth stunt seems rather dangerous doesn't it?"

"This has Rainbow Dash written all over it," Shining Armor huffed as he downed the last of his coffee. "I better go tell the Guard to add more security around the house. Just in case they try to get to Twily through us."

"Better add some escorts to Rainbow's parents as well," Cadance suggested while trying to find out where Stellar Drift ran off to. A quiet filly is a destructive filly. _At least until she's old enough to read._

"You don't really think that's necessary do you?" Azure Skies asked worriedly. She shrank a bit at the stern visage Shining wore. "I mean, they only dislike changelings right? They've never bothered us before, right?"

Shining Armor painfully recalled that first day when Twilight returned to her pony family after her rebirth, and shook his head. "Maybe not, but they never attacked the Equestrian Navy before either. It pays to be prepared."

* * *

Arkmane Asylum was a cold metallic complex carved onto the side of an unnamed mountain far to the northeastern territory of Equestria. It clung to the snow swept mountainside like an iron blister. Howling wind blew ice crystals all along the walkway leading away from the open air train station. An aging grecian sphinx padded along with a thick furred jacket wrapped around him. An earth pony physician cantered along side him, ever wary of being swept off his hooves and cast down the side of the frozen mountain. He too wore a furry jacket covering every inch of him as he guided the sphinx to a metal door at the far end of the walk way. Against the strong wind, a whistle pierced the late evening sky as the train departed for warmer climes.

The pair reached the sealed door that lacked any obvious means of opening it. The earth pony waved an unwieldy enchanted wand half the size of his foreleg over where the door handle would be. A loud hiss and heavy clank of screeching metal made the door seem to pop off its frame, allowing the pony to push the door open and admit himself and the sphinx tom inside before closing it behind them. They found themselves in a small receiving room that doubled as a security checkpoint with a one way mirror along one side..

With the warmer air of the facility being pumped into the receiving room, the earth stallion pulled his mask off and used his mouth to rummage in a front pocket. From there, he produce a large identity slate and held it up to the mirror for a few moments as the security guard within check it.

"Not many places are so cold in the Federation, Doctor..." the sphinx announced idly.

"Clear Mind," the stallion answered through chattering teeth. The click of the interior door allowed the earth pony to return his slate to his pocket. "Don't worry, Doctor Arvatus, it's much warmer inside."

The rush of hot air confirmed this as both new arrivals shed their warm clothing, except for their white doctor's coats.

The hallway was quite short, but had many sliding panels that Arvatus assumed concealed security barriers. "I'm sure I could do a lot of good here, but I cannot leave my patients back in Phoenix's Roost for very long. So many of them still require weekly or monthly sessions."

Clear Mind nodded sympathetically. "I fully understand. It's difficult to leave good patients in the care of another, even if you know the other physician is competent."

The pair cleared the hallway, only to make a detour to a door on the left instead of going straight. Within, Arvatus found several wooden lockers and flickering lamp lights. Clear Mind turned the fuel up on a few of them so they could see. He guided Arvatus towards a locker on the far left side. "Here we have your identity slate, please don't lose it, and a key to your new office; two oh eight in the C wing."

"Office?" Arvatus asked in surprise as he gathered the two items from the otherwise empty locker. "But I am only here for one patient, or do we hold therapy sessions in the office as well?"

Clear Mind chuckled briefly. "It's not recommended, doctor, the offices are for your privacy and paperwork. As gracious as our accommodations are around here, we don't get as many physicians as we would like, so we have plenty of office space available."

"I see." Arvatus placed his cold weather coat, hat, mask, and tail protector inside a locker while taking the key and identity slate. "How is the patient anyway? Has she been allowed to remain aware of world events?"

"She is currently in her cell up in B wing. Patient 2409-B is a low flight risk so long as her magic is dampened. As for world events, we felt that allowing her access to her favorite newspaper would assist in alleviating her paranoia, so she's probably reading that as we speak. As per Doctor Kevorkian's original orders, we've allowed her access to uncensored news to keep her condition from deteriorating any further. However…"

Arvatus adjusted his doctor's coat to be more comfortable, but it didn't take him long to realize Clear Mind was hesitant to continue. "Has the patient gotten worse?"

"Yes and no." Clear Mind shook his head as he spoke in a defeated tone. "2409-B has well… You'll see in her file and in person."

* * *

An hour later, Arvatus stood before cell number 2409-B. The hallway had a frigid feel to it seemingly at odds with the warm air. The cold tile flooring wasn't doing Arvatus any favors and the small barred windows to the outside were completely whited out with snow. Had the facility been a resort, Arvatus had no doubt it'd be a successful one. _Clear Mind told me the individual rooms have a heat vent. I hope he wasn't exaggerating._

He gave the patient file one last review before placing it in the slot next to the door. _At least the staff told the patient I was coming._

Steeling himself with practiced resolve, Arvatus unlocked the door and pocketed the key before stepping inside. "Miss Twilight Velvet?"

As the file had outlined, Velvet occupied a padded room that was completely covered in torn out newspaper clippings. Arvatus already knew each and every one of them were about Phoenix's Roost and Twilight Sparkle in particular. Each one had a string held up by glue connected to the vast collection in a twisted mess that Arcatus was sure that not even Velvet could follow anymore. _They let her have string? Either it's easily breakable, or she must not be a flight or fight risk… I hope._

Arvatus heaved a quiet sigh of relief that the rooms temperature was quite conformable, but the same could not be said for the mare hunched over her bed. Velvet was tearing out another article with a small brush coated with glue waiting near by.

Velvet had not reacted to the door opening, and continued muttering just shy of being audible to the aging sphinx. However, she turned her head at the unfamiliar voice when Arvatus repeated his greeting. The act revealed her deeply suspicious half-crazed eyes and deep tear troughs below her eyes. Her mane was a ragged mess and her coat disheveled, but the absence of body odor convinced Arvatus that her physical state was not due to negligence by the staff. "Who are you supposed to be?" she croaked in a dry raspy voice as she eyed his white coat. "Another shrink telling me I'm twisted and sick, hmm, hmm? Not my fault none of you can see the evidence when it's smacking you in the face."

Not wanting to let all the hot air out, and seeing she wasn't overly hostile, Arvatus fully entered the room and closed the door behind him. "I am Doctor Arvatus, formerly of the Federation."

Arvatus remembered bittersweet tales involving Velvet Sparkle from some of the older drones back at the hive. This was not the proud aristocrat, nor was she the deranged criminal mastermind some of them had made her out to be. _Still, she's not the worst I've seen._

"So, Doctor Arvatus, why don't you just skip the charade for once and just tell me you're really a changeling here to replace me? All this talk and sitting around is a waste of my time." As if that were the end of it, Velvet returned to her newspaper clippings.

"Please, Miss Velvet, I am simply here to help you through your situation," Arvatus admitted freely. "However, it is my personal code that I only assist those willing to accept my help in regards to my… unique talents."

"Ha!" Velvet exclaimed without facing him. "Unique talents indeed. How can they be so unique if all you changelings are alike, hmm? Hypnosis, body snatching-" In a flash of violence that caught the old hunter off guard, Velvet burst from her bed and nearly impaled Arvatus' chest with the point of her horn. "And dying!" The only thing that kept him alive was the blue shield that was wrapped around Velvet's horn, stopping her in her tracks and canceling out any magic flow. "But I suppose you can't even do that right." It was only now that Arvatus saw a pair of blue glowing crystals on the ceiling undoubtedly responsible for why he wasn't skewered on her horn at the moment.

 _Scratch that, definitely a fight risk. She's right on par with the average Federal when they find out I'm a psyker._ Leveraging his decades of experience with the unstable, Arvatus stood his ground and spoke peacefully. _I truly hope that string snaps easily._ "Miss Velvet, if I was truly here to harm you, don't you think it would have been easy with the restraints active?"

Velvet pulled away from him which caused the barrier to dissipate. "I don't know what your game is, changeling, but rest assured I will fight you and that imposter daughter to my dying breath!"

Seeing that normal tactics were getting him nowhere fast, Arvatus switched gears to a technique he used often against anti-psyker zealots. He pulled out a small runestone, no bigger than his thumb and caused it to brighten with psionic energy. "What if I told you, I represent the P.C.E. and have come to extract you from this prison," he lied smoothly through his teeth. "This stone will keep our talks private."

Velvet sized the doctor up and down. _He's big, too big for an average changeling disguise. Special breed maybe? Some news reports said sphinxes hate mind bullet throwers, and changelings are a whole race of them._ "You're a P.C.E. agent? Yessss…." She waggled her hoof out of barely contained glee. "That makes more sense. Why would a sphinx side with those changelings, you hate their kind, that's what I've seen...

"Wait! How do I know you're truly with the P.C.E?" Velvet inquired with resurging suspicion. "That voice fritzer could have come from anywhere! If you're not a changeling, then bring me lemon juice."

"Lemon juice?" Arvatus asked with carefully veiled confusion.

"Yes! of course, lemon juice!" Velvet screeched angrily. "I've seen it with Clear Mind and that quack Doctor Kevorkian. They broke out in hives and swelling, just like all changelings must!" Velvet cackled at the memory, and fiddled with an empty cup that smelled of citrus. "The rest of the imposters always cower when I throw the juice at them, they fear it, they don't let me have lemons anymore, mongrels. Bring me some of the pure stuff, not that swill from the cafeteria. I want to test to make sure it's real lemons before you rub it on your face. You pass the test, and then I believe you!"

"Very well." Arvatus let the runestone go dark. "I will return shortly, Velvet Sparkle."

"You best! More time means more chances of discovery!" Fearing imagined eyes behind the walls, Velvet went back to continue covering them with news reports.

Out in the hallway, Arvatus put as much distance between him and Velvet's cell as quickly as possible. _Insane sphinxes I understand, but lemon juice? Really? These ponies are a different breed to be sure. Either way, if I can just gain enough trust, hopefully I can peel away the logic fallacies in her mind, and let her see the truth with unclouded eyes. This is the least I can do for Queen Twilight Sparkle for all she's done to save my kin._

* * *

Lyra Heartstrings busted through her bedroom door and flopped on her bed with a tired laugh. Her bedroom in Ponyville was mostly in order with only a scant few items out of place. A few dresses here, a sock on the lampshade over there, and a music stand was toppled over by the bed.

Lyra kicked her legs up in exaltation that her plan worked, causing heavy shadows to fall on the two others walking through the doorway. "Hands! Bon Bon, I finally get my hands back! Woo Hoo!"

Bon Bon let off a dismissive huff at the expected eccentric behavior. Intel followed after her, taking in the room, it was always a new and exciting experience for Intel since she fully believed the owner's personalities were reflected in their domiciles. _Messy, but charming. Just like Lyra. I might have to get momma to start looking into expanded personal living space after things settle down around the jungle. I'd love to have a place this big._

"I'm happy for you Lyra," Bon Bon said, masking her pang of worry for her friend's impending rebirth and memory loss. "But you've been repeating that ever since we left Canterlot."

"Hey," Lyra half shouted at her friend while rolling over to her belly. "I know that tone. Don't worry, Bonny, I won't forget you after all this. A year's worth of memory is all I need."

Intel turned away from a fresco painting of Ponyville to give the musician a disbelieving frown. "How do you figure that? It takes a lifetime of memories to make you who you are."

"Yeah, true," Lyra conceded as she got up to canter over to her closet. "But nopony remembers every second of their lives right? All I gotta do is record all the important stuff, like our friendship, why I wanted to be reborn in the first place, my music lessons, and my life from beyond the mirror."

Intel had no real idea in what context a year's worth of memories worked since she had never been reborn, and decided to not speak of it. "So why did you drag us back down to Ponyville anyway? The press conference is going to be held at Canterlot Castle."

"To start packing of course!" Lyra replied as if it was obvious. "There are two things I want to do here before we head back. First off, I need memorabilia to remember as much a equinely possible, 'cause as they say, touch and smell are strongly linked to memory. Plus, the sooner I get ready, the sooner I can get those delicious hands."

Bon Bon looked at Intel and shared a shrug. "Fair enough. Just pick out what you think will help and I'll box them up and ship them to PR for you."

"Good idea," Intel nodded as she joined Lyra by the walk-in closet as the unicorn lit the room with a horn-light. The closet was almost a separate room in and of itself, an addition Lyra 'had to have' when she first moved into town. Now however, only the hanging dresses were in any semblance of order while the floor and shelves were crammed with boxes and loose junk. Thanks to her telekinesis, Lyra never had to actually walk very far in. "...We have to be on the evening train back to Canterlot if we want to be rested up for the conference." While Intel liked to think she avoided her mother's OCD, the sheer pigsty on the floor and shelves forced her to back away. Thankfully, a question bubbled up to distract her. "So what is the second thing that you needed to drag me down here for?"

Totally oblivious to Intel's repulsed reaction, Lyra started to pull out all kinds of odd and ends from her closet after pushing the dresses aside. The items were mostly loose memorabilia from her concert tours along with boxes of assorted junk. "The Lyra of this world suggested that we bring special stuff from each of our worlds and take them through the mirror. My father was a hippie, but he was always drawing, what I know now, were structural engineering blueprints. I figured that there would be some stuff in there that you technophiles could use."

While Intel's focus was militaristic, she recognized the value. "Interesting. Even if we can't use any of it, I know mother would love to study the architecture of another world."

Lyra already knew that, but was glad to hear confirmation. "Cool beans. The other big thing I'm looking for is my old photo album from my life in Canterlot. It's got to be in here sooomewhere." She scowled at the prospect of her prize being buried in the dense clutter.

Bon Bon ducked under a flying pair of socks and a rubber duck as the unicorn haphazardly tossed the junk out of the closet. "I told you you should have cleaned this out years ago."

"I know, I know. I just never got around to it. It'd be my luck that the album and books are in the back where all the moving boxes are."

Intel caught most of the flying junk with her magic before they could knock over any lamps or other breakable things. "I can understand the books being in storage," _for ponies that don't love them,_ "but if the album is so important to you, why didn't you keep it somewhere more accessible?"

Lyra stuck her head out of the closet and pointed at a thick book on top of her wooden dresser. "I have a different photo album of my life after moving to Ponyville. Please make sure to pack that for me, Bonny."

"Of course, Lyra." Bon Bon took the album and placed it on the bed which she was treating as Lyra's 'take it with you' pile. Yet before returning to the closet she hesitated and started looking through all the memories her friend captured on film. Pictures of Bon Bon's confectionary store, photos of various friends, and some sneak pictures of Bon Bon herself that made her snicker. _She's such a scoundrel. I don't care what it takes, I have to make sure she remembers as much as possible._

The onslaught of flying clothing and junk from the closet went unabated for almost half an hour until Lyra finally pulled out a big unlabeled cardboard box. "Oh my gosh, Bonny, I think this came from Canterlot! See? It even has the little doodle of my cutie mark on the side." She gasped excitedly. "This is it! I _knew_ I brought the books with me!"

 _She wasn't sure? I wonder if momma knows who exactly we're bringing into the family._ Intel huffed from amongst a knee-high pile of clothing and refuse and extracted herself so she could witness the box opening. "You didn't unpack everything?"

"Duh, I'm a musician, not an engineer," Lyra replied with harmless teasing. "What would I do with architecture drawings?"

"Point taken."

Dust and stale air popped out of the box as Lyra opened it, making everyone go into a short-lived coughing fit. Lyra and Intel used their magic to blow the dust away. "No. Way! It's my old backpack!"

Lyra pulled out a bright green school bag that rattled with an attached keychain. Her mood and heart sunk as a strong moldy smell erupted from within. The backpack was in tatters with holes chewed through several parts of it. "Wha- what happened?!"

Bon Bon examined the holes with untrained eyes. "Looks like a Munch Moth or something. Did you clean it out before packing?"

"I thought I did… maybe." Lyra's eyes misted over as she gave it a hug and stroking it gently. "There there, I'll get somepony to fix you up, I promise." She gave it to Intel with care. "I think Rarity's Carousel Floatique is in Trottingham right now, but I bet someone in PR can fix it right?"

Bon Bon and Intel gave it some weird looks as Intel rotated it in her magic. "It looks bad, but I'm sure we can do something for it."

Lyra breathed a sigh of relief, much to Bon Bon's amusement at her friend's antics. _Honestly, she can be so sentimental, but I love her for it._

Lyra began sifting through notebooks, pencils, a trapperkeeper, and a few other items, all to locate the engineering drafting papers. However, she paused at the trapperkeeper for a moment after seeing the mirror world's version of a unicorn printed on it. "Hey Bonny, check out how weird my old world's unicorns were."

Bon Bon snickered at the absurdly long face, while Intel scoffed at the silliness of it. Not wanting to suffer boredom, Intel returned her attention to the bookbag once Bon Bon placed the trapperkeeper on the bed. Intel examined the whole bag, finding little of interest, except for the jingling keychain offering a glimpse into the mirror world's culture. Most of the objects on the keyring were tiny cats, dolls who had long since lost most of their fake hair, plastic covered slips of paper with inspirational phrases Intel couldn't read, and a single long metal object that starkly stood out among the rest. She was about to dismiss the bag and toss it on the bed, but the long metal object stuck out to her on how alien it looked compared to the rest of the keyring.

It was the heaviest thing on the ring with a flat circle on one end that tapered off in what looked like a narrow brass cone. The wide cylinder part was pierced so the keyring could hold it. The strange item was longer than her hoof and she could see lettering on the flat circle.

"Nooo!" Lyra cried as she pulled up ruined blue paper that flaked off from her magical grip. "It's ruined! All my daddy's drawings!"

Bon Bon fanned her hoof over her nose. _Well that explains the smell._ "Sorry Lyra, I think the mold monster from two years ago must have had a few spores left."

"But - but - daddy loved those, I thought being in an out-of-the-way box like this would protect them from all the crazy that happens in this town!"

Intel examined the bottom of the box's exterior and saw a big discolored spot that was starting to spread onto the carpet. "Move out of the way, We have to kill the fungus now before that thing reforms."

The two ponies backed away as Intel took her powder horn and poured some black powder on the patch of mold. She weaved a hard shield shield dome over the mold and sparked the gunpowder, letting it burn through the mold and into the box. "Somepony get a few buckets of water. The last thing we need is a house fire."

"I'll go get it," Bon Bon announced as she rushed from the bedroom.

Intel looked to Lyra who was crying as the flames licked at the bottom of the box. Her sympathies went out to her. "It looks like the mold only damaged the paper instead of infesting it, since it didn't have much access to oxygen. We'll need to call in a pest pony just to make sure nothing's infesting the inner walls."

Lyra wiped her tears away, but more soon replaced them. "O - okay." _This is horrible! First daddy's drawings are ruined and now I can't pay for my hands._

With the fungus destroyed, along with a big chunk of the carpet, Bon Bon returned with a water bucket. Lyra insisted that she put the fire out on her own while Bon Bon fetched some cleaning supplies. Intel eased up with the danger passed, and wanted to brighten the mood, if only with a minor distraction.. _Lyra didn't deserve this. She's weird, but a good mare all the same._ Intel searched the room for something to talk about as Bon Bon returned with cleaning items. The two ponies started cleaning together, sharing a few brief words as they got the ash off the ruined carpet.

Eventually, Intel's gaze returned to the backpack she had discarded at the foot of the bed. The long heavy cylinder thing returned to her attention. Intel brought the bag back over and pushed the object forward. "Hey Lyra, what is this thing?"

The mare in question looked up from her work with a sunken face. "That thing? It was a gift from my Uncle Robert. He was an army snip…" Lyra trailed off as her irises shrank to pinpricks. "Holy cow," she shrieked a cheer. "I can pay you guys after all!"

"Didn't momma already tell you, you didn't have to pay fo-" was all Intel could get off before Lyra reclaimed the backpack and used her magic to pry the object off.

"No way hozay!" Lyra's energy returned in full force. "I said I was going to pay, and I am! ...Just not with daddy's books like I thought." Lyra pushed the sadness away for the moment and plastered a massive grin on her face. "This my future sibling is a bullet."

"A… bullet? _This_ big thing?" Intel asked incredulously as she pulled it back to examine it with far more scrutiny. She rummaged around her utility harness and pulled out a small lead ball out of her ammunition pouch. " _This_ is a bullet, I don't know how something like _that_ can be a bullet unless it's fired out of a cannon or something."

Bon Bon was at a loss and kept her peace as Lyra took the cartridge back. "No no no, that's not how they work." She opened her mouth, but shut it again to think. _Darn it, I was only nine when Uncle Robby was telling me about these things. How do they work again?_ "Okay, I _think_ this part right here," Lyra began as she pointed a hoof at the brass cone, "is the part that flies out and hits things. This big ol part here holds all the powder and stuff. And… I believe the weapon kinda pops the big brass part out of the gun all by itself after it fires."

 _Now_ Lyra had Intel's undivided attention. "This thing holds both the bullet _and_ the powder all in one ready to go package!? How does it fire though?"

Try as she might, Lyra couldn't remember and shrugged. "Sorry. I'm sure my uncle showed me at one point, but I can't recall how. But you guys are smart, with that, I'm sure you can figure it out."

Intel studied the cartridge for a few more seconds before pocketing it. _Gotta admire the mare's willingness to adhere to her own sense of obligation and honor._ "Yeah, I bet we could. On behalf of the queens, we consider this your payment in full."

* * *

The swath of jungle was burnt and charred. Scattered around Chrysalis were the broken bodies of changelings and numerous reanimated creatures of the jungle, both large and small. The stench of cooked meat and the nose tickling fallout of heavy spellfire permeated the air. The skies above were dry with grey clouds mixing with several columns of black smoke as vegetation fueled several fires.

Even the very ground was blackened, but not all of it was ash. Necromantic energy had sapped the life out of the very soil for a whole mile. Even for the jungle, it would take decades to heal. Chrysalis herself bore such scars upon her muzzle and all along her torso, but a vindictive sneer creased her face all the same.

A halting cough came from Polybia whom she held underhoof. A razor sharp blade, torn from the body of a drone, slowly sliced into Polybia's neck. Chrysalis applied just enough pressure to start cutting through the chitin, but no where near enough to kill quickly. Polybia's horn was snapped completely off and was oozing dark red blood. "You surprise me," Polybia spat out with blood oozing from her mouth, "Chrysalis. I never thought you would take to the field in person. Especially when half your army died in the first hour."

"Adaptation," Chrysalis sneered as she used her blade to lift Polybia's head. "That is what we live by, is it not? You can not imagine how long I've wanted to hold your life in my hooves, Polybia. I've always hated your holier-than-thou façade."

A blood-flecked laughing cough shuddered through Polybia's broken body. Much of her discoloration from necromantic use had faded. "You really think you've won?" Her one good eye tracked up to leer at Chrysalis. "The battle maybe, but hardly the war. I will return, and the dead will serve me once again."

Chrysalis didn't show it, but she knew very little about necromancy, outside of what Polybia had shown through battle. "Perhaps I should just keep you here then, if you can return after death. You can't return if you never die."

"You really think we're talking right now because you've taken me alive?" Polybia spat with smug dripping from every word. "The only reason we're speaking is because I was so sure you'd cower and hide until the technophiles came to save your worthless shell."

Chrysalis' anger flared and she almost stabbed Polybia in the neck, but she checked her flash of rage. "I never needed anyone outside of my sisters, and I certainly don't need Twilight Sparkle or her little airships to crush you! But if you can truly leave at any point..."

Finding several charred branches and severed limbs, Chrysalis drew the diagram of the teleportation nullifier she engineered after watching Celestia's version. "You can never suffer enough for what you did to my sister Yeelindrus, but let's see what this does to give you a taste of justice."

The moment the diagram was complete, Chrysalis stabbed the makeshift chitin sword deep into Polybia's chest. As Polybia's soul was being torn away from her dying shell, the diagram flashed with Chrysalis' green magic. The diagram barely detected the soul transfer and flared to life, trying to rip Polybia asunder.

While Polybia's soul easily slipped through the spell, it slowed her down just enough so that she felt every inch of her old body being shredded by the diagram trying to keep her trapped. The pain was so deep, so soul scarring that Polybia was writhing in agony for an hour after her new body reformed.

Chrysalis watched as Polybia's body was shredded to a bloody smear on the dead ground. "If you really do come back from that, I hope you felt every last bit." _I better burn the bodies too, just to be safe._

She sent the order out to what remained of her forces, which was far too few for her liking. A puppeted drone flew over while Chrysalis used her magic to counteract some of the poison flowing in her veins. The queen could mitigate even necrotic poison for hours, but she too had her limits.

Chrysalis prepared herself for a fight, but realized it was Kreesus' drone. She made a show of dropped her building spell, but she could never truly lower her guard in the presence of the 'traitor'. "I trust you've kept the salvageable drones alive."

"Of course." Kreesus spat out a large glob of salve and presented it to Chrysalis. She might have snubbed the gift any other day, but the sheer number of small cuts slowly sapped her strength. With none of her drones being close enough to apply the salve for her, Chrysalis took the glob in her magic to apply it to herself before it dried. Though Kreesus kept her expression neutral, she took mild satisfaction in seeing Chrysalis having to use another hive's salve. _That's what you get for ruining it for the sake of sticky resin._ "Thanks to Fluffy, I'll be able to reconstitute all the biomass that wasn't tainted by necromancy into new drones." _Of course, that accounts for less than a tenth of the bodies._

"You better make sure you return any drones of mine that you recover. We need every blade and horn should Polybia resist the grave again."

"And why would she fail to escape it this time, compared to the five other times we've killed her?" Kreesus said between dispensing more salve. Even though Kreesus' salve was designed specifically for her own brood, it could at least stop the bleeding.

Chrysalis looked off into the distance, hoping it was in the direction of Polybia's hive, and flashed a cruel fang-filled sneer. "Before she escaped her broken body, I gave her a little parting gift. If we're lucky, it'll have killed her. If not, she wouldn't dare enter the field of battle again."

"Were it so easy," Kreesus grumbled distantly. "I have news that Twilight's fleet has finally decided to move south on our position. Typically slow, just like her mother."

"Cold metal has always been slower than flesh," Chrysalis replied absently. "They are like a lumbering giant. Slow to act, but powerful when active. I say we let her do the lion's share of the fighting from here on. No need for us to bleed anymore while she's still in top form, sans one warship."

"Agreed. If the so called _Longshot_ is half as resilient as the _Deception_ she can weather the brunt of Polybia's forces. All the same, we better pin down Polybia's hive location before Twilight arrives. Those airships are notoriously fuel hungry, and I doubt she can scavenge for coal."

"Wood burns just as well, does it not?" Chrysalis retorted with a dismissive snort. "Worst comes to worst, we can at least defend her supply lines. For now though, you search along the Tiamese River, and I'll scout along the Behemoth's Jaws Gorge. We'll flush Polybia out eventually." _And when we do, I'll personally send her wretched soul down Cerberus' gullet. Let her come back from_ that _._


	64. Chapter 64

Wounded Mind

Doctor Arvatus was no stranger to damaged minds. Convincing Twilight Velvet to allow him inside her mind after passing her lemon test was child's play. However he only had real experience with the eddies and flows of sphinx minds, so Velvet provided a particular challenge that he tried to prepare himself for. Sadly, most of that consisted of chanting _I think I can. I think I can._ repeated to and from the cafeteria. At present, his consciousness swam through a torrent of images and voices crowding around him so densely it was nearly impossible to sort through all of them.

"You have one of those _things_ for a daughter?" chided an unfamiliar arrogant voice across Arvatus' right ear. "Royalty or not, your family's not welcome in my establishment."

"Well, one can hardly expect a _changeling_ to speak the truth now can you?" scoffed a haughty stallion. "All they are capable of are lies. Makes me wonder how much of a saint the Element of Honesty could actually be to do business with the little devils."

"Did you year that one of Baltimare's city councilmares revealed herself to be a changeling!" exclaimed another haughty voice. "As if you needed any more proof they know nothing but duplicity. I heard she shut down the ban on salve products. Typical self serving-"

"They're everywhere!" shouted a thready and frightened voice, cutting off the last one. "Mark my words, they'll put us all into pods, just like the wedding!"

A nonverbal tsk of disapproval brought his attention to the left where Arvatus saw a ghostly unicorn mare looking through him. "Don't worry too much, Velvet, at least Shining Armor is still a proper heir to the family name."

"Well of course the princesses are going to justify Twilight's 'rebirth'. You really think they'd wage war against an enemy that are natural infiltrators who couldn't care less about dying?"

"I fully understand your pain," another voice called out softly to Arvatus' left. As he waded deeper into Velvet's mind, the voices were starting to be matched up with spectral images of their owners. This time it was a sympathetic looking stallion with a blue coat and mane, but his image was too fuzzy to glean anything else. "My Shimmer Skies was replaced by one of those things. I didn't need the Guard to take care of that body snatcher. Even though the princesses have to play to diplomacy to avoid war, I know with all my heart that they are relying on the citizens of Equestria to act where they cannot." He reached out a hoof as if to pick Arvatus up from a seated position. "I know of a group who could help you. They will denounce us, strip us of our possessions, and our freedom, but I know that they will secretly thank us."

The next part of the foggy memory surprised Arvatus since it was the first time he'd hear Velvet speaking back. "And what if we fail? If we can't free Twilight from that living hell, I…" she shuddered, unable to continue from her grief.

"We have to try," the nameless stallion replied definitively. "Once she is free of Cadista's influence and the slavery of her changeling instincts, I know for a fact that Twilight would vindicate our actions to the princesses. Once Cadista can no longer control her, the princesses will finally have a free hoof to deal with Cadista and the rest of those vile creatures as they deserve."

Arvatus tried to stabilize the memory so he could see the stallion more clearly, but the memory was snatched away, as if trying to hide itself. Cursing his loss, Arvatus created a momentary bubble of silence around his consciousness to think. _It would be impossible to shift to each and every memory that caused Velvet to turn against Twilight. Besides, I've seen this sort of insanity before. The real Twilight Velvet is buried under so much noise and doubt that she can't reach the surface anymore. If I can find her core and rid her of all this clouded vision, I just know she'll give up the PCE. I have to go deeper._

Even in his line of work, Arvatus rarely had to work with a mind that was burying itself so completely in its own hysteria and paranoia. Layers upon layers of memories tried to confuse his path to the point where even his experience was at its limits. _I need to find the right threads. Something the core personality would cling to._

It took several moments, but he had an idea as to what to look for. Lost in the maze of agonizing memories of changeling Twilight was a dream of a young purple filly in a classroom. Arvatus saw a Twilight as a filly jumping around Princess Celestia cheering for her newly acquired cutie mark. _Yes, this should work._

Mentally taking ahold of the memory, Arvatus located several threads connecting the memory to dozens of parts in Velvet's mind. Only one of them caught his eye as it pulsed far more regularly. _Just as I suspected. She's clinging to the happiest parts of Twilight's pony life._

Following the brightest thread, Arvatus plunged into the increasingly dark and rage filled thoughts that were colored by depression, regret, and defeat. They rolled off of him like molasses, trying to muddle his mind the further he went. Even his vision of the mindscape was clouded with countless images and sounds. It pained him to continue. Every inch along the glowing tether was paid for in headaches both dull and stabbing. _These ponies may not be psionic, but their innate magic makes mind walking against the mad or unwilling dangerous._

In his real body, Arvatus felt something wet drip on his lip and a copper taste entered his mouth. _She has such a powerful mind! I have to reach her soon, or I'll be forced to retreat. I can't deflect any of it until I see her core personality._

The fear, sadness, and hate filled memories swirled around him like thick viscous tar yet were too rapid to see them as anything other than a mass of noise and color. The single thread was nearly lost in the maelstrom again and again as phantom memories and nightmares roared at him with abandon.

Arvatus' pounding headache intensified even further when he at last saw the tether ending in a recreation Twilight Sparkle as a unicorn. Unlike the memories, which were either flat images or spectral beings, this Twilight Sparkle looked solid and real.

Twilight Velvet's core manifested itself as her outer appearance as she embraced her unicorn daughter, unspoiled by changeling magic. Twilight Sparkle was hugging her back, both mares crying out of joy. "You freed me, momma. Spawning those horrid _abominations_ and _liking it_ was a living hell."

Velvet started petting her scared daughter's mane with all the care a mother could have. "I know, honey, I know. Now that's your free, the princesses can finally act to their true intentions."

Now that he could see the threads' destination, Arvatus was at last able to form a psionic barrier around him and then extended it to envelope Velvet. He stepped back in shock when Twilight Sparkle's doppelganger was not dispersed by the act.

However, the act did draw the attention of both mares to the intruder. Velvet was the first to act by interposing herself between Arvatus and Twilight. "Doctor!? You lied to me! Only a psyker could reach me here, and all of them love that _queen._ "

Twilight Sparkle cowered behind her mother's protection whimpering in fear. "Please don't let him take me. He'll turn me back into a changeling, I just know it!"

"I am not here to harm anyone. My name is Doctor Arvatus, and yes, I am a Psykira."

"I knew it!" Velvet growled, seeming to fall into her outer self's paranoia. "You're working for that _insect_ that claims to be my daughter!"

Arvatus saw several darker memories start to swirl into Velvet and used a mental spike to slash them away. Velvet shuddered from the act, but held her ground. "I admit I have found work in Queen Twilight's hive, but I am here on my own volition. She does not know I'm here."

Some of Velvet's thready tone shifted back to normal. "And why should I believe you? You're probably here to kill me, or at least make sure I never leave this hell."

Arvatus studied the stormy mindscape around them. Velvet and the rest of them were floating in a void of blackness, yet they had no problem seeing one another. All in all, it was a grim sight that worried Arvatus greatly. "Miss Velvet, if I was here to kill you, I wouldn't go through all the trouble of entering your mind. If I wanted you to remain in the asylum, I wouldn't have to do anything at all."

"Lies! The P.C.E. will free me," Velvet spat venomously. "If not by an agent, then when they free my daughter."

Understanding dawned on Arvatus like. _The Twilight hiding behind her isn't some delusion, it's her vision of an ideal and unaltered Twilight Sparkle._

"Perhaps they might," Arvatus conceded to Velvet's mild surprise. "Tell me, Miss Velvet, just to clarify things, you do not see Queen Twilight as your daughter?"

"She is a mockery!" Velvet held the unicorn daughter tightly as if she was afraid Arvatus would tear her to pieces. " _My_ Twilight would never kowtow to them, let alone birth more of them!" Velvet spat as if the very words were toxic.

"I see. Then I know what to do." Drawing upon his vast experience and mental fortitude, Arvatus drenched Velvet's mind with his power. The torrent of oily memories swirling around them thinned and dispersed, leaving them in a white space devoid of landmarks. Velvet cried out in pain and curled into a fetal position as Arvatus cleared the storm away.

Twilight Sparkle's phantom remained, trying to rouse Velvet from her catatonic state. When at last the white space was cleared of blackness, all that remained were various clear windows into more tame memories. Velvet rolled to upright herself and stared at the sphinx questioningly. "What - what did you do to me!?"

Though he didn't show it to her, Arvatus' physical body was sweating profusely and his temple was throbbing heavily. "I shoved all the outside influences that people have had on you about changeling Twilight aside. Now, it is only you, and her. No friends, no enemies, and no family to get in the way."

"And what is that going to prove?" Velvet demanded heatedly.

Arvatus shakily pointed at one such memory with Queen Twilight. "See for yourself." With a swipe of his claw, he pulled the memory down for her. He didn't know which memory it was, but ultimately he was betting that it didn't matter. Velvet kept her phantom Twilight close, and kept one eye on Arvatus and the other on the memory.

The memory was nearly a decade ago. Queen Twilight Sparkle was playing a game with ten of her nymphs in the library of Sparkle Manor. The fillies were easily the size of seven year olds, and were playing an old game Velvet never thought she'd ever see again: find the book.

Twilight had all her nymphs lined up in front of her while the memory's point of view remained hidden away near the door. "Alright, girls, clue number one: I have spells and mysteries. Clue two: I was written by somepony who doesn't know a thing about magic."

Before she could list a third clue, three of the nymphs leapt up into the air, their tiny wings buzzing with a high pitch. "Oooo! I know where it is!" "Nu uh, I do!" "I'll get the book first!"

The other nymphs either chased after their kin or scrambled up to their mother for more clues. The real Velvet's impatience and ire grew, but she stopped short of lashing out. The longer she watched the memory, the less revulsion she felt for the purple changelings. Twilight's mannerisms, her posture, her loving tone of voice, even the way she doted on each nymph reminded Velvet of how she used to care for Twilight.

Arvatus saw the confusion and misery well up on Velvet's face along with the mindscape turning a murky brown. He picked another memory at random and flung it over to Velvet's opposite side to make sure the two memories didn't interfere with each other, inadvertently resulting in phantom Twilight yelping in surprise.

Velvet turned around at the noise to find a memory of Queen Twilight bearing down on her with a fierce scowl. "How dare you keep asking me that! To go back to being a unicorn and abandon my children just to satisfy the status quo? Can't you see how hypocritical that is, especially coming from you _mother?!_ "

"I - but-" Velvet's automatic reply died on her lips. For the first time in her life, she didn't see the changeling clinging onto her daughter's soul, but her daughter fighting to keep her children.

Renewed fury crossed her face and she swept a hoof across the queen, dispersing her. She refocused on Arvatus. "What trickery is this? You think you can so overtly toy with my mind and think I'll magically see things your way?"

Arvatus paused before bringing a third memory forward. Instead he closed the distance until he was face to face with Velvet. "The only trick I've done here is remove the noise."

"What noise? Don't toy with me with cryptic words." She got up in his face wanting to cast him out, but her mental focus wasn't what it once was, and he firmly held on.

"Your reality is all based on perspective, but people can change your perception on others. Here, _now_ , there shall be no one from the P.C.E, no one from Queen Twilight's friends, no _anyone._ Just you and those memories. Just like the ignorant bigots of my homeland, you have let others control you through their own mistrust and hatred."

A vile sneer plastered over Velvet's muzzle. "So that's the real game. You're an outcast who found somepony willing to give you a roof over your head instead of killing you on sight? You're no different than the changeling posing as my daughter."

Arvatus looked upon the hate filled mare with sympathetic pity. "You are just like how I used to be. You're so used to hating her that you're incapable of understanding and acceptance."

Velvet slapped him as hard as she could across the face. Though the attack caused pain, there was no blood in the mindscape. The phantom Twilight poked her head out from behind her mother and glared at him. "Momma's **nothing** like you! She only wants to free my body so I can come back!"

"Isn't she?" Arvatus challenged calmly. With a paw, he reached into his chest and pulled out a small globule of himself and threw it at Velvet.

The shocked mare tried to shield herself with a foreleg but instead of any pain, her world was completely replaced by an sun-lit alleyway. The mindscape was only visible from above and the two ends of the alleyway. Surrounding her were three sphinxes in the white and gold robes of the Order. She looked down at herself to find she was wearing the same attire. There was a cowering adolescent grecian tom looking at each of the monks with terror in his eyes.

One of the jane monks spoke in a mechanical manner, as if she was reading him his rights. "You bear the mark of the Psykira, an enemy of the state and our very way of life. Do not resist and your entry into the Great Cycle may reward you with a better life."

"I'm not a Psykira!" the tom cried out. "Bertha Ultsis tattooed this damn mark on me against my will! I don't even _have_ psychic potential!"

A second monk spoke up with a snarl. "You disrespect the Ultsis family by even uttering their name, profligate. You know full well we can't test you for the cursed ability while under a city's dampening field."

"W-what about those testing chambers you Order people have? You could take me there."

This time, the voice came from within Velvet although she easily identified it as a younger Arvatus. "Felsgrad doesn't have an Order temple large enough to have one, and as my brother said, it's too dangerous to take you outside the field."

With the memory being so personal, Velvet felt Arvatus' sick satisfaction grow enormously as she raised a loaded crossbow and leveled it at the accused. "May the cycle restore you to a better life."

The psyker tried to fly away, but he never had a chance against crossbow bolts. One sank into his chest, another into his right wing, and a third hit his neck in rapid succession. The other monks stepped back and started chanting on the evils of the Psykira while Arvatus dropped his crossbow and stepped towards the crippled sphinx. Velvet tried to pull herself away from the memory, but the real Arvatus pushed all of his will into making her watch.

Velvet couldn't stop herself from leaning over the Psykira's head and whisper with cold murder in Arvatus' tone. "I hope disgraceful filth like you come back again and again as worms to be crushed under paw like the insects you are." Shifting one paw into a hand, Arvatus and Velvet ripped the bolt out of the victim's neck and started stabbing. Eyes, chest, neck, anywhere there was soft, yielding flesh.

After ten stabs the tom was still. The memory vanished with Velvet shuddering at the violence of it. Phantom Twilight was painfully silent as Velvet finally tore herself away from the imposed memory. The monks and alleyway vanished, but the bloodied and broken body remained.

"I was barely an initiate back then, long before I was tested for psionic potential. It took decades and my own awakening to see the monster I had become," Arvatus said as he moved between Velvet and the corpse. "He was my first murder, but he certainly wasn't the last Psykira, proven or otherwise, that I killed in the name of societal preservation." He watched Velvet trying to shake off the horror of what she witnessed. "This will be the fate of Twilight Sparkle, and all of her children, if the P.C.E. should ever succeed. Is that truly what you want? To murder your own daughter in cold blood to 'save' her?"

Velvet found her strength again and ran over to tackle him. He was surprised she actually could assault him, allowing Velvet to wrap her forelegs around his neck and shove her face into his. "You self-righteous foal. Awakening with new abilities is one thing, being forced to become a different species is another! The only thing I can do for my daughter now is to kill that Queen and free her soul to the peace of the Elysian Fields. That _thing_ isn't my daughter anymore!" she screamed with all the festering heartache of the past decade.

"I beg to differ," Arvatus countered harshly as he pointedly looked back at the corpse. Velvet glanced up to follow his gaze, only to find the bloodied corpse was now the dead remains of Queen Twilight laying on the monastery grounds near Canterlot. In that moment, she expected to feel elation, or at least relief at seeing what she had been wishing for so long.

But that was not what happened. Stripped of the outside influences of the past twelve years, the only thing Velvet saw in that moment was her Twilight Sparkle lying there dead. Her horror was redoubled when the bloodied and broken crossbow bolt was now held aloft in her magic.

Phantom Twilight's voice sniffled from behind Velvet. "Why momma? Why did you kill me?" Velvet pushed herself away from Arvatus, and spun around to see phantom Twilight appeared just as she had when she first returned to Canterlot after her rebirth. "I'm sorry I'm not the same anymore, but I just wanted us to be a family again."

Velvet's mindscape clouded over with startling rapidity. She dropped the crossbow bolt and wept into her hooves. Phantom Twilight remained nearby repeatedly asking what she had done to lose a mother's love. It was more than Velvet could handle. The typhoon of emotions returned in full force, ripping at Arvatus with returned hostility. Before he could lose sight of Velvet, he expended the last of his mental strength in forming a protective shield around her, so her mind would not break again, and that the separation of outside influences on Velvet's perception would hold out for at least a day.

He snapped back into the physical world and collapsed to the floor next to Velvet's bed. He gulped air as if he been drowning, his heart was pounding, and blood caked everything from the nose down, and dripped on the floor. Velvet was weeping into her pillow muttering too softly for Arvatas to hear what she was saying.

After recovering his wits, Arvatus grabbed a washcloth from a large pocket in his coat and started cleaning himself up as best he could. _That was more violent than I expected, but she had the reaction I was hoping for. Few people are naturally hateful, and from what I've heard, Velvet was not one of them._

Noting the blood on the padded floor, Arvatus pressed his cloth tightly over his nose and stumbled for the exit. He fought against lightheadedness and a stabbing headache as he left the cell, only to find an orderly and Doctor Clear Mind waiting for him. Both ponies jumped to his aid with Clear Mind lifting Arvatus up from his front left side while the orderly gave him a replacement wet cloth for his nose. "Heavens, Doctor, you look like you went ten rounds with a minotaur cage fighter."

"I'll take your word for it." Arvatus nodded in thanks to the new cloth. "Sorry to trouble you son, but I left quite a trail to clean up."

"No worries, doc," the peppy orderly said. "Can't be any worse than what most spill around here."

The orderly ran off to gather the cleaning supplies while Clear Mind wanted to check on Velvet, yet Arvatus had to come first. "Did you make progress?"

"I think so," Arvatus replied nasally. _What I'd give for a cold compress for my head right now._ "I was right about her. The patient's criminalistic paranoia stemmed from the company she kept, outside of the family. I have no doubt that over time, she had listened to enough anti-changeling fearmongering that she lashed out as she did. I've seen and experienced this countless times in my homeland."

"She certainly let herself go off the deep end after arriving here," Clear Mind commented with a sad shake of his head. "What is it that you plan to do, should you cure her, if you don't mind my asking?"

Arvatus stopped and blankly stared at the opposite wall. The howling wind reflected his troubled thoughts after dredging up his own painful memory. "I want to give her a chance to atone. The same chance that was given to me a long time ago."

* * *

Today was the day. Lyra fidgeted nervously in a back room near the Canterlot Castle's primary news reception chamber. It was early morning, barely half an hour past breakfast. Bon Bon was at her side gently rubbing her back while giving her friend brief nuzzles. A pair of filled memory crystals laid on the cushion with her, both filled with highlights involving Bon Bon.

All four of the royal changelings were present, Twilight and Rainbow puppeting their respective diplomats. If it was just speaking to a crowd, Lyra would be in her element after all the concert tours she'd been on. Her only real source of fear was the threat of violence that was sure to erupt either during or right after the press conference.

Lyra used her old meditative techniques to calm herself as she had done early in her music career. Aegis and Rainbow Dash quietly snorted in amusement every time Lyra would hum aloud. _And here I thought Tree Hugger was the only one who did that,_ Rainbow mused.

Rainbow stuck her head out of the large curtain separating them from the gathering reporters. Even though Canterlot was the cosmopolitan capital of Equestria, there were still only fourteen reporters awaiting them. Aegis, how's the security looking?

Well let's see, Aegis started as she counted with her fingers. The Royal Guard are stationed at their customary positions, and in eight additional positions around the room. Luna helped me fashion a mana depletion array hidden on the ceiling in case of an attack by unicorns. I also have Intel and Ferrum posing as out of town reporters. To top it all off, a contingent of the Dusk Guard is waiting in the next room incase somepony gets physical.

Good work, Rainbow replied with a heavy dose of pride. I'm sure Captain Whirling Blade can handle everything else.

Twilight saw Lyra come out of her meditation and shared a few quiet words with Bon Bon. She trotted over with a reassuring smile. "You feeling ready for this?"

Lyra squeezed Bon Bon's hoof and nodded. "About as much as possible."

Twilight was happy to see the pair had such a strong relationship. _I better make sure they get a chance to keep that after the rebirth._ "Well you'll be pleased to know that mother's given me the trick to keeping your mane and coat color, it should help with your memory retention."

Bon Bon sighed in relief with Lyra doing the same. "You're going to do great, Lyra."

The rear door opening brought everyone's attention to Celestia's entry. Ever the morning person, she looked immaculate. "Good morning, everypony. Shall we begin?"

Twilight wished for nothing more than to hug her old mentor, but Bon Bon and Lyra's presence made her shy away from doing more than beaming a smile. Rainbow Dash pushed herself away from the curtain. "As well as possible on our end." She turned to Lyra. "Just do your bit and follow Aegis' lead if things get hairy." Without further preamble, Rainbow departed Blue Flare's body, leaving the mare in front of everyone, and suffering from post-puppet arousal.

 **Mother!** Flare cried before racing to the restroom under a dense fog of embarrassment.

Twilight sensed Rolled Scroll fearing a similar faux pas, and gave him wordless reassurance. "Thank you for heading this up, Celestia, as much as I trust Aegis and Blitz," she shot both proto-queens approving smiles, "I think the public will be far more tolerant with you presiding over the conference."

"It's only natural," Celestia replied. "I was the first to sign her letter of acceptance." She turned to the mare of honor. "Are you ready to proceed?"

Trying to shore herself up as if it was just another concert, Lyra puffed out her chest. "Of course, Princess. A-after you."

With a curt nod towards Lyra, Celestia wordlessly motioned for the others to follow while Twilight departed for the same restroom as Blue Flare before leaving her son to… recover.

* * *

Intel yawned loudly and scratched herself as she sat in the midst of the reporters. Her disguise was that of a portly yellow unicorn, and she was loving every second of it. She nudged the thin stallion to her left with a fat elbow and a greasy hay burger dripping with manennaise, (which is totally different from mayonnaise), ponyradish, and mustard in her magic. "Yo, String Bean, you look like your life sucks."

The stallion shuddered in disgust at the sandwich and the collection of four soiled wrappers and crumpled napkins. The slathering of sauce over Intel's muzzle nearly caused him to gag. "And what could give you that idea, lardo?"

Intel chuckled a belly laugh and slapped him heavily on the back. "You ain't got no meat on them bones, but you're a funny one, I'll give ya that!" She waved the burger in front of his muzzle, making him shy away from it. "Come on, take a bite. It's good for you."

He didn't even want to touch it with his hoof and pushed away from it, irritating the reporter beside him. "I'd rather not clog my arteries with trash, thank you."

"Too bad." Intel shoved a chunk of it in her gullet and moaned noisily in culinary delight. "Omf mmff Celesmma, tiff is-" she took a long moment to simply enjoy it and leaned her girth towards him. As soon as she cleared her mouth she let off a long, heavy, onion scented sigh of satisfaction. _I am going to have to run fifty miles to burn off just one of those things, but it was worth every bite._

One of the earth pony Guards walked up to the side of their isle and spoke with the tone of authority. "Is there a problem here?"

Before the stallion could say a word, Intel waggled the dripping burger at him. "Yeah there is, I'm running out of food, could you be a dear and get me another quadruple bypass whammy burger?"

"She's being intolerable, and she smells like unwashed socks," the stallion protested, only to get a sly wink from Intel. "She is an insult to journalist everywhere, and I demand she be removed."

The guard took one look at the obese mare rolling in her chair stuffing her face with the remnants of the sandwich. "I'm going to have to ask you to remain orderly. The conference will begin shortly."

"You lot are no fun. Now Trottingham, they know how to keep the sticks out of their plots!" she rambled with a wide sweep of her hoof and spittle flying everywhere.

The guard would have said more, but Celestia entering the room making the Guard snap to attention and the various reporters to stand in respect. Playing her role, Intel fumbled to get off the chair to do the same.

Striding in behind Celestia were Aegis and Blitz, walking on two legs as always, with Lyra and Bon Bon bringing up the rear.

The gathered reporters started taking pictures immediately, but all of them were professional enough to withhold questions for the moment. Celestia took her place at the podium and wove a spell to enhance her voice while the others stood behind her. "Thank you all for coming." She briefly studied each reporter's expression, barely hiding her smirk at the sight of Intel. _So she lets her hair down while in disguise, eh?_ "Thus far, there have been over sixty individuals requesting to be reborn into the Phoenix Roost hive. For various reasons, all of those requests have been denied.

"Due to extenuating circumstances however, Miss Lyra Heartstrings, here," Celestia extending a wing at Lyra who waved at the reporters taking pictures, "is the first to be granted her request. I will leave any questions to her and proto-queens Aegis Altair and Blitzkrieg."

Blitz _almost_ groaned at her full name, but managed to keep it down. She stood up along with Aegis and Lyra and replaced Celestia at the podium.

Almost immediately, a news mare shouted a question. "Miss Heartstrings, is it true you've always had a fixation on polymorphed states and are using the changelings to get what you want?"

As Celestia took her seat, she expanded her voice spell over the others, giving Lyra the chance to be heard clearly. "Isn't everything we do, an act to get what we want?" The crowd quietly murmured in agreement. "As for my interest in physical transformations, yes, that's true. I have never made that a secret, especially to my fans."

 _Huh… I didn't realize she had such integrity._ Aegis glanced at Blitz and found no surprise in her aura. _That's what I get for not paying attention to things outside of security._

Intel felt it was a good idea to put in her two bits. "Miss Strings, this all seems pretty sudden and permanent, have you given this much thought at all?"

"My friend Bon Bon made me agree to a two year waiting period to see if this is what I really wanted to do before approaching the two royal families for permission."

The reporter sitting next to Intel wasn't in the slightest interested in what Lyra's quirks were. "Queen Blitzkrieg, Notepad CBY News, your hive has turned down rebirth applicants who were terminally ill, under death threats from various persons, or crippled beyond medical assistance. Why did you suddenly accept Miss Heartstrings?"

Blitz quietly cleared her throat. "Until recently, we did not believe the political climate was appropriate for such a move. In addition, we have to be very selective even within our own tribe, because rebirthing anypony is exhaustively expensive. We simply can not use rebirthing for cheating death on even a small scale."

"You talk of political climate," Notepad jumped in before another could speak, "and yet your flagship was crippled just barely a week ago. This hardly seems like wise timing."

Aegis frowned in pensive anger and stepped forward, barely letting her mother's political stoicism take hold. "It is true that just before accepting Lyra's request we were attacked, but we are not going to be intimidated by cowardly terrorists." Celestia and Blitz questioned where Aegis was going with this line of commentary, and had to exert effort to remain quiet for her. "Yes, we have flat out refused everypony who has come to us, thus far, but that was due to several critical reasons, chief among them being the complete memory loss that those undergoing drone rebirth would experience. Now that we've corrected that issue to some extent, we've decided to start a trial period. If Lyra settles well, we _might_ look into accepting others."

Good spin on that, Blitz said with a quiet sigh of relief. I thought you were going to say something stupid.

 _Thanks_ for the vote of confidence there, Blitz. Aegis stepped back to be in line with her blue counterpart.

Can you really blame me after those 'lyrics' you serenaded to Burny last-

Paying attention to the reporters now! Aegis cut off abruptly using a touch of disguise magic to hide her flushed embarrassment.

A different reporter butted in, keeping Notepad from hogging the speaking time. "Leaking Presses, Canterlot Times. Is it true this whole thing is one big stunt to antagonize the P.C.E? and if so, are you condoning the endangerment of innocents just to force a conflict with them?"

Blitz wasn't expecting such a direct question on that topic, but she answered smoothly. "We are not forcing any conflict here. We are simply giving word about Miss Heartstring's rebirth because it is the first time this has happened outside of an accident, like my mother, or extenuating circumstances in regards to Queen Twilight Sparkle. There was the threat of open war between Equestria and the changeling hives of the jungle had Twilight Sparkle died."

"Isn't Equestria not already under threat of a civil war?" Notepad rebuked with heated undertones. "Not only is there a stunning disparity between the PR navy and that of Equestria itself, but the common pony can barely tolerate your kind. You really think this little stunt of yours will convince people you're still just trying to 'coexist'?"

This time, it was Celestia who answered after rising to her hooves. "Since we are at peace with our neighbors, Mister Notepad. There has been no need for the Equestrian military to modernize to such a degree. What Phoenix's Roost does with it's own military's advancement is their prerogative, and theirs alone." He tried to speak up, but Celestia kept speaking over him. "As for the common pony's well being. That has always been at the forefront of my mind for centuries, and I see the same goals in our ally's royal family."

Lyra, Blitz, and Aegis cowed a little under Celestia's frigid tone. Even when she was speaking to their credit, Celestia's tone produced no small amount of fear in all who heard it. "I make sure to stay in touch with my subjects, and public opinion of our changeling _allies_ is at a record high. So I would very much like to know which ponies you're referring to, Mister Notepad."

"The good ponies of Saddle Arabia, your highness," Notepad replied with quickly fading distaste. "It is no secret that tensions there are strained at best."

Blitz scowled heavily at the presence of an Arabian. _Strained is too weak of a word. Since those guys boarder the changeling jungle's eastern side they've always feared going in because it always ended in death. Ever since granny and Sticky Spit revealed our species, the Arabians finally have a face to blame for generations of explorers and families disappearing._

Aegis saw Blitz forcibly trying to mask her scowl. Hey, aren't those the guys who think alicorn rule is poisonous to the rest of ponykind?

And that we lings are a cancer on society, yes. I have no doubt that the P.C.E. is funded by them.

Oblivious to the changeling conversation, Celestia afixed a stony smile at the foreign reporter. "I'm sure your king has a very different opinion, Mister Notepad. Now, why don't we all return to our questions under amicable terms?"

Seeing a need to defuse the situation, Intel raised a hoof. "Well said your majesty. Miss Heartstrings, it has been said that memory loss is a chief problem with non-royal rebirth, given the real danger of personality death." Intel had to sound like a cutthroat reporter at least. "How are you going to still be _you?_ "

Pleased that the situation had been defused, Celestia stared Notepad down until he retook his seat. Once done, she too reclaimed her seat as Lyra answered the question, although Celestia didn't listen as she already knew the answer. _I suspected as much. The P.C.E. isn't stupid enough to attack an obvious trap right here in the palace. Their image was already damaged enough by destroying two Equestrian troop transports and all of the soldiers along with it. Assaulting the palace would have been too much, even for the radical element._

 _That would probably leave only the most fanatical members, and likely expose the ringleaders if they were captured. It looks like we'll have to have a much more subtle trap if we're to catch more than recruiters in a hotel._

Celestia kept a close eye on Notepad for the duration of the conference. He kept his mouth shut the entire time, only condemning him further in her eyes. _I think he realized his mistake in naming Saddle Arabia. I'll have to get Whirling Blade to tail Notepad, and see where he goes. Perhaps this trap wasn't a failure after all._

* * *

Grogar never claimed to be an overly patient being, and yet Polybia still found ways to shorten his fuse. He struggled in vain against the restraints of his half-cocoon as Polybia's body reformed itself from her latest assault on the rival hives. He had a pounding migraine and black blood dripping from his ears and nose from a mental battle with her that had ended as little more than rout for him.

As for Polybia, she was recovering from her body's destruction faster and faster with each 'death'. Grogar glared at her as Polybia pulled herself out of the muck of the quickening pool. "If I didn't know any better, I'd think you were getting off on dying all the time."

Polybia ignored the verbal jab and took a long moment to finish letting her new body reform. The instant it was done, Polybia raced towards Grogar faster than his dead eyes could follow. She gripped one of his curved horns in her hoof and gripped the other in her magic. "You malevolent snake! Did you honestly think I wouldn't sense your attempt to switch bodies with me during my recovery?" she purred in his ear. "I paid handsomely for information on you, ram, and your plan was obvious right from the start."

Grogar grunted in dull pain as Polybia started draining his mana. "No amount of psionic defense could have held me back. With all the mana you've stolen, your body should be under my control regardless!"

Polybia lashed out with a lance of cutting magic and started slicing at grogar's left horn near the root. "Fool. I only kept that power in myself at the beginning. I've been dolling that power to my drones for a while now. Your power of control is too diffuse to take me directly. Not that I allowed you to sense that."

Grogar refused to express any further pain from his horn getting slowly cut off. "I'll tell you this now. You better utterly destroy me right here and now, Polybia, or I will make my revenge so unending, you'll forget you were ever anything other than my plaything."

At that, Polybia stopped cutting the horn halfway and decided to rip the rest of it off with multiple tugs from her magic. Grogar's pain tolerance, even as an undead, had it's limits and he roared in pain as the horn was torn free from his head. He glared pure malice into Polybia who examined the detached horn with a critical eye. She spoke without looking at him in a clear sign of disrespect. "Oh don't worry, Grogar, I plan to make sure your essence is completely destroyed when I'm done with you."

She afixed an arrogant sneer on her face and waggled his severed horn at him. "I will tear you apart, piece by piece, purify your mana so that it has no connection to you, and then by this war's end, you will be nothing more than a stain upon the world's history."

"Wars are never quick, Polybia," Grogar chided. "I'll rid myself of you long before it's over."

"You will try, I'm sure." Polybia started walking off with his horn. "For your attempt on my life, I'm taking your horn. I might find a use for it."

Grogar's fury boiled unchecked at the mutilation and failure. The halls of Polybia's hive echoed with his howling unholy rage. So loud in fact, that Polybia was forced to have several drones erect sound dampening spells to keep from giving the hive's position away. **"I swear you will suffer an eternity for this, Polybia! I will have satisfact-"**

Any further yelling was halted by Grogar's cocoon stretching and wrapping over his mouth, leaving only muffles to fill the single room. _Demons are slaves to their nature, but you, Grogar. You chose to become one. You deserve neither pity or mercy. Besides, I need to work on something special for when Twilight arrives with her new warship._


	65. Chapter 65

The Last Night in Safe Harbor

Rainbow Dash brooded within the bow observation blister of the _Long Shot._ The midday sky was partly cloudy, and the carrier was just leaving cloud cover as it came over a long abandoned train depot. It was the same place she had first seen a changeling airship, and it brought back fond memories of her time spent in Stripped Gear.

Now however, the depot was covered in green as the jungle rapidly reclaimed what belonged to it. Vines had started covering the long rail bridge spanning over the gorge, leaving half of it looking like a wall of vegetation.

As for the jungle itself, it cared little for the urban decay, seeing it only as more ground to claim. Captain Darya, make sure we fly over the ruins. Let the crew see what will happen if we fail.

As you order, mother.

The _Long Shot_ angled a little closer to true south, though she didn't notice much since her mind was scattered throughout the hive mind, watching over the drones continue to prepare the carrier for war. She also had a general awareness of the _Deception_ as her brood shipped it back to the hive for repairs. As a consequence to Rainbow deffusing herself so much, she missed Twilight entering the room. It wasn't until Twilight closed the heavy steel hatch behind her, that Rainbow finally noticed her. "There you are. I thought you'd be down in the hangar hammering out strikecraft tactics."

"We've done enough planning for now," Rainbow replied as she looked back at her sister. Twilight walked up alongside Rainbow Dash and nuzzled her affectionately. Rainbow returned the gesture, always enjoying the flavor of Twilight's love. "The crews need time to actually practice, and no pony made a fighter big enough for me to pilot."

Twilight snickered, and spoke without separating from Rainbow. "And here I thought you didn't like the idea of carriers."

Rainbow huffed and turned back to the landscape below. It was deceptively peaceful from such an altitude. "I don't, but it's all we've got right now. Although I still don't really have any good ideas on how to use these fighters against massed drones. So when things go belly up, I want to be here in person to fight."

"We can do a lot more good through hive meditation, rather than participating directly in battle, than you give credit for," Twilight amended. "But that's not why I'm here." She succeeded in getting Rainbow's attention. _She's getting antsy about not being able to oviposit since both ships lack a hatchery, thanks to the tender's refit. I have to try to keep her mind off it._

Knowing that would be no easy task, Twilight was more than happy at a recent event. "Since we're still a day or so out from where Chrysalis said Polybia's advance forces are, I suggest you steal a little bit of RnR while you can."

"As much as I would love to take a nap, I doubt that's what you have in mind."

"Well…" Twilight shot her sister a wry grin. "Rasua said the Psykira have a gift for us, and they want to present it to us before we get too busy with the war." Her tone grew thready along with her smile wilting. "You know, in case they can't when all things are said and done."

Rainbow wasn't exactly sure what to say right off the bat. She tried to identify the ruins of Stripped Gear off on the horizon, but the _Long Shot_ had slipped inside another cloudbank, causing the glass to be covered in condensation. "Are you trying to say I'm working too hard?" she asked with a sidelong smirk.

"Along with Tartarus freezing over under a flock of flying pigs," Twilight teased as she used a foreleg to drag her sister to a cushion. Something told Twilight that verbally expressing her pride in Rainbow Dash would be perceived as patronizing to the sometimes unruly queen. Instead, she opted to give Rainbow a tight hug before nestling down in a cushion of her own.

It didn't take Twilight long before her eyes went a little out of focus as most of her consciousness departed. The very nature of the request caused her to send the vast majority of her mental focus to her puppet, but she left just enough brain power behind to keep her body from getting into trouble. Rainbow's face twisted into a scowl as she too took her seat. _If I split my focus on anything else, I'm not going to have enough brains to control my body._ Airling Greasy Piston, come over to the bow observation blister and keep an eye on us while we're away, would you? I don't want Murphy's Law acting up while we're focused on the hive, and have Poly sneak an assassin in.

The pilot in question groaned as she was about to fold her hand in poker with the rest of Viper Squadron. I'll get it covered in a jiffy, momma.

Rainbow sent her thanks before leaving her daughter to her devices. Piston smirked at her squadmates and tossed her poor hand of cards on the table. "You bucks got lucky that momma needs me for bodyguard detail. Catch y'all later."

Rusty Spring used a bit of magic to flip the folded hand over and snorted. "Sure we were. Have fun on detail, Greasy."

* * *

Rainbow Dash followed Twilight's advice and puppeted a daughter of hers near the hive palace's main gates. The clear skies above the hive were darkened by the shadow of the palace behind her and a heavy lift construction airship hovering over a two story tall wooden crate resting at the base of the long wide steps. The changeling honor guard flanked the steps while a large gathering of sphinxes milled around the massive crate.

Rainbow noticed that a number of sphinxes were taking hammers and other tools to the base of the crate to break off the bottom.

"What do you think it is?" Rainbow followed the voice to find her sister inhabiting the body of one of her own daughters. Twilight had that knowing grin which frustrated Rainbow from time to time, but it was Twilight's purple and orange cutie mark that made her raise a question. "Why are you showing your cutie mark on a puppet?"

Twilight wiggled her hips a little. She sensed the drone's ecstasy at being able to wear her mother's cutie mark, which caused Twilight to chuckle a little. "Well, since we keep talking to more and more non-changelings while occupying a drone, I figured we could show our cutie marks so others can identify us without needing to see our eyes first."

Rainbow mulled over the idea briefly before Twilight motioned for her to follow down the steps. _Could help with things._ With a flash of magic, Rainbow painted her cutie mark on her puppet's flanks.

* * *

By the time the pair reached the bottom of the steps, Twilight noticed that Rasua was talking with a few Psykira. A moment later, Twilight realized that almost every Psykira living in the hive was present along with numerous Imperial Thestrals and a handful of Tea'la. Arya stood at the front of her people while waving her large wooden wings at the queens to be seen. What surprised Twilight more, was the sight of Pinkie Pie jumping high enough to quickly grab the queens' notice with the baker's cheering being as friendly and obnoxious as ever.

Rainbow grinned widely as she spied the pink mare's son perched on his mother's withers, along with Rarity, her thestral husband, and their two children near the front of the crowd. _Wait a sec, why didn't any of our kids tell us our friends were visiting?_ Rainbow and Twilight noticed the ever bashful Fluttershy mixed in with their friends, but she practically lived in the hive already since she cared for the nymphs on a regular basis. Lastly, but certainly not least, Cadista herself was keeping a dignified air about her while hovering above the ponies friends. Yet pride was radiating off of her like the sun.

Twilight sensed the Tea'la, thestrals, and her friends' auras were alive with barely contained excitement. As for the Psykira, their collective aura matched their faces which were alive with anticipation. A swarm of nymphs filled every nook between the adults, trying to see what all the fuss was about.

It didn't take Rasua and her conversation partners long to notice the two queens. The four of them approached the queens with an elderly Grecian jane taking the lead before all three Psykira bowed deeply to the queens. Rasua simply dipped her head in respect as the elder sphinx spoke in reverent tones. "Your highnesses, thank you for agreeing to such a hasty audience with us."

"Not a problem at all, Wise Huntress Belkaria," Twilight nodded in respect. "We are not expected to reach the combat zone for several more hours."

Belkaria sagged in relief a little, glad that she wasn't inconveniencing the queens. She rose to her paws and gestured at the workers to stand by with a wing, while keeping her gaze fixed on Twilight and Rainbow. She took a deep breath to begin her address. The act also got the other Psykira to quiet down to listen. "A little under four years ago, Psykira like myself fled the Federation to live here in the Equestrian Alliance. I must admit we were fearful of the Sestapo's offer of sanctuary via deportation. All we knew of the Alliance species were that you were powerful and… love fire," she said with tightly controlled fear as her gaze briefly wandered to the twenty foot tall statue of Burny near the palace entrance.

"To our everlasting gratitude," Belkaria continued with a brief warble of emotion. "We've found more than an alien country, but a new home filled with beings who understand and accept us. Here we can practice our psionics without fear of persecution. And for that, we can never truly repay you, but we hope this will give some small recompense."

With a final gesture of her wing, the airship's engines poured on the power a few moments later and lifted the large wooden crate away from the cargo within. Twilight and Rainbow's eyes widened considerably at the two story tall statues that were revealed.

The one on the left was a larger than life statue of Twilight Sparkle made of pure amethyst. Large ruby wings reinforced with a steel skeleton flared out from her back with her cutie mark made of darker amethyst and fire opals.

Rainbow Dash was equally enthralled by her statue. The whole thing was a sky blue aquamarine with stained glass wings that constantly shifted in a prismatic hue. As with Twilight, the cutie mark on Rainbow's statue was made of precious gems as well.

The two statues stood on a large brass base that was crisscrossed with engraved gearwork. The two queens were standing side by side, each with a foreleg outstretched in a welcoming friendly gesture. The two queens' inner wings were pressed against one another in a grecian tradition to represent the pair's unconquerable bond. The statues didn't go unnoticed by the drones and the skies were quickly filled with them as they gathered to see the gift.

The two dumbstruck queens' expression satisfied Belkaria and the other sphinxes to no end. "We hope you will accept this gift to you, as you have so graciously gifted us with a home."

Twilight stared at the gesture of gratitude in profound amazement. It was no secret that sphinxes made statues of those they revered. She raised a hoof to her chest with an emotional tear falling away. After years of struggle to gain a semblance of general acceptance among ponies, the deep meaning of this gift from the immigrated sphinxes rendered the former librarian at a complete loss for words.

The same was only partially true for Rainbow Dash.

One look at the statues was all it took to plaster a huge grin on her face. She buzzed into the air to take a closer look and was joined by at least two dozens nymphs doing the same. "By the First Mother this is crazy awesome!" She gave extra attention to her stony doppelganger's prismatic wings and nodded in approval. "Me like, me very like." The nymphs were mesmerized by the dancing colors. Rainbow Dash looked back down towards Belkaria. "I don't care if I'm not the civic queen. We're putting this baby in the main square!"

Twilight blinked away a few tears and nodded. "That is an excellent idea. On behalf of Phoenix's Roost, I thank you, Wise Huntress Belkaria," Twilight looked out at the throng of people and friends before magically projecting her voice. "And thanks to all of you for this momentous gift."

The crowd let out a round of cheers and hoots. The Queens' response was exactly what they had hoped for and they were utterly thrilled.

Despite not being a Psykira, Rasua was as swept up in the jubilation as anyone else. Over the years, the Imperial thestrals, changelings, and Tea'la had learned about the importance of statues in Federation culture, and they soon joined the jubilation.

With both queens fully engrossed in examining the statues, Belkaria had a moment to step up to Rasua. "You have done your forebearers proud, young huntress. I only wish we could honor you with such a gift for the role you've played."

A part of Rasua burned in irritation at the truth of it, but she managed to keep it concealed behind a veneer of good will. "Don't think too much on it. I chose the life of the unsung hunter long before setting paw on this continent."

Rasua noticed Twilight waving at both of them, however she also noticed a familiar grecian tom in the crowd who wasn't matching the ambient fervor. Yet it was the yellow feathered hat he was wearing that gave away his importance to her, and her alone. "I think the queens want to speak further with you, elder. I bet they want to know how we managed to fuse so many gemstones together so flawlessly."

Belkaria's eyes lit up at the prospect of that line of inquiry. "She'll be shocked to learn that Mrs. Rarity had a lot to do with that."

Rasua nodded as the old jane padded over to speak with Twilight. _Speaking of Rarity, I wonder just how much time and effort it actually took her. Nobody, no matter how honored the individual, the sculptor would always require a commision, and yet she didn't take a single bit._ Casting such idle musings aside, Rasua slipped through the crowd towards the tom. However she had to detour into a bookstore after the tom went in first.

With the statue event going on, the changeling store clerk had her face plastered to the window and only gave the two sphinxes a passing glance as they started browsing the selection. Now that she had a better look at him, Rasua identified the tom as the same Sestapo agent that had been stationed in Stratholme at the time she moved to Phoenix Roost.

Rasua started speaking in in a dialect of her province's native language, while also keeping friendly tones as if he were an old friend. The language was rarely used, but perfect for the Sestapo since magical feedback spells were naturally woven into the syntax and most of the vocabulary. It was all geared to cause translation spells to misfire. "I trust you found your way here without incident."

"Of course, Field Agent. Trade is slow between Stratholme and the Alliance, but allocating a single freighter airship will do that."

Rasua glanced back at the store clerk who looked ready to bolt to join the celebration. Rasua browsed some Equestrian imported books to play the part of customer. "How did things go with the council?"

"As well as can be expected. Now that they know we've been actively resettling Psykira outside of Federation territory, they didn't seem too keen on remembering the 'kill on sight' law they inherited from most of the former nations. So long as they're out of our country, it's not their problem. As they were so fond of saying." he added with a snide grin.

Rasua shot him a surprised look, albeit brief. "Even Councillor Martok and his cronies? He was elected specifically to 'kill all psykers in existence'."

"Weeelll… let's just say that Martok's wife would be none too pleased if she found out that Martok's board meetings were not always with his cabinet." It went without saying that the Sestapo was playing a dangerous game, making sure they didn't look like sympathizers.

"I didn't think adultery would be enough for a hardliner like him," Rasua replied after she found a book that actually had an interesting title. Sadly, she couldn't pay much attention to it.

"It wasn't, but he has vices that make his intense view of psykers look tame."

He allowed Rasua a moment to digest the news, yet it was she who broke the silence first. "The queens have been happy with my efforts, and say I'll be free of my obligation by year's end."

The tom's face soured. "I hate to spoil your relief, field agent, but the Director wants you to remain here indefinitely." He expected her stunned expression and acted to clarify her orders. "The Director feels your connections with Alliance royalty is too valuable to give away at this time."

Rasua busied herself with the book as her mind churned. She wanted to bring this matter up with the Director himself. She wanted to serve her term with the queens and be free to live the life of her choosing. She _wanted_ to be with her family again. "The Psykira have ingratiated themselves with the bugs. Why not recruit from their number?"

The tom stood mouth agape for a few moments before replacing his cool mask. "You know full well we're already treading on thin ice as it is. We have to look like we're deporting the psykers as a punishment for existing. Do you have any idea what the council would do if they decided to launch a formal inquiry and discovered we had a Psykira on payroll?"

Rasua bit down on a curse. Angering her handler wouldn't do her any good, and there was always a pillow to scream into. "Forget I asked."

"I will," he stated definitively, "for both our sakes. Try to look on the bright side, field agent, you're going to earn a place in the hall of the nameless hunters before much longer."

Rasua's eyes went wide at that. Deep within the Sestapo headquarters, was a vast hall filled wall to wall with statues of the most honored operatives. The bureau inherited both the hall and the tradition from one of the old province's intelligence agencies. Those honored statues were left nameless, known only to the Director himself. "As much of an honor that is, at least tell me I'll have a replacement at some point."

"I'll pass word back to the mainland. But I would suggest settling down, field agent." That got a rise out of Rasua, but she held her tongue. "There are worse assignments to have, and I'm sure there's more than one tom who would be proud to be your mate."

Rasua's thoughts went straight to Thunderfury. Thankfully she was able to keep from blushing. _There's no way he could know about us._ "I'll do what I can to make the most of my assignment then," was all she said. _Perhaps this means I don't have to hold back with him anymore._

"Glad to hear it," the tom answered with a knowing grin that Rasua missed entirely. "While I wish that was the only news I bring, there is a more concerning matter brewing back home."

"Let me guess," Rasua interrupted with a stern grimace, "it has to do with the Order."

"So you've noticed they're on the move?"

"Not directly, no," Rasua answered worriedly. "The P.C.E. has been far more active lately than usual. From what little they tell me in such matters, Captain Intel 'La Gence stopped all four sabotage attempts against the hive in the past four years. Within the past month though, there's been one major attack, as you know, and three other incidents that she and her team have neutralized."

It was troubling news, but ultimately didn't concern the tom over much since it was out of his mission scope. "What makes you think the Order has to do with that?"

Rasua knew that tone. _He knows something, but he wants my information first._ "Nothing, not one single clue. Though I find it worrying that the biggest anti-psyker organization amongst our society - a society that has vilifies psykers since before recorded history, is now ignoring the hive and the openly living Psykira that reside here. Why have they done nothing publicly, not even speaking aloud against them, to this point?"

He had a flash of disappointment on his face. "I had hoped you had something concrete, since we're lacking any real evidence ourselves, as far as I know. Not that we could actually do much about it outside of warn the Alliance, but they know to keep an eye on the Order already."

Rasua feared as much, and fished out some bits for the book. "Proto-Queen Aegis put me on security detail for the hive itself after seeing so many sphinxes in that raid on the P.C.E. recruiting center. If any of our brethren attack Phoenix's Roost, I'll be sure they're interrogated… properly."

"Then I'll continue to search for answers on my end." The tom was suprised to find a book on translations between Vespid and the primary sphinx language. He threw a few bits on the table near the cash register, if only to play the part of a customer. Since the drone ran off to take a closer look at the statues, it wouldn't do to steal. "Good hunting, field agent."

"To the hunt," Rasua replied automatically as she watched him leave. _I may be stuck here until the Director gets someone else in the changeling royal family's good graces, but I'm still going to visit my brother and father once the queens return from the jungle._ Rasua looked out the window at the puppeted drones. _In person that is._

With her mind made up, Rasua departed the bookstore after dropping money on the counter as well. _As honorable as the statues are, I bet it's giving Aegis a security nightmare. I better find a Jevruun Vrunningee drone so I can speak with her._

With no one giving her any mind, Rasua departed for the Headquarters of the Queens' Guard in the palace, leaving the festivities behind.

* * *

Outside, Twilight and Rainbow were surrounded by their pony friends, Cadista, and over thirty nymphs. Some sphinxes wanted to have their children kissed by the queens, but weren't sure if the custom would translate well, so they kept a moderate distance.

Rarity finished hugging Twilight and glanced at the statues. "So you like? I helped fuse the gems into one solid piece."

"Seriously?!" Rainbow half shouted in surprise. "That must have taken _forever_!"

Pinkie Pie, still as energetic as ever, shoved her head in between the queens. Her son, Pie Slice, was sleeping like the dead on his mother's head, even in the middle of the loud cheering. "It totally did! I had to bake her my Parent Cake Special like a hundred times to get it all done in a month."

Twilight glanced at Rarity who went a little green at the memory of it. Pinkie pulled the queens' head a little close so she could whisper at both of them. "It has my secret up-and-att'm sauce in it."

Twilight gave Rarity a heavily concerned look, only for the fashionista to wave it off. "Don't worry, Twilight, I already saw the doctor about getting detoxed. I simply _had_ to finish it before you got busy with that Polybia nonsense."

I wish nonsense was all it was, Twilight grumbled to her sister, and got a mental grunt of approval from Rainbow. Outwardly however, Twilight remained grateful. "Thank you again, Rarity, the statues are beautiful."

Fluttershy found an open spot to slink her way inside the circle of friends and scrambling nymphs. "You two've done so much for everypony, it's good to see you get some recognition."

"Hey, it's not just us two," Rainbow replied with a friendly smirk. "It's everypony. You guys, the kids, even the sphinxes, bat ponies, and the Tea'la have pitched in to make the Alliance go smoothly."

Cadista was on the fringe of the crowding friends. While she was normally friendly to all, an image that was cemented by the throng of nymphs climbing all over her, few non-changelings ever really found her approachable. Even now, they kept a short distance out of a mix of intimidation and respect. "Now if only the mainstream ponies can see what the sphinxes see," she commented more harshly than she wanted. "It'll be the only way groups like the P.C.E. will ever die out."

Pinkie Pie knew in an instant that comment would drag the mood down, so she spoke up before it could happen. "Hey now, nothing good ever came without some good ol hoof grease! Besides, we need to par _tay!_ "

"It can't be for long, sadly," Twilight stated morosely. "Our ship is already back in the jungle. We're going to need our entire focus on Polybia and Grogar."

Rainbow Dash tapped her chest. "And besides, we're borrowing our kids right now, and I know they'd want to do their own thing before the party dies down."

Twilight and Rainbow heard their puppets' thoughts argue to the contrary, but they were resolutely against taking so much time away from their children's fun.

"Maybe we can catch up on things over lunch?" Fluttershy offered. Among her friends, Fluttershy's old anxiety around crowds was far weaker than in years prior, allowing her to speak with more natural assertiveness.

"That sounds wonderful," Rarity agreed. After the others gave their agreements, the group moved on to one of the dining plazas.

* * *

It wasn't long before the dining plaza exploded with festivities. People of all races wined and dined on the impromptu holiday. Sphinxes, pegasi, and drones performed aerial dances to the amusement of those below, some gracefully flitting about while others moved wildly. The queens ordered some of the hive's stockpile of food to be cooked up for the event. While not the crème de la crème of culinary delight that most Equestrian cities could create, it served well enough.

There was even an Imperial thestral music band that was playing somewhere in the distance, but neither Twilight nor any of her friends and nearby family could really hear them. The group of friends were gathered around a few tables that had been huddled together. Rarity's thestral husband, Epaulets, was perched up with one hoof on the table and gesturing with his wings, holding everyone in rapped attention.

"So there I was, trying to peddle a few traditional Imperial vel'tia dresses out of some back alley in Manehatten without a clue on how to run a business in this far flung future. No marketplace, outside of building shops I had no hope in affording, no tools, and not a bit to my name. When the love of my life," he turned to flash Rarity a thankful smile, making her blush a little. "Comes over and offered to show me how to sell my merchandise in the exotics market. Made a fortune in a weekend."

"I could see he had real talent," Rarity explained offhandedly, "so I made some introductions, and called in a favor or two." She was currently keeping an eye on her children, Cloudy Skies and Summer Seas, who were playing tag with the gaggle of nymphs that had followed them from earlier.

Epaulets scoffed at his wife's modesty. "You made it seem like no trouble at all, so _I_ thought these friends were nothing more than friends who were rich snobs like her, not that I said it to her face at the time."

Rarity smacked him with her magic, but held a giggle back. Rainbow Dash snickered, giving little effort to hide it. "That's being kind, eh, Rares?"

"It's still far and above what you manage on a good day," Rarity teased back with a lady-like harumph.

Epaulets wrapped a leathery wing around his wife and gave her a wink and a smile, casting any sort of irritation she had for him to the winds. "Well I go in there," he continued his tale without missing a beat, "thinking at best I might get saddled with a guru and have to sell my designs for room and board. But these dresses were specially made for the royal family you see, so they were my magnum opus, and I was immensely proud of them."

Pinkie was bouncing in her seat wanting to blabber the punchline, but Pie Slice waking up hungry distracted her.

"So I go over to Photo Finish, who I assumed was the guru based on how the mare carries herself. After hearing so many songs playing in the building on the way to see her, I thought that I was expected to sing the Litany of Apprenticeship."

Rainbow and Twilight gasped in between shock and a burst of humor. "You _didn't_!" Twilight half cried while Rainbow was in tears. Fluttershy's face burned with sympathetic embarrassment.

Rarity couldn't help but to titter aloud. "By Celestia I thought Photo was going to have a conniption from all that howling and yodeling on your long career and lineage."

"So what did you do next?" Fluttershy asked even though she knew the story. She always found it fascinating, so her attention remained fixated.

"Well Photo Finish was about to throw me out the door when she saw the multicolored threading pattern in the dress I was holding on my back and grabbed it and left me at a loss because I was expecting her to yodel back at me.

"So then she goes into shock before yelling I have 'Da Magicks'!" he exclaimed with a flare of his wings and tossing his nose into the air. "After that she wanted fifty dresses by month's end," he added with old fatigue.

"I simply had to let him use my shop," Rarity interjected. "Poor stallion was as lost in Equestria as Princess Luna was when she returned from her banishment, no doubt."

The conversation devolved into small talk about catching up with everyone daily lives, how the kids were doing, and over all a friendly conversation that whittled the hours away. Fluttershy, as was typical of her, was the most silent of the bunch. Yet she was hardly content with that, since she had something to ask Twilight and Rainbow Dash, but found it difficult to get the timing right. It didn't help that her pegasus daughter was grabbing half of her attention by being cute as a button as she nuzzled Fluttershy's chest. The little filly had her mother's timidness in spades, and was fearful of joining the other foals in play.

Fluttershy's stocky brown earth pony husband, Nick Nack, gently nuzzled her. "Be strong, and speak your mind," he whispered reassuringly.

Bolstered by his quiet support, Fluttershy found the nerve to speak up loudly enough to be heard. "Excuse me, Twilight, Rainbow." The conversation died down with Fluttershy admirably not missing a beat. "I've been wondering about the whole difficulty with getting more ponies to see your hive as another pony tribe, and I might have an idea that can help."

Both queens were always eager to hear of such ideas, at least when they came from a reliably friendly source. "I'm all ears," both queens said in unision. 'What's up?"

"Umm, well," Fluttershy pushed her mane out of the way to reveal her hiding daughter, Gentle Breeze, who yelped at the sudden exposure. "My little Breezie was good friends with a few nymphs, but she's sort of lost touch with them after they hatched into adults. I think part of the problem with some ponies might be that there are no childhood friendships that can spring up.

"So is it possible to maybe slow that down for a few nymphs?"

The request seemed decent enough to Rainbow Dash, but it slammed into Twilight like a freight train. She blinked at Fluttershy for a few moments before finding the wits to speak again. "I… I never thought of that."

"Seems like a cool idea to me, if we tried that out on a few kids," Rainbow added. "But I don't know if that's possible."

All eyes turned to Twilight with Rarity speaking her piece. "I have to admit, it would reduce how alien we changelings are to many ponies out there."

Even Cadista, in her distant corner of the table arched an inquisitive eyebrow in anticipation of her daughter's response.

"I don't know if it's possible. I don't _think_ we can do that on a permanent basis, but I can try for a dozen clutches or so."

Cadista was pleased to hear Twilight wasn't planning on completely reversing one of the best advantages changelings had. "Since you're going to be busy in the homeland, why don't you let me take care of researching that particular project. It'll give me something to do while waiting for…" Cadista caught herself before saying 'for Polybia to retaliate against the hive itself' aloud. So she said it over the Link Instead. Not wanting to be rude to those around her, she kept speaking. "You to return while you're busy down south."

At that moment, the hive mind resounded with the turn of the hour along with the large dirigible above the hive sounding its fog horn for the non-changelings. Twilight moaned in frustration at how quickly time fled. "Is it so late already?"

"The _Long Shot_ should be well into the jungle by now," Rainbow added. "We should get back."

Twilight nodded in agreement and gave everyone an apologetic smile, but didn't get a chance to speak before Pinkie bounced over and squashed her with a crushing hug. "Now don't you worry your little buggy brain, Twilight! I know you girls will come home safe as can be!"

"I hope so," Twilight replied softly. "See all of you later!"

Twilight and Rainbow almost departed their puppets then and there, but the two drones hastily reminded them of the side effect of being puppeted, causing both queens to teleport to the nearest barracks before departing their hosts. The swarm of nymphs let off a collective groan of disappointment before several caretakers came over and took charge, herding them towards more kid-friendly sections of the festival.

Rarity watched the two puppeted drones vanish with worry deeply etched on her face. "Dear," she said to Epaulets, "You hear things from the Imperials living here. Do you think they'll be okay?"

If there was one thing that never really translated well to the Imperials, it was lying about a military situation to calm civilians. For them, it was a fundamental right for all to know if there was a hostile army or some other threatening force. "Pray for luck, everypony," he said loudly enough for Fluttershy and the others to hear. "What I have heard of Polybia and Grogar... is more troubling than waking up in a time lost city surrounded by lost ones and bodies." He gave a stern look at the fretful ponies. "The best thing we can do is give the queens no reason to split their attention between home and the warfront. Keep them focused on the south."

Although he couldn't see her, Cadista nodded and hummed in approval. "We can do that best by keeping the P.C.E. away from the hive. Let Aegis and Blitz focus on the bigots outside these walls while the rest of us look after those within."

Rarity saw her children were exhausted from play, snoozing with a few nymphs near the table with a caretaker nearby keeping an eye on them. "I _have_ noticed the distinct lack of fashion around here. I can settle the Fashion Floatique here for a while, maybe uncover some scandalous gossip from the non-changeling rumor mill. Besides, none of those rapscallions would dare lay a hoof on the Bearers of Harmony."

"I'll stay too," Fluttershy added with that steel in her tone that had grown immensely since her younger years. "Thanks to Nick Nack's help, I don't have any animals to care for at the moment, so I can stay to help watch the nymphs and foals around here."

"An excellent idea," Rarity commended with the stallions giving similar accolades.

Without missing a beat, Pinkie leapt up onto the table and struck a martial arts pose. "And I, Pinkie Pie, will make sure there's always a party! Who can attack good ol' PR when there's one of my shindigs going down?"

Cadista quietly chuckled as the ponies started going into details. _You are so lucky, Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash. To have such friends who will take the initiative to help you like this. I hope you don't lose sight of what you have, in lieu of what you don't._

 _Strike hard, and strike true, my daughters. Show those blinded queens the strength of our bloodline._


	66. Chapter 66

Skirmish Above the Ruins

Polybia brooded within a personal Linkscape. It resembled a cave covered in pale yellow wax. The chamber was well lit yet lacked any noticeable light source. A ghostly table allowed her to walk through it as she paced in circles while she studied its surface.

The table bore a map of the entire Cresnox Jungle with colored zones and lines indicating Chrysalis and Kreesus' areas of control and the last known location of their drones. Just shy of dead center was the Ebony Castle, both as a reference point and her ultimate goal.

Polybia's enemies controlled a deceptively small area in the north eastern quadrant and small pockets here and there along various mountains and rocky terrain along the entire northern half of the continent. Polybia controlled or at least harassed almost everything else.

Summoning a long straight stick into existence, Polybia looked over to a handful of quasi minotaurs and griffins standing around the table. As with Pear Butter and Paint Brush before them, their real bodies were entombed within pods, while their minds were completely enslaved to Polybia's will. During times of conflict, they served as different aspects of her mind, rather than separate individuals. "Commander Talon, as you expected, Kreesus' stranglehold over the mountains is proving a nuisance in trying to dislodge her from the Kel'das river region."

"She wishes to keep the mountains out of our hooves to serve as docks for Twilight Sparkle's fleet," Talon replied with little emotion. Due to his tight connection to the queen, he was unable to speak in griffin terms or language. "It is a common tactic among the Griffin Kingdoms. Should we allow Kreesus to stay, it will make Twilight Sparkle all the more dangerous."

Polybia glanced at a minotaur for a possible solution. "Thoughts, Split Horn?"

"The Empire faced such tactics many times before. We would typically hire pegasi or unicorn mercenaries to create storms on the mountain to force them to leave, or take refuge in caves. Either way, they were in no position to stop our infantry from climbing the mountain and slaughtering them on the ground."

Polybia hummed in contemplation as she stared at the target mountain. "… I don't have access to such mercenaries, but with some modification, I could create a miasma of undeath that will rise rather than sink in the air, provided the wind cooperates. That could serve the same purpose."

Polybia's attention was interrupted when scouts along the far north reported sighting an airship. Passing that information onto the war map, Polybia purred in dark delight at the carrier approaching the ruins of Stripped Gear. "There you are, at long last Twil…" Polybia checked herself after remembering the last battle fought over that hive. "No. Twilight only offers support. It is you, Rainbow Dash, who I should be dueling from here on."

Polybia scanned what forces she had in the immediate area. Phoenix Roost's intervention had been expected right from the start, and Polybia had a contingent in reserve waiting for them. The only problem was knowing _where_ the airships would approach from. "I should have expected them to fly over Stripped Gear. Probably some reminder or prop for a motivational speech."

The _Long Shot_ appeared to be alone and uncloaked. _Interesting… Perhaps their cloaking crystal industry is more difficult to rebuild than I had thought. The question is: Does that mean Rainbow Dash will be smart, and more cautious, or still as reckless as ever?_

Polybia finished assessing her local assets. Unfortunately, thanks to Chrysalis' recent raids, Polybia didn't have enough strength in the region to directly threaten the carrier. _Not if it's going to remain so high up. But…_

The memory of the bi-planes' weapons shredding her bodies to a red mist jumped to the forefront of her mind. "I think I should destroy those things first, and I just so happen to have enough local strength to make that happen.

"Alright, Queen Rainbow Dash," Polybia challenged as she started directing her forces, "let's see what you can do without your precious flagship."

* * *

From her perch in the _Long Shot's_ short control tower, Rainbow Dash peered through her mounted binoculars near the bow-side windows. The caldera that held the ruins of Stripped Gear loomed in the distance. Rainbow could barely make out the broken spires that once served as the palace and shield tower. A few columns of black smoke rose from the ruins, undoubtedly from the hive itself being melted by the steadily rising lava.

 _I hope everypony is watching. We can't let Stripped Gear be repeated._ Her mind drifted to recent developments at the hive. _If only Lyra had dug into that box two years ago when she first saw Aegis' hands. We might have had some sort of new gun by now to take advantage of that crazy advanced bullet cartridge._ Ultimately she heaved a heavy sigh. _'Course I don't think Sis would have granted Lyra's request so early either._

"My queen," a voice called from behind. Rainbow turned to see it was captain Darya standing proudly in her crisp white and gold naval officer's uniform. Unlike most of the others, she preferred to wear her soft cap as well, keeping it perfectly snug next to her horn. "I've been thinking. Some of the bi-planes are fitted with a two-drone cockpit. We might be able to use them as long-range scouts, in case Polybia has anything waiting for us."

Rainbow did a few brief mental calculations on the amount of reserve fuel both on the carrier and in the cloaked tender vessel following behind them. "I don't think we can spare the fuel to keep scouts up at all times. We can stick with the 'Boom' team taking that role for now."

Darya's face grew pensive. "But, my queen, we're traveling at thirty knots. The boom team is designed for speed, not endurance. They would have trouble staying ahead of us for long, and have an ever harder time returning to us if they scout behind us."

Any further argument was cut short when one of the crewmen on watch on the balcony surrounding the bridge waved frantically at her. My queen, we've got a force of unknown drones coming right for us!

Rainbow and Darya jumped at the news and ran to the spotter as he turned back to his mounted binoculars where two other drones were keeping an eye out. "How many and where?" Rainbow demanded hastily.

"I'd say just under two hundred at twenty kilometers," the next spotter over announced as the first one reclaimed his glasses. "Coming directly from the ruins of SG!"

Not needing to man the binoculars in person, Rainbow simply borrowed the eyes of all three spotters. "We're not expecting to see Sticky Spit or that traitor for another day, it's gotta be Polybia." As if to confirm her suspicions, the incoming drones changed to a loose formation. "They've spread out, probably expecting flak, definitely not friendly." Rainbow bit back a curse as one of her children spoke out.

"The _Long Shot's_ guns can't hit them until they get much closer, my queen," he said as if expecting her next orders. "They're short range defensive only."

Darya was antsy not only to put her crew, but her own training and drills to the test. _This could be the moment momma finally understands what Granny Cadista sees in this ship._ With bubbling resolve, Darya tapped her mother on the flank. "May I, my queen?"

Pride notwithstanding, Rainbow Dash knew full well that her heart rested with slugging it out on the _Deception_ with it's big guns, not the ballet Darya wanted to practice. _A good leader knows when to defer._ "Alright, _captain_ prove to me that this ship was worth it."

With only the briefest of thankful nods, Darya turned back to the bridge. Since only changelings were onboard, Darya ignored the intercom and addressed the crew via the Link alone. All hooves report to general quarters! Group One, Group Two, scramble immediately!

The crew jumped into action as Twilight teleported to the shield room and began warming up to the task at hand. As for Rainbow Dash, she took her place on one of the two thrones located on the bridge and entered a hive meditation centered around the ship's gunners and pilots, emboldening them to supernatural talent and fervor.

Several aircraft were stored on the flight deck's surface, and always ready to fly, but the pilots that were on duty were currently practicing their skills at _hurry-up-and-wait_ in the briefing room just under the control tower. Rusty Spring and his fellow pilots surged with anxiety and manic excitement when the order to scramble came in as they flipped over chairs in their rush to get outside. "You heard the captain, get your tails in gear!"

Greasy Piston hooped and hollered the whole way up. "Anypony get more kills than me gets a free round!"

As the pilots reached the flight deck, Darya addressed the bridge crew. "Change heading to east by northeast, and increase elevation by four degrees as soon as the squadron is in the air. Let's keep our distance."

* * *

Polybia watched the opening act of the battle unfold with keen interest. The so called 'carrier' was turning away from her encroaching swarm while twelve bi-planes had been sent out to intercept with less than ten kilometers between them. She fully expected a shield similar to the one the _Deception_ had in the Battle of Stripped Gear to pop up, but it failed to appear. _Not yet anyway. They must be saving their strength for when they need it._

Taking a moment to mentally step back, Polybia felt confusion wash over her. "…Strange. Rainbow Dash always came across as someone itching for a close fight. It isn't like her to stay aloof."

"Perhaps she has finally learned that most queens should stay out of direct combat," Commander Talon offered plainly. "In any event, our scout force will likely be slaughtered even with intervention."

"Then we better make the most out of it," Polybia replied coldly.

Taking more direct control over the swarm, Polybia had the drones race down to the tree line, only to be taken aback by the speed of the aircraft. They were easily going triple the speed of the carrier and more than double what even the fastest of her drone strains were capable of.

Even with such speed, Polybia was able to drop her swarm below the jungle canopy only a few seconds before the first flight of aircraft dove down in a wedge formation and strafed the expected location of Polybia's drones. She felt the loss of a few dozen, but scattered them enough so that the second group only injured a few and killed none. _Good, they can't see very well under the dense canopy._

Deciding to wait and watch, Polybia kept her drones hidden and unmoving in the trees to see how Rainbow Dash would react. Split Horn snorted while scratching a ghost of an itch on his arms. "Strange, the machines are acting more like pegasi formations rather than naval ships."

Polybia split her focus on two things: casting offensive magic, and scrutinizing the movement patterns of the aircraft. To the first task, Polybia shied away from casting any directed mana attacks to avoid giving away her drones' position. Yet something strange, though not entirely unexpected kept happening. Every incineration spell, rapid decay, freezing, confusion curse, or even simple telekinesis failed to grip not only the aircraft but the pilots as well.

Within the span of a minute, not one spell could touch the bi-planes. No matter what school of magic she used, every attempt seemed to ripple over the aircraft like water over glass. With one final test, Polybia directed the force of all of her remaining drones to incinerate the lead aircraft of the squadron angling back around to do a strafing run on the area where her drones retreated to the tree line.

This time, the fire fully manifested around a rippling barrier that showed no sign of weakening, but it did serve to cause the pilot to panic and fall out of formation temporarily. Polybia growled at the implication and cut off the spell to save her drones' mana supply. _Either that drone is undisciplined, a likely possibility, or this defense was unexpected by even their creators._

Filing that information away, Polybia was about to shift tactics to directed-fire spells when she noticed three other aircraft were flying in. While she originally passed it off as reinforcements, the oddity of their flying formation gave her pause.

Unlike the wedge formations of the first squadron, these three planes were flying in a vertical triangle. Polybia saw the first group of fighters backing off before taking a lazy turn back towards her swarm. _What are you planning?_ Not taking chances, Polybia ordered half of her drones to slip away back towards the ruined hive while remaining under the tree cover.

* * *

With the _Long Shot_ under no apparent risk of attack, Twilight Sparkle refocused her attention on puppeting her three children piloting the newcomers to the battle. Once the aircraft were close enough Twilight engaged the autopilot, which amounted to little more than locking the control stick in place, and focused on her spellwork. _You really think the jungle will hide you? Here's a gift from momma!_

The three aircraft started glowing as Twilight fed her puppet's magic into the built in runes along the fuselage and wings. A pale green bubble formed around the tight formation before exploding forward in a tidal wave rushing forward. The magic permeated the jungle and covered the hiding drones within.

* * *

Before Polybia could discern the purpose behind the enchantment, flak fire from the squadron tore into the canopy with far greater accuracy. Thanks to the spell, each hostile drone was illuminated to the eyes of the pilots.

While the trees still provided good cover, there was nowhere they could hide. The aircraft broke formation to hit the drones from all angles, with the flak making even direct line of fire unnecessary.

Ultimately though, Polybia was stalling to buy time. She woke another quasi, this time an elderly unicorn stallion, and summoned him to the Linkscape. "Magus Spell Twister, I need you to devise a counterspell to this illumination enchantment." She fed him all the sensory input from her dwindling number of drones.

The magus huffed in bemusement. "An adaption of Feather Quill's divination locator. This will take time, my queen. A day or so at most."

"Very well," Polybia replied idly. Sensing she had stalled long enough for her plan, Polybia ordered the survivors out of the nooks and crannies and charge the divination aircraft, firing bolts of fire. They were quickly cut down once they exposed themselves from the tree cover. "Now let's see if they take the bait."

* * *

Rainbow Dash awoke from her hive meditation after the last enemy drone was shot down. She found Darya was hovering near the window with binoculars and a wide grin on her face. The rest of the bridge crew looked in good spirits at the success of their first live action skirmish. Darya heard Rainbow's throne rustling under the queen as she stood up and turned to face her mother. "We stopped them just shy of eight kilometers out, nowhere near close enough for any spell. Not bad eh?"

"You did well, Darya, but this attack was only to test our capabilities."

Focusing predominantly on the ship and her crew, Rainbow Dash was able to keep a weaker version of the hive meditation active, if only to keep the pilots from suffering from withdrawal. "We need to stay alert." Boom Team, get out there and scout the ground below us, I don't want to fly right into a trap.

The scout team barely sent their acknowledgements when Rusty Spring reported to Rainbow. My queen, the spell illuminated a second group of drones fleeing south into the lands surrounding Stripped Gear. Should we pursue?

Towards Stripped Gear? Rainbow hummed in deep contemplation. _That whole area is nothing but overgrown ranches and crop fields, easy pickings._ Yes, chase them down but stay away from Stripped Gear itself.

Copy that, Rusty and the other flight leader replied before passing the order to the rest of the pilots, causing them to give chase.

Rainbow pushed more mental power into the hive meditation, but stayed awake to brood over the conflict. _Is it possible Poly is trying to lead us towards the hive and an ambush? Sounds like the kind of prickish thing she'd do._

* * *

Polybia kept a neutral expression as the rest of her advance force was picked off one by one. Unlike the first position, the remainder of her drones were entering one of the overgrown livestock ranches and corn fields. Tall grass was no substitute for the iron bark trees against the fighters, and the last of her forces were annihilated in short order.

Ultimately the cost was worth it by far in terms of information gleaned. "So… each flying machine can only launch ten of those tiny explosives at a time before they pull away, five from each wing weapon."

"Ten seems to be all they need," Commander Talon remarked sternly. "The explosions are small, but more than enough to damage several drones at once."

Through her puppeting, Polybia felt every wound inflicted on her drones, with no lasting pain upon her personally however. Pain was a useful tool for adaptation, and here was no different. "For now, perhaps. Kreesus used a similar type of attack a few hundred years ago. It won't be perfect, but it's possible to give my drones some resistance to that flak."

Split Horn leaned heavily onto the war table as the miniature bi-planes fanned out and turned towards Stripped Gear. The caldera was smoking along the edges, revealing the once thriving city was now completely uninhabitable. Much of the lower sections of the hive was a mess of slag, and the old shield tower was leaning over, but was just barely still standing. The palace itself was a mountain of loose debris. "We might have a problem."

Polybia and Talon joined him at the map with her calculating frown devolving into a scowl. "Damn. If those fighters move too far ahead, they might discover the ambush meant for the warship itself." She looked to the giant orange crystal leaning precariously on the edge of the shield tower. She had a few drones hovering around it and ordered them to hide. She quickly repeated the command to the rest of her forces. It was a gamble to be sure. The caldera was excruciatingly hot, even for those breeds which were adapted for it. "It can still be salvageable, provided we are not detected."

* * *

Rusty Spring enjoyed a new benefit to Rainbow's hive meditation. Through the eyes of the other pilots in his squad, Rainbow fed him up to date information on the condition of the other aircraft. With the last of the hostile drones dead, and no current orders, he took a moment to do the math. _Down to half ammo for me… and a quarter for that nut Greasy Piston._ Greasy, get back to the LS for resupply.

He could almost hear her grumbling shock. Are you kidding me? What if there are more of those bugs out there?!

That's an order, airling! he rebuked tersely.

Greasy was at least wise enough to keep from broadcasting her vulgar tirade and banked away from formation. However, Darya kept his attention away from the ornery pilot. Remain on station, Wasp Squadron.

Aye, captain.

* * *

Rainbow Dash peered through the eyes of the observation drones, with most of them keeping their gaze fixed on Stripped Gear. At present, it looked quiet and undisturbed, or at least as much as a slowly melting hive could look like. The drones keeping an eye elsewhere also reported zero contacts, and even the Boom Team gave the all clear along the port and starboard flanks of the ship.

With Aegis busy up north, Darya was Rainbow's stand in for chief advisor. "Seems rather weak of Poly to welcome us with only a single platoon."

"Well the jungle is a big place, my queen," Darya replied while fidgeting with her wings. "It's possible she didn't think we'd come down this way."

Rainbow Dash scoffed at the notion. "No way. This is our old haunt, and we know the terrain here best. If I were her, I'd have had a bigger army stationed here than that."

"Perhaps Chrissy and the traitor have had more success than they've let on," Darya suggested with a brief burst of excitement, "And Poly had to redeploy the rest of her welcoming committee."

"I'd like to believe that, strangely enough," Rainbow added with an eye roll at being allied with Chrysalis of all people. "But I can't shake the feeling Poly's got something bigger waiting for us somewhere nearby."

"If we're expecting a trap, the ruins of Stripped Gear would be an obvious place," Dayra stated flatly with Rainbow nodding in agreement.

After thinking on it for a little bit, Rainbow Dash glanced down at the shipmaster. "Pretty sure the caldera's turned the hive into a furnace… but then I wouldn't doubt the other queens would love to use that to test new heat resistant strains."

"None of us could survive there, but the planes might." Darya felt an electric thrill in anticipation to Rainbow's next words, causing her wings to buzz noisily. "You'll finally get your wish to use the bi-planes as scouts."

 _I'd still prefer dedicated scout craft, but I'll take what I can get,_ Darya mused bittersweetly.

Rainbow Dash brought Darya into a Link conversation. Hey, Twilight, we can fly over the thermals the volcano's putting out right?

Down in her shield amplifier, Twilight Sparkle was getting a little bored and had split part of her mind so she could read one of Rainbow's trashy romance novels. She was briefly considering calling Ratchet up from the engine room for a little love when Rainbow's request came in. With no enemies nearby, Twilight spoke without putting her book down. Yes. Since the Octavia engines are able to compensate for sudden changes in turbulence, we can fly over safely. Provided the volcano doesn't start erupting ash and soot.

Perfect, thanks. Rainbow closed the conversation before addressing Darya again. "We'll have the fighters scout ahead over the ruins while the Boom Team covers their flanks."

* * *

Rusty stretched inside his cockpit to loosen up some stiff wing muscles when the order finally came down from Dayra. Be advised strikegroup, your orders are to scout ahead to make sure the Stripped Gear ruins are clear for transit.

Rusty Spring cringed at the orders, but said nothing more than his acknowledgements. _Stripped Gear is too much like home. Seeing it in ruins like that gives me the willies._

He looked out at the other ten aircraft around him as the squadron banked towards the sleeping volcano. _Greasy is probably landing on the carrier by now, but it'll take her a while to rearm. Maybe next time she'll make sure her shots count._ Rummaging in his cockpit, he pulled out a small pair of binoculars and started sweeping the area.

All was quiet as the aircraft made their way towards the abandoned hive. The city itself was an appalling mess. It's once great monuments to technology, it's gleaming brass architecture, and magnificent castle was little more than a slagged and broken wreck. Rusty couldn't help but to keep seeing parallels between the ruins and Phoenix Roost, and the sight of it threatened to break his heart were it not for Rainbow's meditation keeping his emotions from sinking too low. Alright Flight one, spread out and keep an watch for anything moving.

Angling to the north along the old residential sector, Rusty couldn't escape the nagging feeling of being watched. _I really hope it's just ghosts watching us, and not anything physical._

He made a long slow orbit to the far side of the hive, beginning to drop altitude and slow down a little to be able to peer down alleyways more clearly. He angled his craft to get a better look, but he couldn't do it for long because the raw heat forced him to pull his head back into the cockpit, but something caught the corner of his eye, forcing him to look back out.

Ambush! Rusty acted instinctively to warn the other pilots and pulled up and away from the alleyways. Barely a second after he broke away, he saw the leader of Flight Two's tail-section catch fire as the two left wings were torn from their mountings not even half a kilometer away from him. The fighters scattered in all directions with Rusty almost clipping his wingmate's rudder.

He nearly missed Rainbow's broadcast to retreat screaming in his head when he saw a thick line of small mana bolts arcing towards him from the right. Yanking as hard as he could on the stick, he forced the bi-plane up to slow down and let the lethal stream of spellfire pass right by him.

He tried to turn back to the northwest and the carrier, but a second barrage of fire forced him to dive south west instead. The turn was so sharp he inverted his aircraft with the first hailstorm of death turned like a large searchlight back towards him.

From his inverted position, Rusty looked down to see that a large drone, easily the size of a queen with a massive horn, was the source of the magical flechette looking to scythe him in two. In a snap decision, he deliberately went into a stall by halving the output of his octavia engine. The two streams of lethal mana boxing him in tried to react to the unexpected direction, but the beams moved slower than Rusty expected.

His bi-plane plummeted for several seconds making his heart hammer in his chest. An explosion and falling debris heralded the destruction of another wingmate. Gunning the throttle on both engines, Rusty arrested his fall and corrected his stall with his landing gear scraping along the shattered ruins of the hive. Now that he was so low, the maze of broken buildings gave him some cover, but he could already feel the heat from the lava below, and his instruments were quickly warning him of the engines heating up. That's when he saw it in front of him. One of the large drones just tore the wings off of another bi-plane right as it flew over the walls of the caldera, sending it spinning out of control.

Keeping a telekinetic hold on his firing trigger, Rusty lined up a shot. Yet his first shot was spoiled when a line of teal mana-fire blazed from behind and went past his head ripping one of his wing supports to pieces. He banked around a half-melted brass wall, watching as the barrage of mana beat against the wall harmlessly.

 _Wish my plane was small enough to hide behind that._ He juked back to the left while drawing a bead on the original target. The drone had a large glowing thorax that dimmed the longer it fired. In a brief second, he noticed the drone's horn moved very slowly as it arced it's latest attack, and only moved quickly when not firing. In that same instant, he realized that quick movement was so it could aim directly at him.

Already seeing his death, he unloaded the remainder of his shot at the same time the drone fired at him. Rusty's shots connected first, pulping the drone in a mass of blood before it exploded in unstable magic. Rusty flew right through the cloud of loose mana, but the act allowed the original anti-air drone to score a glancing hit on his tail rudder, and blowing off the left landing gear. The hit knocked out his automatic flak cannon reloader causing a thick tail of smoke to trail behind him.

Nevertheless, his airplane refused to fail him, it crested the ridge of the caldera coughing up smoke all the while. He dove down to keep the wall of the caldera between him and any other hostile fire.

Once over the lip, he raced away as low to the ground as possible. Rusty was drenched in sweat and he only now realized he was heaving his breath. His bi-plane was rattling slightly from the damage, making his teeth chatter, at least he hoped that was why they were chattering.

He kept stealing glances behind him, praying that none of the hostile drones wanted to venture beyond the shattered walls of the hive. His second look saw a few other planes escape in much the same way. The last plane he saw was belching fire from it's tail like a meteor.

The pilot of the doomed plane bailed out and tried to fly under her own power. However the aircraft's speed was too fast and the ground too close for her. She flailed in the air before falling to the dirt and rolling down the outside of the caldera. Any hopes Rusty had that she survived were dashed when the plane exploded a few moments later, peppering the area in flaming shrapnel.

Rusty found the rest of the flight home was free of hostile fire, he made sure to thank the First Mother. _Keep it together, Rusty, just get back to the carrier, debrief, and then curl up in your rack with a bottle of brandy._

* * *

Polybia huffed in mild chagrin at the sight of the fighters fleeing for their lives. "So I only destroyed a pittance of those small flying machines instead of the real prize. You disappoint me, Rainbow Dash, at the very least I wanted to see the direct combat potential of that 'carrier' of yours." Her attention shifted to the shield tower in Stripped Gear. "I was going to leave things as they are… but I think I should punish you for such a poor show."

With a brief command, Polybia had her drones by the shield tower dislodge the giant orange crystal and allow it to fall to the broken ground below. She watched eagerly as it shattered into a dozen useless pieces. She idly noted that a scant few of her drones were killed by return fire, but only those who were designed to attack the small nimble fighters. The larger, more powerful living cannons that were meant to attack the capital ship itself had remained quiet and out of sight. _I really wanted to get a feel for that ship's armor, if not kill it in a single battle. It looks like you're going to force me to play the long game, Rainbow Dash._

After assessing the damage, Polybia found most of her losses were incurred from the intense heat, fortunately, that did not include any of the heavy fire drones. "A worthy sacrifice for the information at least. Now I should be free to refocus on the Kel'das Mountain range for the time being."

* * *

The mood on the _Long Shot's_ bridge was somber, shaken, and reproachful. Both queens watched from the control tower's small balcony as the last few aircraft limped back on board. Not one fighter of the scout flights had escaped undamaged, though for some of it was comparatively light. The _Long Shot_ started steaming away from the ruins of Stripped Gear with the Boom Team keeping a close eye on the path ahead.

Darya fidgeted nervously at her mother's side, trying to find the right words to say. _This is bad, but if we hadn't scouted to verify where Polybia was hiding, it could have been our ship that was caught in that trap._ Unsure of how Rainbow was truly taking this miserable first engagement, Darya took off her captain's hat and held it close with a hoof. "M-my queen, I cannot express how sorry I -"

"What are you apologizing for?" Rainbow stated quietly as she kept her gazed fixated on the limping aircraft. Twilight watched her sister, but said nothing yet. "You were the one who originally suggested using the fighters as scouts."

Darya floundered, not sure how to respond. "I -ah- I…"

"But I had the final say," Rainbow whispered with deep strain in her tone, yet the anger was directed more at herself than Darya. "I should have listened when you asked for dedicated armored scout craft instead of settling for any ol' plane." Her tone grew bitter while biting her lower lip. "I should have listened to Twilight when she told me to stop focusing entirely on the _Deception!_ "

This time, Twilight placed a hoof on her sister's withers. "Rainbow, there's no way we could have predicted the P.C.E's attack. You're working with the best we've got."

Rainbow shrugged off the hoof and gave her a defeated glare. "We're _changelings_ remember? Adapting to anything is what we do, and I didn't. I sat there thinking our flagship was the trump card to it all, and passed off what I thought of as a glorified freighter to her!" Rainbow fumed while waving a hoof in Darya's direction.

"Even that adaptation takes time, an open mind, and trial and error, Rainbow Dash," Twilight admonished lightly. She knew better than try to send calming thoughts over the Link, fully expecting it would backfire. "Carrier and fighter warfare is totally new to us. We're too used to the heavy armor of the _Deception_ to use the same strategies anymore. All the training and drills in the world can't make up for real experience. You taught me that, sis."

Rainbow averted her gaze away from Twilight before settling on the pilots below. She modified her aura to exude mournful pride in them. It was a small consolation to her that it seemed to help them. "We lost seven planes on a _scouting mission,_ Twilight," Rainbow whispered hoarsely at her sister. Dayra had never seen her mother so torn, and nuzzled her leg, eliciting little more than a slight waver to Rainbow's sad frown. Twilight kept a strong front in the face of Rainbow's dismal aura, morale was already hurting enough. "And nearly as many pilots. I failed all of us for not giving the ship more of a damn budget." Rainbow growled bitterly while kicking the metal wall. The lance of pain was nothing compared to the scar on her pride.

Twilight joined Darya in embracing Rainbow. "The important thing, RD, is to learn from this."

"My pride cost us the lives of our children, sis. My pride in the _Deception,_ in thinking that the _Long Shot_ was 'good enough to at least be the _Deception's_ escort'. How many have to suffer the mistakes of my pride before I learn that, huh?"

"Sis," Twilight started with her adopting a stoic grimace, "we may have to accept that losses are going to be a fact of life in carrier warfare, just like it is with the infantry."

Rainbow Dash's breath caught in her throat, and for several long moments she stood stock still looking down at the busy flightdeck. Slowly, the false bravado in her aura seemed a little less forced. "You may be right," Rainbow whispered.

Before Twilight could get in another word, Rainbow Dash teleported to the flightdeck to keep herself busy and help the crew. Darya shakily put her hat back on, while the hat was light upon her head, it's true weight rested on her heart.

* * *

Far from the scene of battle and largely ignorant of the recent defeat, Aegis and Blitz stood near the gifted statues from the sphinxes. However, the recall of a freighter off the Manehatten trade route and the sudden orders for strike craft production to double along with tripling the number of pilots in training was hard to miss.

Both proto-queens were leaning against each other, mirroring their mothers in the eyes of those around them. Blitz's heart was aflutter at the meaning behind such a profound gesture. "This is proof that we're going the right way, Aegis. It shouldn't be long now before even the P.C.E. is nothing more than an unpopular fringe group."

"Assuming it's not simply replaced by anti-psyker fanatics," Aegis replied with only mild bitterness. "But it's good to see all our work is bearing fruit. You think we can get a statue of us next?" Blitz only answered by pulling her head back to give Aegis a sarcastic smirk. "You know, you can be holding Twisty the Wrench and I can be holding Burny." Her face lit up with a massive evil grin. "Ooo, and it can have real pyrotechnics and shoot fire!"

"Maybe we should stick to just illusionary fire, love," Blitz giggled before kissing Aegis' cheek.

"A shame," Aegis replied playfully before returning Blitz's affection in earnest. The two embraced, fully losing themselves in the moment and in each other's love. Both proto-queens were enraptured by the flavor of the other's love. Aegis especially was stunned by the recent change in Blitz's flavor as it seemed to resonate within her at a level she thought only Twilight's love was capable of.

The two stretched the tender moment to a minute or two before eventually separating to find a room, only to see Lyra run up to them with a memory crystal held in her magic. "It's done! I'm ready for the lingification!" _I still think handification is a better word, but Bon Bon insisted._

Aegis separated from Blitz and gave the ecstatic bouncing teal mare a bemused look. "That was fast," both proto-queens stated in perfect sync.

Aegis continued alone, "Huh, granted I had duties to tend to, but transcribing my memories to crystal took a month."

Lyra deposited the crystal into her saddlebag. "Oh I've been putting all of my memories into crystal for about a year now. I figured even with total memory loss I should at least record them anyway for use later. All I've been doing since getting your approval was finding out which memories I wanted to make sure I remembered."

"I see…" Blitz said idly. "Well Aunty Twilight already got the alchemical formula ready before she left. If you're truly ready then follow us."

Lyra looked behind her to see Bon Bon giving her silent encouragement. Lyra's grin fell a little before she turned back towards the proto-queens. "Can I meet you at the entrance to the hatchery? I want to say one last thing to Bon Bon."

Aegis nodded approvingly while Blitz spoke enthusiastically. "Alright I'll see you by the Tree." _Aegis may be older, but I'll get the first adult drone at least._

With that, Lyra cantered the short distance towards Bon Bon who was sitting on a streetside bench that was backed by decorative shrubs. Snickering at one of their favorite pastimes, Lyra nuzzled her friend before sitting next to her. "Thank you, Bon Bon, for seeing me through all this."

"That's what friends are for, Lyra," Bon Bon replied wistfully while placing a hoof on Lyra's rear leg. "You've been a bright star ever since you fell into my life, and standing by you is the very least I can do."

"Don't be so melodramatic, Bonny, your life was hardly a dark place before I came around." Lyra ended up sighing and pulled out her gold colored lyre. "Even though I really want this… Teetering on the edge, I'm a little scared of how much I'll forget of our time together. I saved all the times I think were most important, but there was still so much to lose. So many little memories."

"Then we'll make new ones together," Bon Bon said with a reassuring hug. "I'll be waiting for you when you get back."

With misting eyes, Lyra pressed her lyre into Bon Bon's chest. "Watch over Stringy for me, will you?"

Holding back a tear of her own, Bon Bon wrapped a foreleg around the instrument and held it dearly. "Of course, you silly mare. He'll be at my side waiting when you wake up."

With one last kiss on the snout, Lyra ran off towards the hatchery. Bon Bon watched her go until she rounded a corner. She didn't turn away for the longest time, letting the sun slowly dip towards the horizon before at last looking down at the lyre. _I'll be waiting for you, Lyra._

"Mind if I join you?" a voice called out from behind her, causing Bon Bon to jump into a defensive stance. She dropped it in an instant after realizing it was Aegis leaning against the bench's backrest giving her something between a sympathetic smile and an approving smirk.

"Your highness, I'm so sorry," Bon Bon rushed placatingly as she dropped into a low bow. "I thought you were-" she caught herself before breaking secrecy. "-somepony else."

"Forget about it." Aegis waved off before taking a seat in a posture nearly identical to Lyra. "My brothers and sisters noticed you've been sitting here for over an hour. I probably don't need to guess why."

Bon Bon recovered from her bow and hesitantly took her spot back on the bench after Aegis waved her hand at it. The cream colored earth mare was wary of opening up to anyone outside of Lyra. _If Proto-queen Aegis is going to be Lyra's new family, I guess I can at least talk about her._

Taking a long, slow, steady breath, Bon Bon tried to keep from burdening Aegis with her worries, but if she was outright asking her…

"I know Lyra will be different after she wakes up," Bon Bon began slowly. "We first met soon after she got stuck in our world, so I remember all those silly little quirks she used to have: constantly trying to walk on two legs, not understanding basic hoof gripping magic, let alone unicorn magic at her age, and she always said words like someone, and everyone. She always said Canterlot like Camelot and messed up other city names all the time."

Bon Bon let a short giggle escape at the fond memories. Aegis easily saw what was bothering Bon Bon most. "Well I can't say she'll be the same Lyra you've grown up with." She let the statement lie for a moment, making sure it eroded any misconceptions. "While I can't say to know what momma was like during her pony years, I've seen what the hive life has done to Aunty Rainbow.

"She's a different person to be sure." _Saying otherwise would probably have AJ give me a 'whoopin' for lying right now._ "But at the same time," she added almost too quickly after seeing Bon Bon wilt, "RD is still as crazy cool, loyal, athletic," _As much as a queen can be,_ "and as much of a prankster she had ever been as a pony. Lyra will have some different goals and dreams when she hatches, but I have no doubt that she will glomp you at first sight."

Bon Bon let a relieving shudder pass down her spine while Aegis mulled over her answer. "Well, you may need to wait for her to use the memory crystal first, _then_ she'd jump your bones."

Bon Bon's face flushed furiously at such talk in public, but the message was heard. "T-thank you, your highness… I - I needed to hear that from somepony else." _I really hope what you gain is worth what you lose, Lyra, but this was your choice, no pony else's._

Aegis was about to leave Bon Bon to her thoughts, but she caught herself right before climbing to her hooves. "There _is_ one thing you might want to prepare for, just in case Lyra didn't notice or mention it earlier."

Bon Bon's heart skipped a beat. With all the things she and Lyra had thought they had accounted for, adding to that long list was not a happy prospect. "What would that be?"

"All the lings of Momma's bloodline, which includes Aunty Rainbow as well, are very polyamorous." Bon Bon's gulp was missed by Aegis since she started looking back at the statues in contemplation. "Momma likes to hide it, but everypony knows the consort sessions are a daily highlight for her, and Aunty is delightfully shameless about it. And I could go on all day about my personal record in one week. In fact, it all started with a bet against Intel-"

"Thank you, your highness," Bon Bon interrupted hastily while making a stopping gesture with her hooves. "It is a lot to think about. Have a good evening, Proto-queen."

"Same to you," Aegis added with a shrug. She passively watched Bon Bon bid a hasty and embarrassed retreat. _Shame, it's a great story. I'll have to share it with Lyra some time after she wakes up. Who knows, I might finally get to bed a former pony and mark another thing off my bucket list. I wonder if Lyra's love flavor will change like Aunty's did._

With the moment's good humor passing slowly, Aegis' eyes eventually drifted from the statues to the south. Both queens refused to mention the ambush over the past hour. Just as matters concerning the hive and P.C.E. were kept quiet as to not distract the queens from the campaign, the same protocol was in place for losses in battle. _Well, if things were going terrible, momma would let us know no matter what. I really hope she rips Poly a few new holes._

Aegis' gaze drifted up to the sky as she halted idle musings in lieu of giving orders to the anti-P.C.E. taskforce over in Canterlot. She didn't get far before her thoughts were interrupted by a small hoof tugging on her left hoof. Breaking contact with Intel, Aegis jumped a little by looking down to see an older purple nymph, couldn't be more than a week or so from entering a chrysalis, hiding behind the armrest of the bench.

"Umm, sister, could you play Vaults and Villains with us, pleeeeease?"

Aegis noticed nymphs and young sphinxes poking their heads out from the bushes with childlike anticipation written all over their faces and auras. She couldn't help but to rustle her younger sister's mane. "As fun as it sounds, kids, I don't-"

"Before you say no!" the nymph interrupted with a waiting gesture, catching Aegis flat footed. The nymph was prepared for instant rejection and pulled out a rule book from her saddlebag and hastily flipped through the pages. "We found a way to get Burny into the game without breaking the rules."

Aegis' brain came to a screeching halt before taking the book into hand. The nymph hovered over to her side and pointed at the entry. "The new rule book introduced the engineer class in tribute to us. You can make any single device wearable on your person at character creation."

That grin. It was slow, cruel, and maniacal all at once as it cleaved Aegis' muzzle with a malevolence that could put Sombra into a traumatized coma. The gleam in her eye matched the grin in all of it's terrifying power. One might think Nightmare Aegis was manifesting if she didn't already possess fangs and slitted eyes. The children and nymphs were spared this soul sapping depthless horror thanks to the covers of the book concealing the pyromaniac's visage.

The manifestation of _wrong_ was gone in a flash when Aegis closed the book to think. _Well, I need practice in splitting my focus on multiple places anyway, and I don't need to be physically present anywhere today, so…_ She beamed a warm, totally not evil, smile at her little sister. "Alright, girls, I have some time."

Jubilant cheering erupted from the children who either raced off to the nearest community center, or tried to pull Aegis towards the same location.


	67. Chapter 67

Of Heroines and Reality

Apple Bloom sat at her dorm room's desk as she poured over the latest reading material and homework assignment. Unlike every other school she had seen, Twilight's Engineering College was fully modernized to hive standard: electric lighting in every room, automatic doors, the new craze of air conditioning, elevators, and for the top 0.1% of students, their own clockwerk servant. Although several older students ended up building their own personalized models.

It was a tactic Twilight Sparkle employed to fuel the love of engineering in her non-changeling students and drive them towards success, yet for all of that, there was still one thing that baffled Apple Bloom to no end.

Her dorm room was a small affair, enough space for a set of bunk beds, a pair of desks, and enough personal storage space for most needs. Her roommate was a sophomore male purple drone. This was yet another strategic decision on Twilight's part. Every pony student living on campus had a drone dorm mate to promote long-term cooperation between the tribes, although having a stallion dorm mate was Apple Bloom's idea. "Hey, Sine Wave, do you have a partner for the practical in Sprocket's class? He seems a mite heavy hooved for a first year first semester teacher if ya know what Ah mean."

Sine Wave let of a snorting giggle that sounded a tad feminine to Apple Bloom. "Yeah, he gave mother a really hard time before she became a queen, but no I don't have a partner yet, so I'd be glad to take up your offer." _Plus it helps that the queens are offering extra bits to those who take pony partners._ "But we've barely gotten into the week." Sine floated the syllabus over Apple Bloom. "See? Just because we know it's coming, doesn't mean we know what the professor wants yet. It's just a heads up."

 _Ah keep forgetting all the guy drones were girls first. Maybe Ah can draw the stallion out of him over a few months._ Making sure to keep her eyes from lingering on Sine Wave's handsome physique, Apple Bloom refocused on the conversation and scowled at the paper. "Ah was wondering why he didn't say anything about it yet. In all my other years of school'n when we were told of our assignment is when we got it." Apple Bloom tossed the syllabus up for Sine Wave's magic to reclaim it.

Sine Wave merely shrugged as he refiled his papers into a short filing cabinet. "Its how Granny Cadista ran her schools, and I guess momma liked the model." Sine walked over to his closet where he kept his tools and school uniform. Said uniform consisted of little more than a yellow hard hat with Twilight's cutie mark serving as the school's emblem. All other safety equipment was kept at the various workshops. He pulled the hard hat on before making his way to the door. "Anyway, it's your first weekend, so don't sweat it too much. I'll be back later."

"Okay, see ya," Apple Bloom replied as she carefully watched him go. _Damn it, AB, this is no time to go colt crazy. Focus on getting squared away._

Sine Wave pulled to the side of the exit as a familiar pegasus and unicorn slid inside. Apple Bloom brightened considerably at the sight of them. "Heyya, Sweetie Belle, Scoots!"

"We've been looking for you all day, AB," Scootaloo shot back with a trademark grin. She was wearing the khaki casual uniform of the Equestrian Navy consisting of a snug shirt and white soft cap with the name _R.E.N. Manehatten_ stenciled on the front.

"I'm surprised you haven't tried to find us first," Sweetie Belle chided with mild annoyance. "You've been here for four days according to Applejack." Sweetie Belle had a very functional teal dress on that made sure to keep freedom of movement a priority.

Apple Bloom abandoned her desk and ran over to hug her childhood friends while all three of them giggled at the reunion. "You two know how Twilight is big on learn'n. Even the first week here's been as hectic as a herd of cows running from a flock a' bugbears."

"I can imagine," Sweetie Belle replied conspiratorially looking down the hall Sine Wave had walked down. "So what's with the roommate, huh?"

"He's pretty handsome, right?" Apple Bloom started bluntly. "He's like the perfect roommate too."

"The Lings are pretty weird about relationships though," Scootaloo replied with confusion written over her face. "What with them never wanting to settle down with a single partner. Doesn't AJ disapprove of that?"

"It's not like that," Apple Bloom retorted with a hoof wave. "I mean, if he wants to, that's cool, but no a drone's the best roommate for school. Like Twilight, he won't wander in late drunk off his rocker, he can help with study'n and homework, and whenever estrous comes around he can help me out with his heat-seeking missile and can't get me pregnant. It's like…" Apple Bloom started counting with her hooves. "Like six wins in a row."

The other mares thought about it before either shrugging in Sweetie Belle's case, or nodding approvingly for Scootaloo. "You really put some thought into that, not bad, Apple Bloom."

"No kidding," Sweetie added.

A light blinked on, making Scootaloo yipe out of excitement. "Hey, Sweetie, you could totally market lings as a safe and satisfying alternative for heat with your celebrity status!"

Sweetie Belle turned beat red with hostile irritation. "Absolutely not! The last thing my career needs is adding _that_ to my resume! Not to mention my parents and sister would kill me."

Apple Bloom giggled from behind a hoof while Scootaloo sighed in feigned sorrow. "A pity. You'd make a killing."

Sweetie Belle refused to grant the idea any more attention. "So _anyway,_ we should celebrate you finally making your way to Canterlot, AB. I'm actually going to be singing at the Marestrum Institute who's hosting the comic con all week. Why don't you gals come watch, I can get you free tickets."

"I'm on shore leave for a few days," Scootaloo added with growing excitement at hanging out with her friends. "I'm down for it."

Apple Bloom glanced back at her wooden desk that was still draped in notes, books, scrolls, pencils, and a few engineering tools. _Well, there's no telling where the Navy's going to take Scoots, and it_ is _just the first week of school._ She turned back to her friends and nodded. "Sounds great, why don't we hit the town until then?"

Sweetie Belle turned to Scootaloo with a conspiratorial eyebrow wiggle. The pegasus rolled her eyes in short lived exasperation before all three cheered. "Cutie Mark Crusader Town Painters, YAY!"

* * *

Doctor Arvatus once again found himself within Twilight Velvet's mindscape. Gone was the hurricane of turbulent memories, instead he stood in the center of a maze of staircases and doors. Stairs ran along the walls, curved in on themselves, led into solid walls, the ceiling and to nothing at all. The doors themselves were carbon copies of each other, making it all the more difficult for Arvatus to figure out where to go first.

 _I've never seen anyone in her mental state have such a defense against intrusion. I see where Queen Twilight gets her craftiness and quick wit from._ "How many times must we play this game, Velvet?" he challenged. His voice echoed throughout the expansive maze.

No answer was forthcoming.

"Tsk." _She's hiding from me. Seems that silencing the outside influences has had an effect._

While the maze was somewhat different than what he had seen before, Arvatus was by no means foiled. With some effort, he placed a psionic marker on each door, making them glow in different color patterns.

Shielding himself in psionic energy, Arvatus made his way to the first door he suspected was not a trap. Pushing it open carefully, he discovered a small room with wall to wall chalkboards. Formulas upon formulas were written in extremely small print or in tiny diagrams. However there was a dissonance that kept flittering about. Even Arvatus' predatory eyes could barely track the swiggle of black thread that shot around under and over the chalkboards. _Strange… How can she form such a defense and yet have underlying mental instability? This must be taxing her far more than her sleeping outward appearance lets on._

He was about to search another door when he saw several equations give off brief flashes of white light. _Bingo!_ Attaching a thread to hundreds of equations in the area, Arvatus waited for one of them to hit. At first, the blinking equations stopped, as if Velvet felt something was off, but Arvatus was careful, and minimized his presence by fading into an outline of a shadow along the wall.

Despite his experience, Velvet's awareness was just as elusive as he was, keeping him from locating her central consciousness. Slowly, over the course of several minutes, Velvet's attention shifted away from the equations and they started to blink again. The instant one of his marked equations flashed, Arvatus was flung through the maze of stairs and doors at lightning speed. Under arches, over a forest of doors, and a rat's nest of disjointed stairs, Arvatus sailed right into the heart of the labyrinth.

The heart was a solid iron cube with a singular minute hole that the thread was pulling him towards. Upon entering the hole, Arvatus found himself in a well-lit operating theater. It was a small room with steep tiered seats reaching five rows high. A pony sat in each seat giving a critical eye down at Velvet who was standing near two parallel operating tables with Queen Twilight strapped in one and unicorn Twilight Sparkle in the other.

The audience was mostly unfamiliar to Arvatus, save for Night Light, the princesses, and Shining Armor. The majority of the rest looked like nobility with a small number of ponies looking like middle or lower class.

"Why do you continue to stall, Madam Velvet?" challenged a more familiar stallion with a blue coat and mane. "We need only to discover the cure for the changeling condition."

Velvet tried to obey, but Princess Celestia held out a hoof to stop her. "Stay your magic, criminal! How long do I have to stand by Queen Twilight's side to show you I have no double meaning for our alliance?"

"She is ageless," countered one of the nobles, giving no forbearance to Celestia's station. "The princesses are used to playing the long game. Cure Twilight Sparkle and you will see her true intentions."

"Y-yes, of course," Velvet turned to the queen, only for Night Light to stand in his seat. "Let her go, Velvet!" The mare turned to her husband in muted shock. "How dare you treat her like she's still a filly hiding under your tail? She is a grown mare with her own ambitions!"

"Her ambitions are not her own!" countered the blue stallion with an angry wave of his hoof. "How can you call yourself a father with such flippancy?! Your daughter needs help!"

 **"Enough!"** Velvet screamed with tears as she banished the audience with nothing but a ripple in space to mark thier passing. She collapsed to the floor for nearly a minute before shakily climbing to her hooves. The silence during that time was deafening. Velvet constantly shook with raw emotion. Though she had no need for breath here, she was gulping air as if she were on a mountain. Silent tears streamed down her face, carving rivers in her fur.

Only the two versions of Twilight remained with their eyes fixed on Velvet. "Save me, momma," Unicorn Twilight pleaded shakily.

"I don't need rescuing," the queen stated angrily. "Save from you."

"She's not me," the unicorn cried. "I love you!"

"I tried to love you," the queen added with harsh bitterness and a hateful glare. "I would have gone to the four corners of the world for you. But you wanted me dead, going so far as trying to do the deed yourself."

"I'm still in there, reaching for you, momma."

"Life happens, _mother,_ " the queen barked as if saying the word was poison. "It's almost artistic in how it ruins plans, isn't it?"

"That's not me speaking!" unicorn Twilight said through mounting tears. "Cadista turned me into a puppet."

"No more of a puppet than I was to you," the queen rebuked maliciously, causing Velvet to stumble back a few steps. "Cadista lets me makes my own choices, allows me to rule how _I_ want, and grants me the freedom to go against her wishes if I so chose. When did you ever give me such privileges before Cadista broke me from your control?"

Arvatus saw Velvet was trembling, though with sorrow or rage was hard to tell. "I never held you back, Twilight. You were the one who wanted to go to Celestia's Sc-"

"And what happened after that?!" the changeling roared, causing Velvet's hind legs to give out from under her. "My whole world became nothing more than books! You pressured me to spend every waking hour studying until that's all I knew. The library became my second home, and books the 'only friends I'll ever need.' It got even worse after Princess Celestia took me in!" the queen's rage was flowing out of her like inky black oil, running down her form and oozing onto the floor. "No matter what the princess tried, I was too far under your hoof to ever make friends until she practically kicked me out of Canterlot! It got to the point where I only had three things in my life: my family, Celestia, and books! You made me abandon everything else!"

This time, unicorn Twilight snapped back. "We were in the most prestigious school imaginable, and then the Princess' protege. If momma hadn't pushed us, we'd have flunked out in a month! Do you really think we could have survived Celestia's tutelage without momma's support? Some ponies aren't meant to have a foalhood."

Arvatus had heard enough and stepped forward to make his presence known. "You can face those you've wronged here in your little corner of the world," he said, causing all three mares to face him. He focused more on Velvet who looked positively unhealthy. Her coat was matted and thin, her mane was an absolute mess of knotted hair, her eyes were sunken to the point of being in shadow. Velvet's frame was disturbingly thin, with her skin taut against her ribs. "But you can never heal if you don't accept the truth."

Both Twilights were silent as Velvet spoke with a thready voice that could have been lost to a small breeze. "You would have me accept her?" she waved a hoof at the changeling. "I loved my daughter more than life itself. All I've done is make the changeling in her all that much stronger."

"Queen Twilight Sparkle may wear that one's face," Arvatus nodded at the same changeling, "but Twilight Sparkle is more than the child that either hates you or loves you."

"Don't piss on my head and call it rain," Velvet wheezed out. "Whether or not Twilight is Cadista's puppet, which she _has_ to be, I've lost her…" Velvet turned to nuzzle unicorn Twilight, who readily returned the affection. "Why can't you let me have this?"

"Because none of it is real," Arvatus stated with iron and a stamp of his paw. "And this self delusion is slowly killing you."

"Lies. I'm just tired of your constant intrusions," Velvet said breathlessly. She started fumbling with unicorn Twilight's restraints.

Arvatus raced over to stop Velvet from freeing the unicorn. "Wrong! Look at yourself. You are the only figment of Twilight Velvet left. If you don't accept what you _know_ to be true, there will be no recovery from this madness."

"Let me go," Velvet ordered feebly, as Arvatus kept her hooves away from the locks. "I don't care about any of that!" she wept. "I just want my daughter back."

"Both of them are your daughter," Arvatus rebuked with a slicing motion from his left wing. Velvet hesitated, more out of confusion than anything else. "For they are one in the same."

"They can't be," Velvet countered with no strength in her words. "I only did what any good mother should do."

"At first," Queen Twilight sneered with an angry leer.

"But your obsession drove me away," the unicorn added.

A tremor shook the operating theater at the unicorn's words. Velvet was speechless as the queen continued. "How many times did I try to be a good daughter after my rebirth?"

"How many times did you wish I had died in that jungle?" the unicorn accused.

Arvatus pulled away from the restrained Twilights while Velvet collapsed to her belly at the relentless accusations. "How long did you plan to kill me?"

"Were my father and brother acceptable casualties?"

"I never stopped loving you."

"When did you stop loving me?"

Velvet's fur was falling away in patches, revealing pasty grey skin. "I never stopped loving you, Twilight, I swear!" Her voice was so quiet that Arvatus couldn't make out all the words.

"Then show me," the queen demanded.

"Show me a mother's love," the unicorn added. "Show _us."_

Arvatus expended a sizable amount of psionic power to conjure three levers on a narrow raised platform in between the two restrained Twilights. The word 'release left' 'release right' and 'release both' stenciled on the handles. "I can not do this for you, Velvet. I can only help you get there." Velvet only gave him and the levers the briefest of looks before returning her attention to the Twilights. "Make your choice, Velvet. Die with the sweet lie, or live with the ugly truth."

A second tremor rocked the theater, along with most of Velvet's mane falling to the floor. Her tail only had a few strains left on it. With more effort, Arvatus shrank the levers and moved them within arms' reach of Velvet.

Velvet's gaze lingered on her unicorn daughter for what felt like an eternity. Twilight's pristine lavender coat, her mathematically perfectly cut mane, the love and worry in her eyes, and that purple and white cutie mark they were all so proud of. Even here, in her own mind, Velvet tried to conjure what Twilight would have looked like with alicorn wings, but she didn't have the strength anymore.

With a snapping rip, the upper seating section broke away with nothing but a black void beyond it. Arvatus was stunned that the labyrinth from before had completely vanished. _Is her last spark of sanity collapsing that quickly!?_ Filled with a sense of urgency, he walked over and gently took Velvet's right forehoof. "Velvet. You have the power to make this right."

Velvet's head slowly turned to face him with nothing more than black pits for eyes. "Why do you care? Wouldn't the real queen be better off with me dead?"

With a ghost of a smile, Arvatus sunk down to his belly on the cracking wooden floor. "If I truly believed that, I would have never come here. She tries to hide it, but I _know_ that Queen Twilight Sparkle wants nothing more than to feel a mother's love from you again, if only for the briefest of moments."

Twin lines of bare grey skin marked the passage of yet more tears down Velvet's face. She averted her gaze out of a surge of intense numbing shame. Another chunk of the seating fell away into the empty void. _If I linger too long, I'll be sucked into depthless insanity with her._ Arvatus tried to focus on his patient. With another exertion, he reshaped the levers into buttons and moved them directly in front of Velvet.

The motion caused Velvet to look at the trio of buttons then up to Queen Twilight. The changeling said nothing, save to stare at her challengingly, as if saying her mother didn't have the strength. However, there was thinly veiled sorrow in the changeling's visage that struck Velvet in her heart.

The queen was mostly correct. Velvet was so weak, she couldn't lift a hoof. All she could muster was shaking her hoof on the ground. _I'm so sorry, Twilight._

Arvatus' survival instincts screamed at him to leave when the theater crumbled away to nothing more than the Twilights still restrained on the tables, and the shrinking platform where he and Velvet were still sitting. _I won't go back to PR a failure. If I leave, so do the buttons._

With a final effort, Velvet let her head drop. Her snout painfully slammed into a button. Her head flopped to one side to see both Twilights roll off their respective tables. Her daughters looked at each other before pressing a forehoof to the other, causing both to merge into one. The whole Twilight was still a full queen, but she wore the caring expression unicorn Twilight had.

Arvatus took to the air to allow Twilight to canter over and embrace her mother. "I'm here for you, momma, just like I've always been." The black void was pierced by a bead of white light that grew ever so slowly.

Velvet was too weak to move, but the barest hint of color returned to her face. Twilight Sparkle rested a crimson wing over Velvet to shield her from the black abyss that still surrounded them. Velvet leaned against the changeling queen, weeping with what little strength she had left. "I'm so sorry, Twilight. I… I was wrong, I'm sorry."

Twilight stayed closed to her mother as Velvet repeated her apology time and time again.

With the last of his spare psionic energy, Arvatus empowered Velvet's core. _There, that should be enough for her to recover for now, but I will need to return tomorrow to strengthen her further._ Lacking the energy to remain, Arvatus vanished from Velvet's mindscape, leaving mother and daughter to heal together.

 _A shame it's only her image of Twilight, instead of the real one. But… it is a step in the right direction._

* * *

Apple Bloom and Scootaloo sat within the Stirrup Theater of the Arts listening to Sweetie Belle ensnare her audience with soul-touching jazz. The comicon was no place for high culture opera, oh no, here every song had the same energy as the comic super heroes the event was here to celebrate.

The audience stomped their hooves to the beat of the drums while Sweetie Belle poured her heart and soul into every verse and dance move. Her electric energy ignited the ponies, and Scootaloo especially, as they all swung to Sweetie's tune. Apple Bloom got a chuckle at all the cosplayers dressed as heroes and villains alike all joined together to hear Canterlot's top rising star sing a popular hero's theme song.

With the music rising to one last crescendo, Sweetie Belle slid on stage before stopping right next to the edge. "I'm still in a _dreeeam,_ Raaaaaat eeeeaterrr!" she sang, pouring over every note. She peered at random one stallion with a sultry wink while the horns and drums gave a final few notes. Sweetie gave one last whisper in the mic, "rat eater…" before the curtain fell.

Thunderous applause resounded through the convention hall as Sweetie Belle was replaced by quieter atmospheric music. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo joined in with equal zeal, stomping their hooves.

"Come on, AB, we should go meet her backstage," Scootaloo suggested with a nudge.

"Sounds good ta me."

* * *

Pear Butter primped in front of the mirror backstage to get her costume just right. She was touching up her Mistress Mare-velous' lasso along with several other paid costume wearers for the various booths and tables. Paint Brush grumbled as he circled her, making sure every aspect of the costume was in order. While Paint Brush had altered his colors and cutie mark to blend in with a crowd, Pear Butter took on a light tan coat with a dark blue mane and tail, perfectly fitting her new alter ego. Those colors alone, and her instilled changeling acting ability, allowed her to take the job of booth-mare.

As per usual, Pear Butter was in the guise of an earth mare, but that was equal parts for the job as it was her preference, while Paintbrush was still a unicorn stallion. One of the very few spells that Polybia bequeathed them was a privacy bubble since the queen adamantly refused to allow them to hive-chat unless she was directly speaking to them. "This would be a lot simpler if you just used your First Mother given horn," he fumed as he straightened Pear's hat with his magic. "You could have gone as the Matter-Horn at least."

"Don't ya think it'd be a mite suspicious if all disguised drones were pegasi or unicorns?" Pear did her best to think of herself as a mutated pony before anything else, but her body and hive mind refused to allow her such luxury. "The guards won't randomly search an earth pony."

"This is Canterlot, damn it! An earth pony sticks out far more than a bunch of unicorns," he hissed angrily. He wanted to berate her further, but she started giving him the 'pained look'. It was subtle really, a slight frown, sad eyes, and a partially furrowed brow, it all pulled at his heart, telling him to stop. The worst of it was his empathy, fully telling him she didn't want to anger him.

Slowly, Paint Brush wilted under 'the look' and rested an apologetic hoof on her. "Look, Ah - Ah'm sorry, Ah just don't know if this is going to work."

Feeling a small amount of good humor returning, Pear pecked him on the snout. "It'll be fine. Besides, Mistress Mare-velous is supposed to be an earth pony anyway. It pays well, and if I keep the job for the whole convention we can finally buy the _good_ ID forgery."

He let off a sigh. All around him the other actors started cantering out to their respective places, leaving the dressing room increasingly empty. "I can't believe the princess was taken in by the Sparkles of all ponies…"

"I thought the queen was going to make Stopwatch's head pop for sure," Pear mused aloud with only the barest minimum of worry in her tone. _I still have no way of freeing myself from the hive mind, and until then, Polybia owns me._ Casting such thoughts aside, Pear appraised herself in the mirror and the comic book cover of Mistress Mare-velous, and found she was an excellent match.

"Jus' remember to practice your magic though. Once the Sparkles put out a request for a nanny, they'll want a unicorn for sure, 'specially since the princess is in th' guise of one as well."

"Ah don't like it… but ya have a point. Still," Pear stated with iron, "if Ah have to be a unicorn for the foreseeable future, Ah'm at least going to be an earth pony for the week."

A stagehand bounded through the gathered actors, "to your booths in ten minutes!"

"Ah better get go'n. Bye, PB." With a brief hug, Pear Butter fled the dressing room and ran for her place.

Paint Brush shook his head as he departed the room as well.

* * *

As expected, Sweetie Belle was beside herself with glee when her friends found her in her private room. Apple Bloom smirked as Sweetie held a banana like a microphone, and was singing with her eyes closed. In the unicorn's mind, her adoring fans were star struck by her talent.

"Great job out there, Sweets," Scootaloo said with a smirk of her own. Sweetie Belle blushed and placed the banana back in the fruit basket near her mirror. "Had the whole crowd under your spell."

"Yeah, you always had a talent for it," Apple Bloom added as the newcomers shut the door behind them.

"Heh, thanks, gals. It may not be the concert halls of Broadway, but I'm getting there."

"So what do you wanna do?" Scootaloo asked as she used the mirror to make sure her uniform was still in top shape.

"Weeeell," Sweetie used her magic to grab several flyers and show them off to her friends. Each of them was an ad for the various booths with most of them focused on the Power Ponies. "I wanted to get one of the first printings of the newest PP comic. They're finally giving Matter-Horn's origin story a much needed overhaul, and I wanted to clear that horrendous first story out my head asap."

Scootaloo snagged one of the flyers in her wing to take a closer look. "I don't know about MH, but Zapp is the coolest by far."

Apple Bloom scoffed and playfully swatted Scootaloo's ear. "Yer only say'n that 'cause Rainbow Dash and Rarity turned into them when they all got sucked into that comic book when Twi was restoring the old castle."

Sweetie Belle shuddered at the memory since she had been visiting Phoenix's Roost at the time. "The drones were _not_ happy about that one."

"We can argue who's best later, let's go!" Scootaloo started shoving her friends towards the backstage hallway. "I want to get my official Zapp plushie before they're sold out." Before leaving her room, Sweetie Belle telekinetically grabbed a brass pendent off her chaise lounge.

The other crusaders allowed themselves to be pushed all the way out until they were inches from the door between them and the main hall before Sweetie rolled out of Scootaloo's grasp. "Wait up a sec."

Donning her simple looking pendent, which had a smooth face, save for a small ruby gear in the center, Sweetie Belle fed her magic into it. Her friends looked on in silent curiosity when Sweetie suddenly erupted in lavender-orange fire. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo were taken aback by Sweetie Belle who now had a charcoal grey coat and frosty blue mane. "What do you think? Good disguise right?"

"Oh, so you can walk around in peace, not bad, Sweetie," Scootaloo chuckled at her friends' boxing mitt cutie mark.

"That's the first Ah've ever seen sumthin' like that. Can't ya just use your horn for disguises?"

Sweetie shook her head. "Only somepony like Twilight or the princess can mimic changeling magic. I have to use this thing to do the same," Sweetie said while proudly tapping her gifted pendent.

"Well at least it'll keep us from gettin' swamped." Apple Bloom briefly wondered how the pendent worked when Scootaloo decided she had' enough and finally shoved them out to main conventional area.

As Sweetie Belle expected, there were a number of ponies, mostly stallions and colts, who were disappointed at the fact that she had yet to show. Sweetie took the lead and quietly waved her friends towards the primary booths so her voice wouldn't give her away.

The convention hall was a massive affair, for the limited space Upper Canterlot could afford at least. The ceiling rose two stories high and was filled with banners of a variety of different super heroes and villains from both rival comic book companies, RC and Mareval, along with a few more obscure titles trying to make a name for themselves. Along with the normal gathering of ponies, the CMC noticed a surprisingly large number of bat pony foals, none more than ten years of age, scattered all over the place.

 _Guess mah sister's industrialization of the Jiyya trees is really starting to bear fruit._

Apple Bloom laughed inwardly at her own pun as the CMCs ignored most of the souvenir peddlers for their first destination. The comicon truly impressed both Apple Bloom and Scootaloo with its turn out. Ponies of all walks of life, both poor and noble, perused the plethora of merchandise and attractions. Dozens ponies waited impatiently in front of several closed doors, undoubtedly waiting for an event to start.

Yet due to the building's size, it didn't take long for the three childhood friends to reach the official plushy stands. The trio was in luck. Since Sweetie Belle's short concert was a big selling point, most events were pushed back until her performance ended, meaning the crowd around the plushies was relatively small.

"Sweet," Scootaloo cheered with a wing pump, "let's grab'm while the line's short. AB, you got our bits right?"

"Yeah, yeah, one sec." The trio cantered over to the back of the line while Apple Bloom fished into her saddlebags to retrieve three sacks of coins. "Honestly, y'all, if you was plannin' on buyin' stuff, ya shoulda brought your own bags."

"And leave my bits unattended in my 'private' room during my performance? No way," Sweetie said defensively.

"I sorta forgot mine, sorry," Scootaloo shrugged sheepishly.

Rolling her eyes and side bumping Sweetie, Apple Bloom decided to drop it while observing the advertisement banners above the stands. _I might just get a Mistress Mare-velous…_ Her eyes wandered over to the various booth mares dressed up as the comic characters and grinned widely at a new idea. _OH! I can get it signed by Mistress Mare-velous as a joke gift for Applejack! It'll be easy to give it to her in person since she's still in Canterlot. Might as well buy an official lasso while Ah'm at it._ Apple Bloom snickered at her master plan while evilly rubbing her forehooves together.

* * *

Pear Butter had to admit, this gig was easy money. She stood next to a stand of Mistress Mare-velous comics and dolls. The merchant next to her was doing all the work, frantically taking orders, bits, and doling out the toys. _All Ah have to do is smile, wave, and occasionally strike a pose. Wish these conventions happened every week._

A young earth colt left the line with his father keeping his place so he could walk up to Pear Butter. The colt had a look of pure wonder in his wide eyes and slightly slack jaw. "Are you the _real_ Mistress Mare-velous?"

Flashing a heroic smile and striking a pose with her lasso in hoof, Pear Butter caused him and several other children nearby to gasp in awe. "You can count on the me and the other Power Ponies, good citizen!"

The other booth mares nearby jumped to Pear's side and struck equally heroic poses. "Power Ponies, Ho!"

"Wooowww!" The colt bolted back to his father and practically tackled the poor stallion as he dug into his saddlebags. The colt shot back with a pencil and notepad in his mouth. "Can I get your autographs?"

It wasn't long before all six booth mares were swarmed by foals of all tribes in their desperate attempt to get autographs from their favorite characters. Pear was not only happy to see so many young smiling faces, but the love they radiated was refreshing beyond measure. _So much better than feeding on lust from a crystal._

Pear Butter was more than happy to make each child's day by signing away at all who requested an autograph from her. Although she was a little nervous when she noticed several blue and purple drones and nymphs were there to get autographs as well. Thankfully, most of them only wanted signatures from Matter-Horn and Zapp. _I hope they don't have any way of detecting me._

Trying to put the Phoenix Roost changelings out of her mind, Pear Butter was more than happy to have the throng of ponies serve as a distraction. When none of the drones, even with some coming over to her, seemed to have any suspicions about Pear's true nature, she more or less relaxed back into the role of Mistress Mare-velous. A few dozen autographs and photos later, she was fully engrossed in her job. Making so many ponies happy and the bits of love they unwittingly gave her almost made her forget that she was a quasi enslaved to Polybia's will. Thankfully, Polybia tended to leave Pear Butter and the others in Canterlot to their own devices, so the queen's influence was typically minor.

Sadly, Pear's good mood came to a screeching halt when she locked eyes with a particular pale yellow mare with a bright pink bow. The mare in question had a plushy of Mistress Mare-velous on her back with a matching lasso hanging around her neck. Something deep struck Pear in her core at the sight of her. The world, even the already quiet hive mind seemed to slow to a crawl, and for the life of her, Pear Butter couldn't understand why. Her eyes misted over as she stared at the pale yellow mare in utter silence.

Apple Bloom glanced behind her, trying to see what the booth mare was staring at before turning back around and waving a hoof in front of Pear's face. "You okay there, MM?"

Pear Butter blinked as the world snapped back to normal speed, and quickly wiped her tears away. "Sorry, fair citizen, Ah thought Ah saw young Timmy who was lost to the Maniac." She cleared her throat and glanced at the plushy's tag-of-authenticity. "Ya wish for me to sign your action figure?"

Apple Bloom arched an eyebrow at her shift in speech pattern. "Ah wouldn't exactly call it an 'action figure' but yeah." She took the doll in her mouth and rotated it so the tag was facing Pear Butter.

"...And who should I sign it for?" Pear asked, hoping to glean some insight on the mare's identity.

"Tag's a little small for a full name," Apple Bloom mentioned glumly. "Just sign it for mah sister AJ." Filing away the initials for later investigation, Pear Butter deftly signed the small tag. "Thanks, MM, go ah… have a good day savin' the city and all."

As Apple Bloom turned away, Pear Butter watched her closely. She took notice when Apple Bloom hoofbumped an orange sailor. Pear went back to giving signatures and photos while she waited for the sailor to close in on Zapp who was next to her. Once the sailor was close enough, Pear casually leaned in close to read the name patch on the sailor's right breast. _So that yellow mare is friends with a sailor named Scootaloo and has a sister with AJ as the initials. I've got to find out who she is… But I better leave Stopwatch and Paint out of this. They might tell the queen and she'd command me to avoid her._

Pear Butter could only pay the rest of the day a fraction of her attention. Her mind kept circling around the pale yellow mare constantly. _Damn, I wish she had been getting that doll for herself. I've got to find out who she is._


	68. Chapter 68

Hives: The Next Generation (bonus)

Aegis and Blitz all but burst from the moving freight train in a dead heat as it settled into PR North Station. It had pulled into the railyard deep within the eternally busy industrial sector of the hive. Had it been any other occasion the pair would have waited for a passenger train, but time was critical. Both proto-queens' only goal was reaching the hatchery. Profound aggravation and jubilation coursed through them in almost equal measure. Why did Princess Celestia have to host that joint conference with us on the same day our first eggs were hatching!? Blitz cried for the thirtieth time in the past three days.

Aegis only spared her counterpart a pained glance before returning her attention to the front so she could weave around an aluminum foundry. That's running an alliance for you. _Can't believe I'm the one telling her that._

The pair made their way through the hive with prismatic and lavender contrails racing after them. They even fought to ignore their rapidly shortening breath, such was their haste. By the time they reached the Tree of Harmony, the proto-queens were dead on their hooves. Aegis had to lean against the wall while Blitz morphed to stand on four legs in order to keep from dropping fully to her belly. It actually surprised her on how odd it felt to have hooves instead of hands.

I really wish we'd finish growing already so I can work to get my old stamina back, Aegis said mentally so she didn't interrupt her heaving breath. Everything from her wings, legs, and chest were crying out in pain. _No wonder Aunty hated her time as a proto-queen._

At least we can't get fat cause of the egg laying, Blitz jested in her silver-lining approach. "It's only for seven more weeks."

 _Except Aunty never got even half her old speed back._ "Fair enough, I guess."

Blitz's small smile faded a little after noticing some of Aegis' disapproval was directed at her, so she shifted her stance to bipedal again before she was ready.

She was overcome by a dizzy spell, but Aegis used her magic to catch her before shuffling forward to support Blitz in her arms. "Come on, Blueberry, we're close enough to practice teleporting." Blitz raised an eyebrow at the new pet name, but didn't complain.

The enchantments powered by the Tree normally made it impossible to teleport into and out of the entirety of the hatchery complex, but the proto-queens' royal bloodline allowed them to partially bypass that security measure. With a series of three quick teleports, Aegis and Blitz blinked their way past nymphs, caretakers, and the hundreds of incubators.

While the hatchery was the name for the entire complex, the nursery was only a subsection of it, albeit a big one. The division between the main chamber of incubators and the nursery was nearly fifteen meters of solid rock with numerous entryways behind noise dampening doors, making the separation a stark one.

Unlike most places within Phoenix Roost, the nursery was completely coated in purple and blue wax in symmetric patterns all over the floor and walls. The nursery itself was partially under construction with work crews striving to expand the subterranean complex as a whole. The nursery was grid-like in its layout of hallways and rooms, so Aegis and Blitz found their destination with ease.

And there they were.

Bouncing around in a playpen with two supervising caretakers, Blitz and Aegis found their first three sets of hatchlings. They were rolling around and playing with pillows, plush toys, and each other. However, the moment they saw their mothers, all twenty four nymphs rushed to the fence jumping for joy as they tried to reach the proto-queens.

Shall we? Aegis asked Blitz with a grin cleaving her muzzle.

Blitz responded by flying over the fence and settling down on her belly while her blue nymphs raced over to jump all over her. Aegis quickly followed suite by landing near Blitz, allowing her purple nymphs to tackle her.

Aegis held four nymphs in her arms and lovingly squashed them, completely forgetting her earlier fatigue. Each nymph was mesmerized by their mother's large eyes, chirping and trilling their delight at her presence, while the other nymphs crowded around Aegis' neck and torso. While the nymphs in her arms nuzzled Aegis' arms and face, the proto-queen herself was shedding tears of unadulterated joy. All the misery about how restrained she was due to her maturation into a full queen fled her mind now that she was surrounded by her children. Aegis started rubbing a nymph's mane, making the little bug curl up into her hand. Last but no less important, was the love the nymphs poured into her. It was like nothing she had ever felt before, pure, innocent, and absolute. Only Twilight's love for her was superior to this, but Aegis' mother was only one person, not a dozen. _I'm finally here,_ Aegis thought as she magically pulled more nymphs into her hug. _All the work, all the tests, it was all sooo worth it._

Aegis' ear perked up at the sound of sobbing nearby. She turned her head to find Blitz with a huge smile and misting eyes as she had gathered as many nymphs into her arms as she could fit. Aegis smirked as Blitz buried her muzzle into the pile of nymphs as they all clung to their mother. Slowly, Blitz wormed her muzzle free of her children while able to have one eye on her counterpart. "I can't thank you enough, Aegis."

"I told you being a queen would be the best feeling in the world," Aegis shot back with a 'told-you-so' smirk.

Blitz sniffled and nodded while ignoring a few accidental horn pokes and jabbing little hooves. On a scale of insignificant prices, they were mere drops compared to an ocean. "If you hadn't talked me into joining you into becoming a royal…" Blitz couldn't find the proper words in the face of the mind-numbing bliss of her nymphs' presence. _Just how close was I to declining Aegis' original offer? A whim? What if she had asked me on a different day? What if I had been assigned a long-term project, would I have dropped that for the tests?_ She turned away from Aegis and pulled her head back a bit to look at her gathered nymphs. Their glowing eyes full of wonder and love, the little tuffs of multi-colored manes that sang a sonnet that resonated with her heart on a level rocked Blitz to her core. _I don't care if it's the royal blood making me think this way, I love being a queen-mother._

Both proto-queens and nymphs cuddled in peace for several moments until a familiar voice cut the silence. "Kinda reminds me of you when you cuddled your first nymphs, Rainbow."

Both Aegis and Blitz snapped their heads around to the pair of caretakers bearing the eyes and cutie marks of their mothers. Twilight Sparkle held a knowing and proud smile while Rainbow Dash did the same with even more excitement. "Can't blame her," Rainbow snarked with her grin widening at the sight of her granddaughters. "They're awesomely cute."

Aegis took her nymphs into her magic so she could stand up. The nymphs giggled and squealed at the sensation of levitation. Since the caretaker drones were so short compared to her bipedal stance, Aegis dropped to her knees so she could rope her mother into a crushing hug. She nuzzled Twilight, while the matriarch lovingly did the same. "Thank you for believing in me momma." Aegis finally caved in and started crying as well. She floated the nymphs over so they could climb over her again. "I promise to be worthy of this."

Twilight pulled out of the hug and planted a motherly kiss on Aegis' brow. "My dear, you've already proven yourself time and time again. A queen must keep the best interests of the hive in mind, and you have yet to cause any doubt." _Aside from the pyromania, but that's controllable._

For her part, Blitz giggled as she wiggled her way out of the swarm of sky blue nymphs to glomp her mother. She started whispering hushed gratitude over and over in her mother's ear as she didn't trust her cracking voice. Rainbow Dash bore it all with knowing grace, with her own first nymphs being pushed to the forefront of her mind. "So what'd I tell ya, girl? Being a momma is the best feeling in the world isn't it?" Blitz could only reply by nodding and hugging her mother even tighter.

Eventually, Blitz remembered she didn't have to vocalize to speak. It's indescribable, momma. For the first time since my rebirth, I feel so… _complete._

Well, as Granny Caddy/mother always tells me, no queen is complete without her children, the two queens said in unison.

The four royals, plus twenty four nymphs, basked in each other's presence. It was Aegis that let go first, if only to remove the three little changelings hanging on her mane. She turned around and levitated all of her nymphs to sit in front of her, making Rainbow and Blitz break contact to observe. "What's up?" Rainbow inquired with a short pained yelp when one of the nymphs poked her puppet's ribs with a horn.

"I know the caretakers usually name us, but between you and momma, I think we have a tradition to maintain." Aegis hummed in thought as the nymphs started swarming over her again.

Blitz walked over on all four legs so her nymphs could ride on her back. "What tradition?"

Aegis started rubbing her drones' heads, finding it oddly soothing to pet their manes and scratch behind their ears. "I got my name after catching momma's attention, as did you when Aunty Rainbow first saw you."

Blitz gave her mother a sidelong glare to which Rainbow snickered and shrugged. "Hey, your name fit like a glove at the time, Blitzkrieg."

Twilight watched in silence at what her daughter would see in her first few children. She was all too familiar with the rather loud, and sometimes obnoxiously cute, chirping and trilling from recent hatchlings. _So who's it going to be, young one?_

Following Aegis' lead, Blitz tried to think of a way to reveal something special about a particular drone in her three clutches as well. Her attention spread out among the toys as her children returned to gathering around her like ducklings. Blitz discarded the pillows in lieu of the plushies and baby blocks. _Well… If Aegis was named because she defended Aunty from a clockwerk head, and I got my stupid name from running all over the place to chew on things, then maybe I can find someling who stands apart._

While Blitz's thoughts were kept to herself, Aegis was thinking on almost the exact same lines. Looking around, she found a giant stuffed teddy bear easily the size of a queen off in the corner. _Just like momma did, I have to find my little protector,_ Aegis mused with bubbly laughter.

Twilight and Rainbow shared quiet snickering, knowing full well how their royal daughters felt. The two matriarchs drew close so they could lean on one another. While the war over the jungle weighed heavily upon them, Twilight and Rainbow Dash allowed themselves this little moment.

Aegis watched helplessly as her progeny climbed all over her, completely ignoring the teddy bear with mild exasperation. Taking a page from her mother, Aegis used a touch of magic to throw her voice into the bear. "Rawr! I'm going to eat you all!" she growled while making the bear take swipes at herself.

It took the nymphs barely a moment to take notice of the supposed threat before most of them charged in wings buzzing. Aegis grinned with glee as one nymph starting biting the bear's paws, while others jumped on the legs and swarmed over the brown plushy like ants. _Yessss… goood. One of you will be my champion for sure, just like I was… am to momma._

Aegis continued to throw growls and childish threats through the bear while her dauntless warrior brood stalwartly acted in her defense. Even some of Blitz's nymphs heard the terrifying monster of ultimate fluffiness and joined in on the assault. "You think you can defeat me?!" Aegis all but snort-giggled at the scene. "I am Commander Bear of Bearington!" It was only then that Aegis noticed one nymph was crawling her way towards the head of the bear. Aegis angled the plushy so the hatchling wouldn't fall, in addition to allowing the nymph to reach the head more quickly. She waited for the nymph to reach the face before throwing her voice again. "Rrraaawwrrrr!"

To Aegis and Twilight's surprise, the nymph immediately looked to Aegis while the bear roared. The little changeling waved at Aegis frantically with her left foreleg that was shakily trying to morph into a hand, but she couldn't get much further than the hoof splitting apart for a few moments before reverting back. _Does she know it's a trick?_ both purple royals inquired.

Scanning her other children, Aegis saw each and every one of them, including Blitz's nymphs, were attacking the teddy bear, but the one on it's face was nuzzling the bear. Twilight's face lit up at the little one's actions and leaned into Aegis' ear. "Looks like you found the smart one, relatively speaking."

Nodding, Aegis allowed the bear to admit defeat and fall limply to the ground while she levitated the investigative little nymph and cradled her in her arms. "Looks like I found my little... Espy." Aegis rubbed the nymph's mane, making her curl up in her mother's hands while letting off a content trill.

Espy didn't have her mother alone for long before all her siblings rushed back over to tackle Aegis.

For her part, Blitz was having less luck. With Aegis' interference with the bear, her attempts at finding her special little ling among her hatchlings with a few building blocks was thwarted. Aegis! You know how protective hatchlings get.

Sorry, 'bout that, Aegis replied sheepishly with a shrug. She started tickling Espy while levitating some of her nymphs on top of her while giving some to Twilight to cuddle.

Scrunching her muzzle, but letting the issue drop, Blitz hummed at her nymphs while Rainbow Dash cantered over to be beside her. "Don't worry too much about finding a point-one percenter now, Blitz, so long as I'm here we'll find..." Rainbow trailed off as she spied a nymph crawling up on top of Blitz's head. Blitz's eyes went crossed as she attempted to follow her mother's gaze where her horn was. The nymph buried its muzzle below Blitz's mane and started licking her horn. Shivers of all kinds ran all up and down Blitz's spine and deep in her brain at the slobbery assault. Every attempt to try and levitate the wily hatchling sputtered and died since Blitz couldn't focus properly. Rainbow Dash would have come to her daughter's rescue, but Blitz was cringing so badly it looked like her face was being stretched. Rainbow Dash let off in full tilt laughter as Blitz curled in on herself while her magic sputtered and spat erratically out of her horn in useless attempts to get the nymph away from her head. "S-s-stop that!"

Aegis and Twilight looked on in bemusement until Blitz finally gathered enough wits to grab the nymph with her hands and removed her from her perch. Blitz shot the nymph a scowling the likes of which has not been seen on this Earth, but the little drone only chirped happily and wiggled in her mother's hands.

"Hey Blitz," Aegis said with a smirk, "you should name her Slobber Dog." Renewed chuckling came out of Rainbow while Twilight hid her giggling behind a hoof.

Blitz huffed and turned away from her counterpart. "And inflict my misery on her? No thanks." Rainbow gruffed and waved a dismissive hoof at the verbal jab. _That's one family tradition that's never getting off the ground._ Cradling the nymph in the crook of her arm, Blitz did her best to wipe away the drool from her horn. "I think I'll name you Gremlin." The filly let off an evil cackle at her mother's wiry grin. "Fitting to be sure."

* * *

Hours later, Aegis and Blitz laid their eggs for the day, which gave Twilight and Rainbow an unwanted excuse to return their full attention back to the jungle. Shortly thereafter, the caretakers were in the process of shooing the proto-queens out of the nursery. In fact, Chief Caretaker Gear Ratio had just finished physically pushing Aegis over the threshold between the nursery and the hatchery-proper. "You can play with them as much as you like later on when they're old enough to leave the nursery, but as you can see," she waved a wing back at the hundreds of young nymphs they had just walked by, "we have our hooves full here, and I'm sure there's lots for you to do too, sister."

Aegis had to buzz her wings at the door to keep from falling. She glanced at Blitz who was equally miffed at being separated from her hatchlings. "Come on, Gear, they're our first kids. Can't we at least get the day with them?"

Caretaker Feather Soft, who had been escorting Blitz to the door, bowed placating to the proto-queens. "Don't worry, we just want to make sure they're all well fed and healthy enough in the four months before they can attend school. You know how much work goes into each nymph right?"

"Ah…" Aegis drew a blank along with Blitz. Did you ever take part in the caretaker corps before going into engineering?

It doesn't work like that, Blitz corrected, Not that you would know going straight into the military arm… but ahhh. "Okay, you win," Blitz relented with Aegis reluctantly doing the same. "I still need to check up on the aeronautics retooling of factory seven anyway."

"Oooh, I'll go check on the R&D girls about that bullet cartridge Lyra gave us." With a happy spring in her step, Aegis skipped her way through the hatchery, singing the praises of queen-hood.

Satisfied the proto-queens were going to occupy themselves, the caretakers left Blitz standing there and retreated into the nursery. Blitz's gaze turned to a small subsection in the hatchery-proper at the very far north end. _That's right. I haven't seen Lyra since I saw her enter the cocoon. I know it's only been a few days, but, it couldn't hurt to see her._

Blitz took the time to walk down the vast subterranean complex, rather than teleport or fly. The massive support pillars blanketed in chrysalises and the constant movement of blue and purple changelings of all ages brought up a of surge of anticipation that filled her chest with joy. _Even after so many years, it's crazy to think that I'll have a hatchery like this running at full steam once Tradewinds is founded._

Surrounded by all of her brothers and sisters, Blitz wanted to go back to using four legs, but Aegis' words ran in her mind at the thought of it. _"I have faith that our adaptation is far and above any other single generation improvement ever before. The only difference is that we have to work to prove it. We can only really do that if we start thinking on two hooves by living on two hooves."_

Ultimately, Blitz allowed herself to drop down to four legs anyway. _You know what? I believe we should think of this as having the benefits of both worlds, and we shouldn't neglect one form for the other._

Smiling at her new revelation, Blitz mulled over how to express this idea properly to Aegis. Unfortunately, Blitz had gotten into the habit of rubbing her chin while in thought, and it was annoying difficult to do that while on all fours. With a grumble, Blitz held her ground and tried to walk on three legs. _This isn't over, Aegis!_

She lost herself in thought for the rest of the walk over to the rebirth section until she almost tripped over several bundled small tubes. "Woaah." Blitz took to the air slightly before looking around to catch her bearings. She was halfway into the rebirth section, which was really little more than a small alcove in the granite walls. The stone was covered in purple wax while five alcoves consisted of the entirety of the area.

With the sheer expense of rebirth, there were only two filled pods. One was a volunteer to become a new strain of drone for future consort purposes while the other housed Lyra Heartstrings. Blitz was taken aback when she saw Cadista munching on a plate of tacos while watching over Lyra, and hadn't noticed the grey matriarch until now. "Gramma Cadista," Blitz announced reverently, "I didn't expect to see you here."

Cadista swallowed her bite and turned her gaze away from the sleeping form of Lyra to take in her favorite blue granddaughter. "I'm somewhat of an expert on pony-to-changeling rebirths, so I thought that my eye could be of some use here."

Blitz cantered up to her. "Come on, gramma, you know as well as I that Gadget wanted you to get some fresh air. At least during lunch."

"And I'm getting so much of that down here, now aren't I?" Cadista added with an amused sniff. "It's been a few days, girl, how've you been?"

"Well I just got back from playing with my children for the first time," Blitz replied dreamily. She twirled in the air as the memory of it made her yearn to return. As a compromise, she brushed her nymphs' minds with her love and attention.

 _I guess there's no hope for any of my royal descendants being as aloof as queens should be,_ Cadista shook her head before taking on an edge of command in her tone. "Well we better make sure their mother is healthy. Stand up straight!"

Purely out of reflex, Blitz jumped up to two legs and stood at attention with her arms spread out. Cadista's horn started to glow as she started her inspection of Blitz's coat around her stomach and flanks. "I assume Gear or one of the others has already done a check up on you today?"

"Yes, ma'am. I couldn't stomach doubling my milk intake, so I figured I could mix in evaporated milk into all the jelly I've been eating." Blitz turned a little green around the mouth, "wasn't my best success." _That stuff is gross after the first two glasses._

"Lateral thinking, glad to see Twilight's efforts on you are bearing fruit, even if you only achieved moderate success. Now if only I can get Aegis to do so more regularly," Cadista deadpanned with a flat expression.

"She tries, gramma, but you know her brain's on security and war all the time."

"Yes, yes, I know all too well how the militant queen operates," Cadista replied with a huff. "At any rate, about the milk. Your brood will probably need to keep a high calcium diet more than any other." Cadista scrutinized Blitz's coat, and was pleased at the rich color and fullness of it, indicating excellent health. "I would suggest finding a way to alter your personal taste to enjoy milk rather than tolerate it. In the meantime, try yogurt and cheeses instead."

"Yes, ma'am. But you know how Aegis is," Blitz stated almost automatically. "She's probably more of a reason we have the two queen system than any sort of tradition you and Yumia started." By now, Blitz only fidgeted and flinched briefly at the poking and prodding. Cadista only hummed in muted contemplation at the comment. "I swear, sometimes I wonder if she should be the one with blue fur instead of me," Blitz added while idly tugging on her forearm's fur.

"Are you saying you would switch?" Cadista replied. She started pulling the fur apart to inspect the skin underneath.

Giving a smirk Cadista missed, Blitz flipped her rainbow mane to cover her eye and played with it in her fingers. "Not a chance, I love mother's mane colors. Aunty Twilight's colors are nice, but mine are just too perfect."

"Hmm. A nation of purple and blue queens. That'd be a sight to see, though I wonder if you might add some variety to the colors later on."

Blitz's ears wilted along with her good cheer fading. "You _are_ going to see it, right, gramma? New colors or not?"

Cadista adopted a thin smile and nuzzled her granddaughter. "Don't worry about me, young one, you've got enough on your plate as it is. How's your hip? Has going back and forth revealed any abnormalities?"

Rolling her eyes at the obvious topic shift, Blitz started an old exercise of switching back and forth from biped to quadruped stances. "I start to get a little sluggish if I switch too often in a day, and I start to get sore."

"Hmm, could just be fatigue, the fact that you're still growing, or any number of things. We'll have to fully investigate after your maturation is complete." Cadista placed an ear against Blitz's hip and motioned for her to continue. "And your forelimb shifting?"

"Same thing, too often and I get slow and sore. Plus I get really hungry if I shift them more than once or twice a day."

When Blitz's hip joints didn't make any unordinary sounds, Cadista stepped away and appraised her bipedal granddaughter. Her inspection complete, she brought forth the plate of food which still had three more tacos on it. Blitz's eyes dilated in stark hunger that blasted its way to the front. Blitz didn't even hesitate as her body demanded what had to be done. She wolfed down all three before having the wits to even ask. "I'll have some royal jelly tacos brought down for you."

"Eww, jelly on tacos?"

Cadista tittered inwardly as she inspected Blitz's hands as they slowed their transition between hoof and hand so they could be better evaluated. "You need more than just calories, child, properly made royal jelly has the majority of everything you could possibly need."

Blitz had eaten the tacos so quickly she had barely tasted any of it, but the thought of _more_ jelly unsettled her stomach. "I wouldn't mind if I wasn't already eating three pounds of it a day."

"Such is the life of a queen, child." Cadista hummed approvingly at how smooth Blitz's hands morphed into hooves and back again. _I must say, Twilight, you reverse engineered the sphinx shifting beautifully._ "Your progress is excellent, as expected."

"Thanks, gramma." Blitz flexled her hands a bit before looking over at Lyra with her lighthearted smile fading a bit.

"Something troubling you, child?"

"Well…" she started nervously fiddling with a lock hair while her wings twitched. "I don't know how to feel about Lyra."

"What is there to fear, young one? She is becoming one of us, and will have a drone's love and loyalty to you. She knew all of this going in."

"It's not that so much." Blitz took a deep breath to buy time to think. "Lyra's almost forty years old, I just turned eight last month." She looked into her grandmother's eyes, looking for answers. "What does that make us besides queen and drone? I mean, biologically, she'd be my child, but how can I call someone four times older than me my daughter, or hell even sister? She'd be more of an aunt than anything else. I mean, isn't that why momma and Twilight act like sisters instead of mother and daughter?"

"That _would_ put a damper on the queen-mother stance. Saying she is anything other than daughter would put her on equal or superior position. It may not sound clean and efficient, but you'll just have to live with it."

Blitz plopped on the floor while dragging her palm over her face. "I was so sure, you'd have an answerrrrr."

"If it'll put your mind at ease," Cadista said with a brief note of humor, "physically, Lyra will be no older than any other changeling that has hatched into an adult."

"What really?" Blitz asked with a head tilt.

"Yes. While a royal rebirth allowed me to keep Twilight's age the same, a drone rebirth always resets the age to a new adult."

"...Huh. I didn't know that." Blitz brightened a little and flashed a warm smile. "Thanks, gramma." She roped Cadista in and gave her a kiss on the cheek before buzzing over to touch Lyra's chrysalis. _I hope you accept that. The only thing left is to figure out what to do once you're awake._


	69. Chapter 69

Mission Impossaling

Down in the deepest darkest recesses of the changeling jungle, a hive that was halfway to becoming a necropolis festered in the hot rain. The living and the dead patrolled the trees, green and blackened alike, that covered the subterranean hive. The air was choked by the stench of decay, which was compounded by the humidity of the jungle.

Yet even with the dead working alongside the living, the jungle did not submit. The near omnipresent drone of insectoid wings around the hive was joined by a buzz of another treble. Eyes, both pale blue and milky white looked to the south to see a writhing black cloud filtering through a swath of dead trees that scarred the dying land.

Polybia's reaction was both rapid and predictable. Several small fires set in strategic places around the hive's entrances were guarded by drones. Under her direction, they threw in several pounds of tinder composed of grey vines into the fires, causing them to burst forth into bonfires belching greenish smoke.

Well over a dozen drones started whipping the air into a slow tornado to keep the smoke concentrated on the hive. The hoof sized insects were rebuffed by the sickly bitter smell of the smoke and wind, but the scent of death was still in the air and they were hungry.

Behind it all however, lay a single ebony drone perched over the lip of a hive entrance. It's chitin was, for the moment, grey and mottled like the rock face it hid behind, with green reptilian eyes watching everything unfold.

 _So, Polybia has never bothered to move beyond using rust vines against bloat flies,_ Chrysalis mused derisively as she waited for her chance to slip inside. Through the spy strain's enhanced binocular vision, Chrysalis spotted only a pittance of the local drones' eyes were visible beyond the gentle blue glow. Even then, all of them were rounded irises, not the slits of a full puppet.

 _Good, my little raiding party along the north river must be diverting attention away from even here._

Once a group of drones arrived with more vines for the fires, Chrysalis' spy slipped into the tiny cave hole barely two drones across. The buzzing and distant scraping of hoof and claw against rock urged Chrysalis to push the drone to its limit. It sprinted down the dark winding tunnel, lit only by the occasional bio-luminescent moss. In such cramped quarters, it would not take much for a passing drone to bump into the spy.

Chrysalis made it almost a hundred feet through the long steep tunnel before the ground trembled with oncoming drones. _Does she already know I'm here?_ Chrysalis looked around and saw an air vent to the lower levels and dove through the opening, leveraging the spy's small frame to squeeze through. She had barely managed to get her tail over the lip of the hole before several ghoulish drones thundered past carrying more vines.

 _Good, they didn't pause in their step as they went by the hole. I should be good to go, but I'll send a couple more spies on through. Poly will expect at least some attempt to infiltrate after an attack from bloat flies._

With her goal of sabotage in mind, Chrysalis commanded the spy to descend further into the depths of Polybia's lair.

* * *

The _Long Shot_ steamed through the skies over a raging jungle river far below. The clouds were heavy, so moving unseen was fairly easy. Twilight Sparkle was with her sister on the carrier's bridge, as they stared out into the dense grey soup of the cloudy overcast. Rain was pouring down onto the jungle below, but for the ship it was almost like being caught somewhere between flying the air and an ocean. Water clung to everything, making the drones eventually abandon the exterior observation posts out of futility.

Even the planes were grounded, leaving the pilots with little to do but get some restless sleep. Both queens were also looking through the eyes of the drones manning the ventral observation blisters, which thankfully had windows shielding them from the elements. The carrier rocked from the constant turbulence as it pressed on through. The tender vessel-turned-gunship-carrier _Breadbasket_ lagged behind, trying to find tamer air currents since its jury rigged design and deployed cloak crystals were at risk in such a storm.

Twilight Sparkle gnawed on a haunch of meat, more to distract herself from the tedium between battles than to satisfy any hunger. She was still in a good mood after seeing Aegis with her first few clutches of nymphs, and wanted to stay that way until the ship arrived at Chrysalis' hive barely half an hour away. Weather permitting of course.

A pang of deep seated wrongness flashed through her mind before she could numb it with a few sips of hard royal tea, one of the few benefits that made such periods of time bearable. She was able to mostly banish the wrongness since she knew full well what the cause was. _This is what I get for moving out of the jungle, our supply lines are going to be quite long._ She absentmindedly rubbed her flat stomach. _Can't make eggs until the_ Column of Spring _gets closer._ She swallowed her chunk of pork before giving her old breathing exercise a few tries to recenter herself.

The wrongness abated for the most part, allowing Twilight to focus on her sister. _If I'm having problems with this…_

She briefly studied her sky blue sister sitting in the throne next to her, noting Rainbow's aura was mostly clear with a sense that she was stubbornly clinging onto a happy thought. The throne, if it could really be called that, was little more than a swivel seat that was large enough to accommodate a queen. With a playful smile, Twilight magically made Rainbow's throne turn to face her, prompting a chuckling smirk out of Rainbow. "How are you holding up, Rainbow?"

"Just psyching myself up for the next fight, and meeting Sticky Spit."

Glad that her sister had given her a valid reason to keep her mind off eggs, Twilight squared her shoulders at the worrisome prospect. "I'm not sure how compatible our technology will be with the other queens' tactics."

Rainbow blew a dismissive raspberry. "You let me worry about that, you just keep them in line during 'negotiations'." Rainbow's face soured heavily at the thought of Kresus. "I don't trust the lot of them."

"I can do that," Twilight replied with a healthy dose of confidence.

"I just hope we brought enough holy-imbued ammo for the fighters," Rainbow commented with a note of concern. "The pilots went through double the amount of ammo I expected them to last time."

"I'm sure the resupply ships will get here in due time," Twilight replied with a slight hitch in her voice. "We've already pulled half our merchant fleet into resupplying us."

"Yeah I know…" Rainbow trailed off and might have left the matter alone, but something bothered her, causing her to eye Twilight carefully. "You know, sis, I couldn't help but notice something." To her credit, Twilight acted curious and unaware. "I may not know much about magic outside of combat applications, but even I've noticed you've had some serious problems using holy magic."

Twilight's face burned from embarrassment, which was made worse by the presence of the bridge crew. After all, combat magic or not, Twilight was the embodiment of magic not the sooner-sleep-than-study Rainbow Dash. Twilight had repeatedly attempted to address this fatal logic error of the universe without anyone being aware of it, and yet Rainbow was outright calling her on it. "Ah-," Twilight started to explain and only to stutter along. "Well, I - I just don't-"

Rainbow watched in mild amusement as her sister wrestled with making an excuse or telling the truth. Thankfully, Rainbow could see Twilight's aura was tinted orange from simple embarrassment rather than a blacker color from a dark secret bubbling up in her sister's thoughts. "You might as well fess up or I'll sick AJ on you."

The image of an irate farm-mare with bucking hooves a flying did not sit well her, not one bit. "Alright, fine…" Twilight prepared herself for some verbal zingers. "I've never been able to use holy magic like I used to before my rebirth, and I don't know why."

In light of the expected battle with Grogar, Rainbow put a temporary hold on her loose mouth. Survival came before delicious verbal lashings, most of the time. "What kind of trouble do you think it is?" Rainbow asked with a slightly cocked head.

"W-well, ever since I was reborn, my…" Embarrassment made Twilight hesitate until Rainbow prodded her with a hoof. I can only summon half the power I used to as a pony, Twilight said over the link so she could save at least some face. Of course, Rainbow wasn't going to let her off easy.

"What do you mean, you can only summon half?"

Twilight's gaze danced around the room causing each drone she saw to quickly turn back to their station and act as if they weren't shamelessly eavesdropping. "Yes, _half,_ " Twilight relented while sagging in her throne. "I just don't understand it. None of either of our children ever have this kind of issue."

Rainbow Dash leaned back in her throne with a self-satisfied smirk that would put the Cheshire Cat in his place. "Really now? And now the day has come where pigs are flying and 'ol Chrissy is a bonafide saint." Twilight scowled in her seat as Rainbow oozed with satisfaction. "The day has finally come where **I** , Rainbow Dash, the least magically intelligent person on this planet," _who has a horn anyway,_ she added to herself, "get to teach _you_ about magic."

She raised a hoof for Twilight to wait. Gentle Touch, you owe me a thousand bits, Rainbow broadcast to both the drone and her sister.

"Wait, you can!?" Twilight replied wide eyed.

Aww, no way, Aunty, Gentle replied with a mix between a groan and shock, not knowing Twilight was hearing it too. You gotta be kidding me!

Nope, Rainbow scoffed, enjoying every second of this. I'll fill you in on the details in a moment.

Twilight fumed in her chair until Rainbow finally addressed her. "Now, you were saying you could only summon half your old power with holy magic?"

"...Yes," Twilight replied with her trademarked Fanged Sisterly Scowl of Biblical Indignation. "I just don't understand why since none of our magi children have any problem wielding holy magic."

Rainbow Dash made a show of scratching her chin while half-whispering "half." She clopped her hooves together. "You know what, sis, I bet you're _only_ drawing upon the Silver City, aren't you?" Rainbow said with an eyebrow wiggle.

Twilight hated to admit it, but she was perplexed by the question. "Ahh… Well of course. I'm a full blooded changeling, and my soul is bound to the Silver City."

"Ahh, but see that's where you slipped up," Rainbow chided playfully. "You _became_ a changeling, you were born a pony. Both you and I are equally tied to the City _and_ the Elysian Fields."

Twilight blinked slowly. Her mind churned at the statement, trying to make sense of it. "B-but… wait, how does that even work? If you're talking about what that demonologist said about our souls being an even merger of pony and changeling, that doesn't account for our children since they have the same kind of soul."

Rainbow lost most of her superior smirk and shrugged. "Hey, I don't know the ins and out of holy magic. All's I know is that I'm a changeling that used to be a pony. I tried asking Elysia for aid and I got it, so I've been calling on both the Fields and the City whenever I have holy work to do."

"I… I can't say I thought of that." Twilight turned away in thought as she tapped her chin. Calling upon the old incantations, Twilight opened herself to the Elysian Fields and asked to be shielded from harm. The old prayers sang in her thoughts as her horn prepared to mold any oncoming power into a shield. It was sluggish at first, as if Elysia had almost forgotten about her. Yet all too quickly it forgave her and lent her the aid she requested to the best her soul could carry.

Twilight felt the age old familiar warmth of holy magic fill her very being with a shield quickly forming around her. Rainbow Dash let off an approving huff. Twilight's shield formed around her like a second skin, rather than a dome. Because she intended no harm to Twilight, Rainbow's hoof passed through easily to pat her on the back. "Leave it to you to overthink things, now you just gotta ask the Silver City at the same time to get your old strength back."

Twilight absently stuck her tongue out as she wrestled with aligning the two sources of holy magic into a single spell. Rainbow Dash added pointers wherever needed, which sadly was almost at every point. _What's easy on paper isn't exactly simple in practice,_ Twilight cheered at the new challenge.

The two queens toiled on this lesson for several minutes as the clouds parted a little, revealing the landscape below. The ventral observers to call out shortly thereafter to the queens and shipmaster. Landing zone identified, we've arrived at Chrysalis' hive.

As Captain Rourke started giving orders, Twilight let go of the holy power. "Thanks, Rainbow, I'll have to work on using both at the same time when I get a chance. But for now, we have some diplomacy to conduct."

Rainbow's good mood wilted with a groan. "...Joy."

* * *

Chrysalis' spy finished digging a small hole for itself into the side of a vast chamber. It was completely dark, save for some glowing moss that was covering the ceiling and walls. The room was absolutely covered from floor to ceiling in eggs. Caretakers ran to and fro, tending to them while some eggs hatched. She hummed worriedly. _I don't understand it. This is the fourth nursery I've come to and this one is practically overflowing as well. This isn't even her primary hive cluster, so where is Polybia getting all these eggs? Was she able to steal my secret to egg-laying drones after all?_

Seeing that the nursery was not a worthwhile target for her saboteur, Chrysalis pulled away from the hole and filled it in to cover her tracks. _I better see if I can find the source of these eggs._

The main tunnel the spy slid back into was busy, filled to the max with drones, both living and otherwise, on their way to perform various tasks. Chrysalis quickly donned a disguise to match them, including their scent. In this area of the hive, the drones had little to no oversight by Polybia, evidenced by their eyes having a strong blue glow. Chrysalis was able to slip past them easily as long as she didn't accidentally interfere with any of their movements. Instinct and simple commands ruled down here, and Chrysalis made sure to let the hive run like clockwork until she found a target worth destroying.

After filtering through the main thoroughfare for another half hour, Chrysalis finally found something that piqued her interest. A small tunnel branched off at a section that was otherwise completely devoid of chamber entrances. However, it was the inward facing guards brimming with holy-enchanted weapons and armor that made Chrysalis purr with satisfaction. _Now_ why _would dear 'ol Polybia need guards with holy-weapons, hmmm?_

Slipping away from the rush of drones, Chrysalis found a spot near a boulder sticking out of the wall and started digging. The spy was perfectly suited for such work and quickly disappeared into patch of soft earth. It took a little while, but through echolocation, Chrysalis eventually found the expected air pocket of end chamber. Circling around, Chrysalis poked an eye-hole through into the last chamber's wall near the floor.

Within was a pool that gave off a green glow, casting its pale light over the small rocky chamber. There two more guards inside the chamber itself near the exit that looked highly alert. Chrysalis had seen the look before. The guard's' eyes darted to and fro over the small chamber, their ears were alert, their weapons held tightly. _These won't let me pass so easily._ Chrysalis contemplated whether or not a single odd pool was worth the trouble until her gaze fell upon a large cocoon, easily large enough to house a queen. Her breath caught in her throat as Chrysalis realized she beheld a ram with a single horn. The wax of the cocoon was inscribed with runes, complete with warded chains, covering the deeply encased entity all the way up to his neck. His eyes burned a hateful crimson and his jaw was practically set in stone as he undoubtedly contemplated his escape or revenge fantasies. His eyes drifted over to the antsy guards, but as of yet he remained silent.

 _How very interesting._ Weaving what little mana her spy possessed, there wasn't enough strength left for a sleep spell after crawling through the jungle for the past month, so Chrysalis lulled the guards into a state of calm instead. The pair went back to being passive, allowing Chrysalis to finish burrowing her way into the chamber. The ram regarded her with silent curiosity.

"Well, well, you must be the infamous Grogar I've heard so much about," Chrysalis purred with contemptuous amusement. "You're shorter than I had expected."

Grogar's eyes drank in the spy, taking note of every detail. "Your color and eyes betray you, Chrysalis. Given all that Polybia speaks of you, I'm surprised you wormed your way here."

"Polybia is nowhere near as competent as she makes herself out to be, but then again…" Chrysalis waltzed over and hesitated before touching the chains, fearing an alert ward. "She's done a marvelous job keeping you under control."

Grogar gave an unimpressed grumble. "As much as I let her think. I assume you are here either to find me, or cause damage to Polybia."

"I admit, I was not expecting to find you, but alas, this puppet doesn't have the strength to break your bonds. But, it does have enough to kill you here and now, necromancer. I'm sure you can reform at your phylactery. Be a dear and slaughter Polybia for me."

"I would rather you not," Grogar rumbled, making Chrysalis look at him curiously. "I did not come to the jungle just to see my prize snatched from me."

"Prize? Do you prefer to be Polybia's guest?" Chrysalis asked with far more sincerity than sarcasm.

"I will tell you the same thing I told Polybia. I want the body of a royal changeling. One way or another, I will have what I want. You can either help me, or stay out of my way."

Chrysalis eyed Grogar in a new light, with her mouth forming a pressed line. "And just what would you do with the body of a royal? Would you possess it? Would you perhaps merely become a more competent rival than Polybia? I have heard tales about you, Grogar." Chrysalis glanced back at the guards, making sure they were still unresponsive to her. "You are an age old terror if the ponies have anything to say about it. Why should I help you become one of us?"

Grogar took in every facial expression, every little movement in the spy. _She doesn't trust my intentions, a shame._ "Because I can destroy Polybia from within, and once I have her body, you will have nothing to fear from me." _Unless you damn your soul as she has,_ he added to himself.

"That will never happen, _Ram_!" Both Gorgar and Chrysalis turned to see the guards both wore Polybia's eyes. The spy was pulled away from Grogar by one guard's magic with a dampening field formed by the other to keep Chrysalis from casting. Then she brought the spy over to one of the guard's face so she could lord over it. "It's a shame you can just turn off the pain from a puppet, we still have a score to settle after what you did the last time you killed me."

"That was for what you did to Yeelindrus! You deserved every scrap of that pain a thousand times over." Chrysalis spat a wad of sticky salve in the guard's eye. A malicious sneer crawled across Polybia's guard as she idly wiped away the salve before it could harden.

"Poor misinformed Chrysalis," Polybia cooed as if to a child. "Don't you mean, what I _am_ doing to your dear sister?"

Chrysalis' blood ran cold and her breath caught in her throat. "Impossible. I made sure to-"

"Nothing about death is beyond my reach, Chrysalis," Polybia chided darkly. "She will never know the peace of the Silver City."

Chrysalis' stunned expression morphed into one of depthless hatred, yet before she could act on that fury Polybia's guard cleaved the spy's head from it's body with a swift movement of the guard's halberd.

Polybia glared at Grogar who was watching her with contempt. "That was foolish, Polybia, Chrysalis strikes me as a mare who will not act irrationally out of hate."

"She's already out for my blood, ram, a little more incentive will hardly change things."

 _My magic must be eroding her mind better than I thought._ "Sooner or later you will slip, and I will be there to claim what is mine."

"I would rather suffer my final death than give you a royal's body!" Polybia declared while leveling the blade of the bloody halberd at his head. The other guard approached the spy's tunnel to make sure there were no more of them. "But if and when that happens, ram, I will make sure to drag you down with me."

"You will try," Grogar rumbled with dark amusement. "But I know Tartarus far better than you ever could."

* * *

Chrysalis seethed with barely contained anger from her throne. Her throne room was decorated in the various artifacts that Twilight had brought back from Rookhaven, tactfully arranged to flaunt each and every piece while also giving respect to the First Mother. _Damn you Polybia, you best hope that was only a bluff, or so help me Grogar's vengeance will be tame compared mine._

She brooded for a long while, mostly to calm down and think a bit more rationally, but also to mull over what Grogar had told her, and how she might take advantage of his words. _So he wants to become a queen, eh? If even half of Twilight's research on him is accurate, then that would be even more dangerous than Polybia as she is now._ The thought of a demonic hive chilled even her frigid heart.

A few drones on the surface signaled that Twilight and Rainbow had arrived near the hive's primary entryway. She sent a command for the drones to escort the new arrivals to the throne room to give her more time to think. _Actually… If I play this right…_ Chrysalis recalled Kreesus' lone full queen ally still practiced rebirth, making a conniving grin split her muzzle. "Maybe I can make Grogar subservient to me entirely of his own volition, maybe I can capture Polybia and offer her up to him as a bargaining chip." _Still, I have to approach this carefully. Perhaps form a contract with him. Demons are hidebound by any that they sign, and I give him what he wants he'll have no ability to betray me._

The risk warred with the possibility of increased power in her mind, pushing her decision back and forth between. _More power and a more stable upbringing for my loving daughters, or eliminate a potential threat. What to do, what to do._

Chrysalis was so lost in thought that she didn't immediately react to Twilight and Rainbow entering the room with Kreesus coming in from a second entrance to the west. _Well, no need to decide now. But I'm sure Twilight will have some necessary information for me. After all,_ she thought with an inward smirk, _she's been so very helpful in sharing her knowledge._

Chrysalis pulled herself off the throne and affixed an oily grin. "Ah, Queen Twilight Sparkle, Queen Rainbow Dash, here at last."

* * *

Rainbow Dash was already sour with Chrysalis at seeing all of the hard-won treasures that she and Twilight had secured from Rookhaven being flaunted about, like Chrysalis had earned it all. However it was the presence of Kreesus that pushed the militant queen that much closer to fraying her diplomatic nerves. Tell me I don't have to speak to that **traitor.** Sticky Spit is bad, but at least she's as honest as a snake can be.

Twilight didn't answer her sister immediately since Chrysalis had finished speaking. "We ran into some difficulties with our navy, but we're here to lend our support, Queen Chrysalis." Twilight was curt, but respectful in her tone. _At the very least, we, well_ I _won't be the one to sunder this alliance,_ she mused worriedly at her sister. "Shall we get down to business?" she asked to both Chrysalis and Kreesus after turning her gaze to the red queen.

"After sitting out of the fight for four years, you act as if you suddenly have a sense of urgency," Kreesus growled.

Rainbow Dash was only able to hold her wild tongue in check by her sister mentally asking her to calm down. Even then, Rainbow's very being as the embodiment of loyalty itself, raged at the presence of the traitor. "The war was not our problem," Twilight replied smoothly with all the passive-aggressive poison of a Canterlot noble, "since we no longer had a stake in the jungle. You saw to that, after all."

Chrysalis wanted to keep the military alliance intact, but she was enjoying the verbal sparring too much to interrupt. After all, posturing was the norm for changeling politics. Nay, it was expected. _Far be it for me to interrupt such entertainment too early._

Kreesus glared at the sister queens, her pride denying any small wish she might have had to make amends. "I did what had to be done! Your mother understood that, and that's why we were friends once."

"Is that all friendship is to you?" Rainbow pushed backed her sister with burning fury in her eyes as her wings glowed dangerously lethal. "Your kind will never understand. You talk big about advancing our species, but you don't give a damn about honor or loyalty. It's always one big game to one-up each other. You may have played nice with Granny Caddy, but don't lie to my face and say it was friendship. A _friend_ would never have betrayed her so completely that she destroyed her own royal blood! She gave it all up after what you did so that we could focus our resources on Aegis and Blitz." Rainbow shoved her face into Kreesus' own. "How Cadista ever found it in herself to actually forgive you I'll never understand."

Kreesus flinched backwards with suppressed sorrow briefly crossing her face before she hid it again. "S-she?" Kreesus grunted to get control of herself again and resolidified her expression to one of stoicism. "Well, at least _she_ understands the way things are. Giving up her own reconstruction in lieu of the next generation is what any self respecting queen would have done in her position. A pity the two of you haven't learned that lesson properly. What else was she to do?"

"And you wonder why all your attempts at raising a loving princess were failures," Twilight deadpanned. She wasn't actually sure how much longer she'd need to keep posturing without looking weak. _I really hate these games._

Kreesus' fury looked as if it was going to make her pop a blood vessel when Chrysalis stepped in with a silky smooth tone. "Ladies, ladies, we can have all the meaningless drama we want by perusing Canterlot's _inspirational_ gossip tabloids. Why don't we discuss the war over dinner? The sooner Polybia is dead, the sooner we can all go back to hating each other."

Twilight centered herself to resume Princess Celestia's style of diplomacy, but she couldn't do that quickly enough to keep Rainbow's tongue from flying off the handle. "There is no way in Tartarus that I am sitting at the same table as that traitor!" Her mana infused wings vibrated angrily, making the other queens nervous.

"Would you prefer the nymph's table instead?" Kreesus rebuked with cold fire. "Hate me all you want, but Polybia is the bigger threat."

Twilight had found her diplomatic train of thought again and held a hoof out to hold Rainbow back. "Agreed." I hate to say it, RD, but she's right. "Lead the way."

Rainbow tsked angrily and spat at Kreesus' hooves before releasing the lethal magic on her wings. She followed her sister and Chrysalis towards a Rookhaven dining table where a meal was being laid out by drones for them and the last few queens who were due to arrive shortly. Once Twilight and Rainbow turned away from Kreesus, the red queen's steely visage cracked a little. _I took everything from you, Cadista. Your hive, your queenhood, even your pride. How could you forgive me for that?_

 _I can't believe Rainbow would lie about that, she's too blunt and emotional, but I need to be sure. I need to hear it from Cadista._ Kreesus recalled the names of a few love collectors in Ponyville that Cadista used to have. _At least one of them should still be living there._ Not wanting to give the other queens any sign of weakness, Kreesus quickly made her way over to the table so she wouldn't be missed, though her mind was elsewhere. _Roseluck was one of them, surely Cadista would have retained her hive mind over her brood._

Oblivious to Kreesus' plans, Chrysalis sat at the head of the table, in the biggest chair of course, and watched as her sister and the last queen, Valera, arrived. "Now, why don't we jump right into it, yes?"


	70. Chapter 70

Bonus: Paper Medium for the Purpose of Literary Preservation and Distribution

Ever since Phoenix Roost's founding, Ponyville was fast becoming a busy town. That fact was only going to grow exponentially once the rail line between Ponyville and the hive was complete, but for now, the town was bereft of visitors save for the three hundred blue and purple changelings enjoying town life.

In the late morning of the their week-long vacation, Princess Aegis and Royal-Candidate Blitz were at Sugar Cube Corner along with ten other customers, both pony and changeling alike, as they celebrated a very momentous event. Aegis lifted her cupcake in her magic like a toasting champagne glass at her vacant-minded friend. "Well you've finally done it, Blitz," Aegis announced to wake her friend up. "How does it feel to win the right of royal rebirth?"

Blitz's mind was a pile of goo that tried to slosh around in her head to work up a response. To buy time, Blitz bumped her cupcake against Aegis' own. "Exhausting," she said at length. "I swear, if I didn't have this week off, I'd probably die of brain overload."

"That bad huh?" Aegis replied derisively as she took a bite out of her confectionery treat.

"Tests, diplomatic adaptability training, tests, engineering creatively projects," Aegis cringed a little as Blitz unleashed all the pent up anguish over the past two and a half months. "And I don't think I'll ever forget that accursed Kobayashi Maru, more tests, then there was that whole thing with logistical training about avoiding famine with a failed harvest and still maintaining full egg production between two queens, _loved that one,_ " Blitz groaned heavily while face planting the table. Her speech was muffled by the table. "Did I mention the tests?"

Aegis licked the bit of frosting off her nose after polishing off the cupcake. "Preaching to the choir, sister." She took sip of lemonade before continuing. "Just wait until _after_ your rebirth where you have to take speaking lessons." Blitz said nothing, but gazed up at her purple sister with an inquisitive look. "You know, the Royal Phoenix Roost Voice, so you can speak with authority and presence to people both in and outside the hive. Helps build morale, as our mothers are oh so fond of saying."

 _"Joy."_ Blitz grumbled at how far removed her life was going away from more important goals, like inventing a new engineering marvel.

"But hey look on the bright side," Aegis stated with a wry grin. "You get to be a _queen_ one day, that means we're both going to be the next contestants on Changeling Evolution!"

All Aegis got out of Blitz was a tired snort. Aegis passed it off as just fatigue. _She's still thinking like a drone. Give her a year or two of royal blood in her brain and she'll come around._ That line of thought made Aegis continue the one-sided conversation with a little more zeal. "I mean you totally earned your 'princess-to-be' necklace."

Rolling her head to the side, Blitz gently rubbed a hoof along the silver chain on her neck which was adorned with Rainbow's cutie mark. If the necklace meant anything to Blitz, it would be Rainbow's absolute faith in her. With Aegis' love giving Blitz some much needed mental energy, she smiled and pressed the pendent tightly to her chest.

Aegis saw Blitz clutching the necklace with the blue drone's eyes misting over a little. _Time to press it home._ You get to be _more_ than a drone, you get to be Aunty Rainbow's first heir, and as she worded it, 'super special awesome'. Sadly, Blitz's happy tears sapped much of her diminished mental strength, so all Aegis got out of Blitz was a feeble hoof wave and an equally miserable 'yeaaa'. Did I mention as the civic queen you get to head and/or supervise all of the engineering projects within our future hive?

Blitz might have come up with a cheerful reply at that one, but at that moment she was too exhausted to think happy thoughts beyond knowing Rainbow had chosen her of all people to be her first heir. What was left of her remaining brainpower was solely devoted to devouring the vanilla cupcakes with chocolate frosting.

Seeing that she was getting nowhere fast, Aegis let the conversation drop, and to allow Blitz to mull over her words. _Well, my princess exams were murderous, and I had a hoof in all of Blitz's class testing… I think I need to make this vacation of hers a memorable one._

One by one, the dozen sugary delights were consumed into their depthless maws as Aegis made a mental checklist on how to have the best week ever, that didn't involve Burny or egg laying, much to her displeasure. _This vacation should be all about Blitz. So, I should probably get with Pinkie Pie to help get some ideas._

Thanks to sugar, time, and Aegis' evolving love for her, Blitz's mind started to return to normal. So it was that it took Blitz three and a half cupcakes to pause long enough to notice the fluffy treats had writing on them. "Happy Funnaversery. What do you think this is about?"

"It's Pinkie Pie," Aegis shrugged. "Does she need a reason?"

"Point taken."

Blitz finished off her cupcake while Aegis returned to her checklist, but didn't get far when normalcy took a nosedive when the Cutie Mark Crusaders ran up to Pinkie at the cash register wearing, of all things, Pinkie Pie costumes. The Crusaders were well on their way to marehood, but they still had that youthful energy they were famous for. That same energy was being tested as the three fillies bounced all around the room like Pinkie Pie trying to hold a secret. Apple Bloom bounced in front of some drones giggling like a schoolgirl. "Fun! Fun! Fun!"

Scootaloo jumped over to Pinkie and vaulted the display case a couple of times. "Fun! Fun! Fun!" Pinkie snort-laughed manically at the whole thing.

Some of the ponies started giggling along with the pink baker as Sweetie Belle found her way over to Aegis and Blitz's table. "Fun! Fun! Fun!"

Blitz eyed Sweetie Belle like she had grown a second head. Aegis was at least trying to live up to her royal status by laughing behind her hoof. "Is there a new Pinkie holiday we missed?"

Ever the performer, Sweetie Belle didn't break character and joined her friends chanting 'fun!' over and over before they departed the store. Left without answers, Aegis and Blitz twisted around in their booth to look out the window and see the fillies join a few of their classmates who were all wearing Pinkie Pie costumes. They too were bouncing around the center of town chanting "Fun!" along with at least a dozen adults.

"You think this about the Funnaversery?" Aegis asked no one in particular.

"Yup-a-ruunie!" Both changelings turned around to find the real Pinkie Pie snickering as she watched the kids outside. "I thought it'd be a great way to turn a groan day into a silly day, and ponies have way too many serious days."

Blitz checked the hive mind for the date, but didn't think she had time to ask either queen about it and stalling the conversation without being rude to Pinkie. "What makes today a groan day?"

"Weeell," Pinkie waved her hoof to stall her embarrassment. "A while ago I found a mirror pool that could make clones of me, and my other-mes sorta kinda maybe caused some trouble for the whole town." Without even missing a beat, Pinkie saw the judgmental confusion. "So to help the town remember this day with smiles instead of groans, I had costumes made for all the ponies who wanted to participate for some good fun!" Pinkie pointed outside to some adults who were costumed up as the pink baker and bouncing around.

That's when it hit Aegis. An idea. Some might call it fun, some might call it mad, but to her, it was genius. Hey, Blitz, we need to round up all our brothers and sisters in town. I have a plan.

I hope it doesn't involve fire this time, Blitz replied with a hopeful half-smile.

No promises. Aegis took the cupcake carrying box and closed the lid. "Sounds interesting, Pinkie. Mind if we join in the fun?"

"As if you need to ask, silly buggy." Pinkie's first thought was to grab more costumes from Rarity's boutique, but she remembered the changelings' disguise magic. "Just remember, only harmless pranks. Wouldn't want to make smile day a groan day again."

"I'll keep her in line," Blitz replied with a leering eye at Aegis. "It's going to be my job before too long, and I might as well get some practice in."

Aegis vaulted over the table and made her way to the exit. "Well you better keep up, future princess."

Blitz scoffed and chased after her fleeing sister while Pinkie Pie gasped comically loud. "Future princess!? Looks like I got another party to plan. Woo Hoo!"

* * *

It wasn't long before Aegis had summoned all two hundred drones in Ponyville (minus Cadista's former love collectors), to her mother's old tree library. Since the battle with Tirek was mostly fought away from town, thanks to the _Deception_ , the house had avoided destruction that may have theoretically occurred to it in other realities, and had since become a sort of hive away from hive.

Already, numerous drones were chatting about the Funnaversery on the first floor of the old tree house. The crowd buzzed with excitement, which also made speaking aloud all but impossible with buzzing wings, at the plan Aegis had in store for the day.

Blitz and Aegis stood alone on the loft near Twilight's old bed. Twilight originally didn't want to give it up, but her queen sized body was simply too large for it. So for the time being, Aegis honored her mother by taking up residence here during her vacation.

Alright, everypony listen up! Aegis shouted to calm her rumbustious kin. Most settled down, though for many it was their first vacation and they wanted to enjoy every moment of it. Now as most of you have seen, the Funnaversery is all about dressing up as Pinkie Pie and channeling our inner fun. But I say, why should today be limited to just Pinkie Pie?"

Thunderfury jumped to hover above his fellows. "Ooo! You mean we should go as our queens!?"

"You got it!" Aegis cheered, making the drones buzz even louder in anticipation. "But since Pinkie is a pony, we should go as the original pony versions of our mothers." The crowd quickly spoke their agreement, prompting Aegis to continue. "Now we need to make a big entrance to start things off, but after that we should split off to cover more ground." Aegis summoned a quill and large roll of paper from a nearby desk. "I'll make a list of all the key places around town for us to visit, and assign groups there. Once done, we can go wherever we want."

As Aegis went about making her checklist, Blitz was fine with remaining silent, but a worrying idea struck her not long after Aegis started. "Wait!" Most drones stopped mid-disguise to look up at her questioningly. "Shouldn't we ask our queens about this first?" Most of the drones grumbled worriedly and naturally looked to Princess Aegis for leadership.

Acting quickly, Aegis leveraged those speaking lessons to take on a voice of reassuring command, and utilized her royal blood's subconscious authority over drones. "Don't worry about it, girls, it's just some harmless fun, plus we're only doing the same thing the ponies are. Besides, we don't need to ask the queens _every time_ we want to do stuff, right?" Aegis searched the crowd's aura, seeing many of them come around, but there were still some wary siblings out there. Aegis switched tactics and called upon Rainbow's style of pep-talk. "Hey! Our bloodline's critical advantage over the other hives is independent thought and taking the initiative without needing to bog our queens down with little stuff. We _have_ to take this holiday by storm and show not only Equestria but our queen-mothers that we're totally taking social integration to heart." By now, she could feel her siblings' excitement with many of them on their hooves or wings, waiting for Aegis to give the final word.

Aegis' reptilian eyes dilated at the real sense of accomplishment. _We get to make our mothers proud and they don't even need to babysit us._ "Alright, lads and lasses-"

"Hold on!" Blitz shouted over the general buzz, making Aegis groan impatiently. "We can't go around chanting 'fun' though, it's not as fitting as it is with Pinkie Pie."

The general murmur around the house was in agreement leaving Aegis in doubt as well. _She's got a point._ "So we need to chant something momma-clones would say?"

"Exactly," Blitz replied with her mother's prankster streak shining through in a mischievous smirk. "And I know exactly what we should do."

* * *

Applejack chuckled at her market stall at the small group of 'Pinkie Pies' bouncing all over the town square. "Silliest thing Ah ever did see." Sour memories of a failed barn raising due to clones sat in the back of her mind, but the farm mare was willing to sit on those reservations to let others have their fun.

Lyra Heartstrings came up with a bit purse in her magic. "Heyya, Applejack, I'll take a dozen of your best reds."

"Gotcha covered," Applejack replied happily as a few more Pinkie Pies passed by. Both mares shared mild pleasantries and idle banter as they exchanged bits for produce. However, Lyra stopped just short of walking off again when the ground trembled beneath her hooves and the air itself vibrated around their ears.

"Do you feel that, Applejack?" Lyra asked as she noticed a pebble rattling on the ground.

"Yeah," Applejack replied worriedly as she flattened her ears to protect them. "Feels like it's coming from the library."

The mares turned in that direction to behold a jumping and flying tidal wave of blue and purple. Applejack's eyes narrowed to pinpricks at the jubilant mass of ponies roaring forward.

"Books! Books! Books!" the crowding purple unicorns chanted as they leapt to and fro, filtering through the stunned ponies while a dense cloud of blue hung over head. "Pranks! Pranks! Pranks!"

Lyra was tickled pink as two Twilight Sparkles bounced over and jumped in circles all around her. "Books! Books! Books!"

"You want books eh?" Lyra fished around her saddlebags and pulled out a paperback almanac. She waggled it in her magic with the drones playing along and eyeing the literary treat like expectant puppies. "I've got study material for all things astroloooogyyyy!"

 **"Books! Books! Books!"** the pony Twilights chanted with delight. They glanced between Lyra and the waggling book trying their hardest to keep from laughing at the silliness of it all.

Lyra flung the book high into the air, easily giving the trio of Twilight enough time to chase after it and catch it in their magic. The trio zipped off with their prize. Applejack rounded her stall to stand by Lyra's side. "Ah was afraid Pinkie's holiday might spread like wildfire with Twi and RD's kids."

"They're so cute though, aren't they?" Lyra mused wistfully as she tried to pick out the slightly taller form of Aegis. _Soon my pretty hands… soooon._

* * *

Fluttershy was at the other end of the market looking for Zecora's 'once every two week sales day' stall. _I hope she remembered to grab those herbs I needed, or else I won't have enough medicine for the week._

Fluttershy was flying low to the ground, as per usual, humming along to keep her spirits up. Her pace slowed when she heard chanting and occasional bouts of laughter coming from further up ahead. There was the expected gathering of ponies going about their daily shopping, but what confused Fluttershy was that the amassed throng of purple beings was their focus. It was only until she got closer that Fluttershy could see they were not Twilight's drones, but Twilight herself, with about a hundred copies of herself running around chanting 'books'. It was only now that Fluttershy saw several ponies and schoolchildren, who were obviously not disguised drones due to the imperfections in their costumes who were joining in shouting 'fun!' all over the place.

"Pranks!" yelled several voices from right behind Fluttershy making her yelp and jump frightfully into the air while turning around. She found several pony versions of Rainbow Dash snickering maniacally before flying off in different directions.

"Oh my," Fluttershy heaved as she got her heart rate under control. "I feared this day would come." _Good thing I had Angel Bunny prepare a shelter._

 **"Pranks!"** yelled some more Rainbows from behind Fluttershy, causing her to freak and race over to Zecora's stall. The drones looked sheepishly at each other and bolted for less panicky prey.

Fluttershy came to a screeching halt at the shaman's stall when she found Zecora giving the stink eye to the sleeping Rainbow Dash perched on top of the stall's sign. "Welcome friend, Fluttershy, I hope you too have have not had problems from on high."

Fluttershy looked up at Rainbow's imposter who was draped over the flimsy sign that was threatening to buckle. "Naps, snnnzzzzzkk, naps," the disguised drone moaned sleepily.

"Oh well, I wouldn't say that, exactly," Fluttershy said as she quickly looked backwards at the sound of feathered wings on the air, only to find it was a passing lime green pegasus. Some part of her briefly wondered how changelings managed to make that sound while disguised. "But, um, they're just having fun."

Fluttershy realized her mistake the instant the last word left her mouth. A half dozen pink ponies raced up yelling "Fun! Fun! Fun!"

Yelling in fear, which sadly ended up sounding like she was playing along, Fluttershy was chased by the six Pinkie Pies all the way out of the marketplace before they bounced away to find more unhappy ponies to cheer up.

Zecora sighed at both Fluttershy and the false Rainbow Dash still limply draped on her sign. "These ponies and their crazy way, I'll have to go by her house later today."

* * *

Rarity was many things; a fashionista, a mother, friend to both pony and changeling crowns, a dressmaker, and a businessmare. However, it was rare that people took notice of just how shrewd of a businessmare she actually was. Even now with her second foal barely a month away, she toiled away at the store floor, making sure her stock was 'just so'.

The sound of leathery wings heralded her husband's arrival from upstairs. "I thought I'd find you down here, toiling away as always."

"My dear, Epaulets," Rarity cooed as he came in for a loving nuzzle. "Would you have me wasting away in bed while our foal-to-be saps me of my strength?"

"As if you let that stop you the first time," Epaulets replied with a wink and a kiss. "I know better than to try and stop you, but you should at least let me take more of the workload for the time being."

"No time for that now, darling," Rarity declared as she waddled her way over to stand at the ready for the expected customers. "Today is important."

Epaulets stood there quizzically, yet his unspoken question was not answered by Rarity, but by the clamor going on outside. Rarity nodded towards the door, prompting him to take a look. However he barely got three steps before the door exploded open to reveal a Rainbow Dash, three Twilight Sparkles, and Sweetie Belle dressed up as Pinkie Pie."

"Fun! Pranks! Books!" they cried as they bounded into the room all smiles and smirks. Rarity gave her sister a knowing grin before going right into her sales pitch. "Well heavens me, but it looks like we have a clone parade today!" Rarity pulled a rack of dresses over that had a book motif, ranging from decorative script, to having layered fabric appearing as pages of a tome. The brief moment of the Twilight Sparkles breaking character was all Rarity needed to pull up a second line of outfits. "I even made some dashing book suits for those you who are colts under that disguise."

One purple unicorn blushed and pulled over to peruse the suits. Sweetie Belle was caught between embarrassment at her sister capitalizing on the holiday like this and being impressed for the same reason.

"Pranks, pranks?" chirped the Rainbows as they swirled inquisitively around Rarity.

"I haven't forgotten about you," Rarity teased.

She looked to Epaulets who was now stuck with scoffing laughter. _So that's why she wanted me to work on those motifs._ "Come one, come all, to the finest garments any self respecting prankster should wear." The two Rainbows were joined by three more that flew in, along with two more Twilight Sparkles. "Comfortable, unisex, and yet won't get in the way if you need a quick escape, and even has pouches so you need not burden yourself with saddlebags."

"Pranks! _Pranks!_ Pranks!" they chanted as the Rainbows swarmed over the outfits. Many of them saw potential uses for such utilitarian clothing in soldiering or engineering duties, and quickly snatched up the whole line.

"Now don't worry about paying now," Rarity said at the expected question, though mostly so none of them had to break character. "I'll pass the tab along to your mothers."

It wasn't long before drones of both colors cycled through the boutique and quickly took Rarity and Epaulets' entire stock.

Rarity leaned against her thestral husband smiling all the while. Sweetie Belle came up to her with a mildly disapproving half-smile. "Rarity, you're so bad sometimes."

"Oh posh," Rarity dismissed with a hoof wave. "I'm already giving them the friend's discount."

"Not to mention the changelings are in terrible need of some different colors," Epaulets added with a proud nod to his work. "Blue, purple, and brass can get a bit stale after a while."

"I hope so," Sweetie Belle replied with a little less sour in her tone. _Poor bugs may look like adults, but they're like kids in so many ways._

* * *

Aegis couldn't be happier as she ran through town with Blitz at her side along with a small group of her blue and purple kin. "Books! Books!" she said at random passersby as her group somehow managed to round town hall, the spa, and Rarity's shop only to return near the library without realizing it.

Dusk was upon Ponyville by the time most Ponyvillians were used to the new additions to the Funnaversery so they passed it off with mild yet tired cheer. Hunger and thirst clawed at Aegis, but not only did she want to keep having fun, but saw it as a test of her endurance.

Off to the side, she spotted an orange unicorn mare sitting alone on a cafe bench. Yet it was the book she had her nose stuck to that made Aegis grin. _Aunty isn't the only one who likes a good prank._

Mentally pinging her purple siblings, Aegis led them away from Blitz and the rest to stalk the new mare that she hadn't seen in her literary tour of the town. The trio of Twilight Sparkles crept the long way around the cafe's outer fence. A few passing ponies saw them and it didn't take much for them to identify their hapless target. Some ignored it and moved on while a few stuck around to see a harmless scream.

Aegis gingerly crept over the fence while her two cohorts simply bounded over it, thankfully the cafe had soft grass to quiet their landing. As one, the three disguised changelings jumped right behind the blissfully unaware unicorn. "Books! Books! Books!" they cried as the Twilight Sparkles bounced around the mare's table.

"I hear you've had fun today," the orange mare said with a snorting nerdy giggle. Aegis and the others stopped bouncing around and looked at the orange mare with confusion at the familiar tone. "I hope you didn't smudge my good name too much today."

The orange mare gave Aegis just long enough for her to see the unicorn radiated the tell tale sign of non-changeling arcane illusion magic, a sort of mana runoff that was obvious to her now that she thought to look. Upon Aegis' realization, the orange mare seemed to warp and grow as magic rippled off of her like water to reveal the real Queen Twilight Sparkle.

One of the stallions in the small crowd jeered, "Busted!" Others in the crowd joined in the schadenfreude.

Aegis and her cohorts did a good impression of Fluttershy by squeaking and jumping backwards while dropping their disguises. "Oh, ah, hey mo- I mean, my queen. It was all harmless fun, honest." The two drones dumbly parroted Aegis.

"Uh huh." Twilight stood to her full height to eye her royal daughter. "Now, Aegis, I hope I can walk through town without any dirty looks."

"Umm…" Aegis gave her best innocent smile. "You may want to avoid Cranky Doodle's house for a while."

Twilight's face soured progressively worse as the same stallion jeered some more ,"OOooo you did it now, girl."

Aegis wanted to give the stallion some lip, but Twilight's Motherly Glower of Parental Vexation rooted her gaze. "Anypony else?"

"There was that brown guy with the hourglass mark that dropped his ice cream cone after we ambushed him," one of the drones offered hesitantly.

"And we may or may not have scared Granny Smith up an apple tree."

"I thought you purple guys chanted 'books' not 'pranks'," the stallion heckled with mounting amusement.

Aegis purposely shifted her eyes between her mother and the stallion, but Twilight remained unmoving as if she couldn't even hear him. "I trust you didn't just leave her up there, did you?" Twilight sighed in relief when they shook their heads. "Very well, you may enjoy the rest of your week, my daughters. From what I've seen, the holiday was a grand success," Twilight added with a sly wink and smile. "Since you managed to expand the holiday, we should make this a yearly event, what do you say?"

"That'd be stupendous, my queen," one of the drones cheered while Aegis inwardly heaved a sigh of relief. The turnaround in the conversation saw the crowd dispersing, leaving only the heckling stallion behind.

"Do you think we could do the rest of your pony friends next year?" Aegis inquired eagerly.

"You better ask them in advance first," Twilight conceded, but her tone grew stern again. "But before we go into any of that, Aegis, I want you to try to make it up to Granny Smith, Cranky, and whoever the other stallion is. Any success can be reversed if any of them hold a grudge about it."

"Yes, my queen," Aegis and the others replied with deflated enthusiasm.

With a queenly nod and an amused smile, Twilight pulled away from the table, threw her forelegs out and let her expression go from queen to mother. "Now come here you three."

Aegis and the others beamed smiles at the prospect of Mother-Twilight time and raced over to glomp their matriarch to form a pile of fur and giggles. Aegis was fastest and got the coveted spot where she could fully wrap her arms around Twilight and nuzzled her chest. All three of them basked in Twilight's motherly love as if it was the light of the Silver City itself. Twilight in turn let her children's love wrap around her like a warm blanket on a cold night. "You all make me so proud." She hugged them a little tighter, flooding them with her depthless love.

Between Twilight's praise, the embrace, and her mother's love, Aegis dearly wished she could prolong this moment for an eternity. A small part of the back of her mind pondered the future. _I wonder what it will feel like on the flip side._

As always, it was Twilight who had to break the embrace with one of the drones looking into Twilight's eyes with pride. "Will you be staying long?"

"The whole week," Twilight replied, much to the trio's profound delight. "Gentle Touch is more than capable of running things for that long without me."

Aegis and the others cheered wildly and pranced around Twilight. "Does this mean we get momma-time with you all week?!"

Twilight tittered behind a hoof. "Well it wouldn't be much of a vacation if I spent it as Queen-Twilight now would it, just remember it's not just you three," she added with a knowing smirk. Before Aegis and the others could explode with excitement, Twilight continued. "Now off you go for now, and have fun while you can," Twilight focused on Aegis, "Rainbow and I will be redoubling your training after the vacation to make up for the week."

"Ah, that's future me's problem," Aegis remarked before turning to wave the drones to come with her. "Come on, girls, I heard Applejack's got some hard cider waiting for us."

"Now you're speaking my language," cheered one.

"Yes! That stuff's stupendously good!" yelled the other.

Aegis cast one last questioning leer at the lingering stallion who was busying himself with reading over the cafe's menu on a stand-up chalkboard, but since his aura remained a playful yellowish green instead of a more insidious color, she ultimately dismissed him. The trio sped away to fully enjoy the week.

With them gone, Twilight sat back down to enjoy her book with a waiter bringing over a few hayburgers and some root beer. With only the waiter and a few remaining diners of the cafe remaining nearby, the stallion cantering over to Twilight before being wreathed in magenta flames to reveal Rainbow Dash puppeting Thunderfury. "Gotta say, Twi, this was a crazy _fun_ day."

Twilight playfully rolled her eyes at the obvious word play. "Ha, and that it was." With only a thankful nod to the waiter, Twilight dove right into her burger. How long did it take before you joined in the _fun_?

"All of about two seconds," Rainbow snickered. "Had to jump from kid to kid every so often so I wouldn't take anypony's whole day away."

"Well that was thoughtful of you," Twilight said with a blissful mouth full of heavenly food. Omnivore or not, Twilight still loved a good and greasy hayburger loaded down with onions, pickles, and swimming in ketchup.

"Yeah well you know me, I _am_ the nice one," Rainbow teased as she leered at Twilight.

"If that's the case, we're all doomed," Twilight shot back with a chuckle. Her mirth died as her breath caught in her throat. "Wait… you jumped from drone to drone? You at least made sure they had some privacy before departing them right?"

Rainbow turned away with a superior fang filled grin. "Of course I did, what do you take me for?" Thunderfury started to worry and prepared to bolt for an alleyway should Rainbow release him right then and there.

"A shameless prankster," Twilight deadpanned with an unamused lifted eyebrow.

"Whatever gave you that idea?" Rainbow replied innocently.

"Everything from the day I met you and on," Twilight rebuked while blowing a raspberry.

"Guilty as charged." Rainbow cackled, offering no further defense. "By the way, Pinkie's throwing a final party to close the day out. I'm physically on my way over now. You going to be there?"

The famished queen downed the last bite, and used the bun of a second burger to wipe the ketchup off her face with practiced success. On my vacation? Wouldn't miss it for the world.


	71. Chapter 71

Of Queens and Predictably Clever Equestrians

On the extensive list of things Twilight Sparkle never thought she'd be doing, dining with Chrysalis and Kreesus on moderately amicable terms was decidedly at the bottom. Chrysalis was right at home, on multiple levels, in her chair at the head of the table with her sister Jstrul sitting to her right. As always, Twilight and Rainbow sat together. That left Kreesus at the other end of the table with the young queen Valera, daughter of Silandrus, sitting opposite of the former Equestrians.

A team of drones delivered an assortment of dishes, primarily vegetarian in nature, save for the mildly disquieting smell of the stew they set in front of Twilight and Rainbow. Chrysalis purred at their discomfort. "You'll have to excuse the lack of flavoring, I don't get many meat eating guests."

 _She wouldn't actually try to poison us now of all times, would she?_ Rainbow grumbled at the congealed mass of glop in front of her. Any idea that Chrysalis couldn't cook was cast aside at the lavish assortment of grains and vegetables set before the rest of the queens, all sauteed and seasoned to tantalize her senses. "If it's all the same to you, I think we'll get our meat from the ship."

Twilight at least gave the gelatin mass a try, only to gag on the horrid, tongue clinging insult to chefs everywhere. "I'll have a salad if it's all the same to you."

Kreesus tapped her hoof impatiently, and ignored the mild banter of accused pamperedness directed at the two former ponies. _I have to get a drone to Ponyville and find Roseluck. Maybe… Maybe there's a chance._

Kreesus' sole major ally, Queen Valera, noticed how distracted Kreesus was. "I'm surprised you haven't joined the fun."

She managed to save face by looking up from her barely touched meal with a gruff inquisitive hum. "What are you going on about?"

Any banter Valera was about to propagate was cut short by Rainbow Dash leaning over her plate. "How about we stop playing games and get to planning our strategy?"

Twilight Sparkle scowled at the other queens. "I think the less time we all spend in one room, the less likely our alliance will fall apart."

Chrysalis slowly nodded to the point. "A sound idea." She paused to take a bite of lettuce. "Until recently, we've been able to keep Polybia and her undead legions in check. However in the past few months her swarm has been continuously bolstered by every kind of undead filth you can imagine, drone, beast, even specters, whatever she deems as potential soldiers.

"However," Chrysalis continued with a wicked grin. "Kreesus' spies have determined that Polybia doesn't command her undead hordes like the hive mind, but through semi-royal drones serving as generals of a sort."

"Wait, wait, what do you mean semi-royals?" Rainbow asked. Despite the ill company, Rainbow was glad to take center stage away from her sister now that they were in her world now.

"We're not exactly sure what they really are," Jstrul elaborated reluctantly as she absently rubbed her bandaged face. "They're drones that don't have the tell-tale glowing eyes, but they have rounded irises. Plus, they have been observed to have personalities that are distinct enough to not be typical puppets."

"So either Polybia's been taking lessons from your hive, or she's going off the deep end," Chrysalis added with a smug smirk. "Either way, they die if severed from the hive mind. We only found that out when a Silence Behemoth rampaged through an army that was trying to subdue it and got too close to the puppet general.

"You should have seen the glorious irony of the undead all immediately turning on Polybia's living forces. Sadly, ever since then, these 'proxy generals' have been too well defended against the majority of our assassination attempts. Thus far, we've only killed them in conventional battle, but by then, killing them hardly matters."

"Which is where we come in," Kreesus cut in bitterly, gesturing to herself and the Equestrians. "Your ship is a concentrated force, so you can cut deeply into these armies and assassinate the generals without having to cut through the entire swarm first. Since Polybia can't control the undead remotely, we need only kill these 'generals' to make her armies slaughter each other."

"What's this, _we_ stuff?" Rainbow growled at Kreesus. "As far as I'm concerned, you can keep your fishery stanky plot as far away from my ship as possible. I want somepony else being our support."

"You speak as if I want this either," Kreesus fumed, but didn't rise to the bait. "Because of my darling Fluffy, I'm the only one here who has the knowledge of where you can hide your airship should you need repairs. _And_ I already have multiple strains designed to support Fluffy in combat, which translates somewhat to keeping your tinker toy in the air."

"Well don't get too comfortable," Rainbow huffed before sliding into a superior smirk. "We have a new ship about to be released from dry-dock, the _Steamrunner."_

Although it galled her to do it, Rainbow Dash reluctantly started to give some specifics. _They need to know what we can do if we're to operate effectively._ All it took was some expectant looks from the others, and Twilight giving her a mental nudge to finally go through with it. She sat back in her chair to give some last second hug to her hive's biggest kept secret. "…We're classifying it as a cruiser under Griffin naval standards," Rainbow started idly scratching her chin. "The _Steamrunner_ is larger and more heavily armored than the _Deception._ However, frontline combat is not its sole purpose, so we only gave it armament comparable to the _Deception._ Instead the _Steamrunner_ carries a full brigade of infantry."

Rainbow Dash leaned forward in her chair to take a few bites of her new salad while Twilight finished. "We designed it so after our ships secure the surface, our infantry can storm the hive."

"So you _do_ have the stomach for getting your precious drones' hooves dirty," Kreesus remarked offhandedly.

"We allowed them to mate with you didn't we?" Rainbow snarked with a caustic frown. Kreesus bristled, but managed to keep her cool. "Of course, we had to quarantine Steel Edge after you had your "fling". Didn't want any STDs going around the hive after all."

Kreesus snapped, and jumped out of her chair to the ready, with Rainbow Dash doing to same in answer to the challenge.

Twilight was quick to try and restrain Rainbow with a hoof baring her chest. "Save it for Polybia. Imagine each other's faces on the enemy if you have to."

"Sound advice," Chrysalis purred with a playful eye. "If we're done bickering, then let's all sit back down and discuss how we're going deal with Polybia once and for all."

It didn't take much more than a cursory glance from Twilight to get Rainbow Dash to sit back down, having had her fun. Kreesus outwardly glared malice into Rainbow Dash while inwardly sighing. _I'm not sure whether I actually deserve the abuse or not anymore._

Jstrul was the first to begin. "We'll keep Polybia's forces busy on all fronts, to make sure she can't spare enough forces to overwhelm your ships. That way you can suffer the brunt of Polybia's armies for once," she stated with only thinly veiled irritation. Rainbow fumed at the attitude while Twilight took it impassively. "And try to destroy priority targets, along with the generals, while you're at it. You do that, and Polybia's swarm will tear itself apart, piecemeal."

"Sounds logical," Twilight added evenly, glad that Rainbow had a distraction from Kreesus. "You have current knowledge of her troop movements. Where should we strike first?"

Chrysalis hummed approvingly. "So eager to get started, or just want to show off your toys?"

"Don't act like you don't want to see our guns turned against someone else for a change," Twilight replied with a half frown.

"I wasn't aware we had ever come to blows outside of the wedding, but fair enough." Chrysalis had a drone show up with several copies of the jungle map, so that every queen would have one. It had various areas shaded green and red with more details surrounding a location barely twenty miles south of their current location. "Fortunately, you've come at a good time. Polybia is advancing on my principle farmlands a ways south of here. I was planning on taking her head on, but now that you've finally _honored_ us with your presence-"

Chrysalis paused for but a moment, as if it pained her to address her as an equal. " _Queen_ Rainbow Dash, I trust you can do this without your frigate leading the way."

Rainbow gave off a smug grin at the address, but couldn't help but to feel slighted. _So you finally have to acknowledge me as queen, eh? 'Bout time._ "We'll get the job done, you guys worry about covering our asses. How long until she attacks?"

"Given what we know of Polybia," Jstrul started as a seeing eye drone poured over the map. "Before first light."

"Then we'll attack at midnight tonight," Rainbow stated forcefully. "If Poly Pocket has any tactical sense she'll attack earlier than we expect, so we just have to hit her first."

The rest of the meal was spent going over minute details over the plan of action. While Rainbow was busy with strategizing, a part of Twilight Sparkle was steeling herself for the trials to come. _May the First Mother grant us the strength we need to endure Grogar's power._

For her part, Chrysalis was also distracted from the battle ahead of her. _Grogar… what to do, what to do… Should I just eliminate you and play it safe? Well, I haven't gotten to where I am today by playing it safe. The real question is, is destroying you the smart move?_

* * *

Princess Celestia truly loved partly cloudy evenings. The gorgeous tapestry of purples, oranges, and yellows across the sky sang to her love of art. Currently, Celestia rested in her secluded retreat on the far side of Canterlot Mountain. She found a certain charm in the carefully manicured stone path between the conservatory and the palace. It was a quaint and secluded mountain trail with mountain grass sticking out here and there, giving it a rugged charm. However, even here in the east conservatory, she found little peace. While her lunch had only just arrived, it remained untouched as the ageless alicorn's eyes were fixated on the southern horizon. Pensive worry weighed heavily on her heart. _My dear Twilight, perhaps I did you a disservice by teaching you to solve such problems face to face. So many good leaders die leading from the front. I hope neither you nor Rainbow Dash meet a similar fate._

Steeling herself, Celestia returned to her meal and floated over a half-filled scroll along with a quill. _I am tired of the rumors about this alliance with PR being called 'fair-weather' friends._ She hated it even more because fear of a PCE retaliation to military assistance in the past had stayed her hoof. _That ends tomorrow. The PCE be damned. Once I deliver this speech the first wave of ships and troops will be on their way to face Polybia and Grogar side by side with Twilight._

Celestia penned several lines and ate most of her soufflé when what felt like a headache inducing wavefront pushed past her. Celestia's unicorn magic cut out almost instantly, causing her scroll and fork full of food to clatter down to the brick tiled floor. Old combat training kicked in, causing Celestia to flare her unhampered alicorn magic as she jumped to a defense stance. In the absence of her more mortal types of magic, Celestia's core being of Celesti, Spirit of the Sun, manifested in full. Her mane and tail roiled like the surface of the sun while her eyes became like minature burning suns in of themselves. Lastly, her body started radiating heat, quickly turning the conservatory into an oven.

Sweeping her gaze across the room and windows revealed no immediately threats, aside from the cushions and plants starting to burn from her scorching presence. With none of her mortal magic available to stifle the heat, Celestia focused her senses on finding the source of the mana dampening to shut it down before she started melting the floor. With her magic sense alert, Celestia felt the collection of enchantments on her regal attire had been completely torn away. In addition, the Weave of the World was being pushed away from the building with incredible force, making any spell casting all but impossible. _Who could do this!? Even I would need a building sized array to affect the Weave so powerfully._

Celestia quickly removed her regalia before they could start melting into her fur, and resolved to find the source of the disturbance. She was startled to sense that who or whatever it was, they were close to the front of the conservatory. Celestia bolted to the only door in the room to check the small entry room between the front door and her impromptu dining area. _No one is supposed to know I'm here except for Luna, and my personal guard._

The room beyond revealed both of her unicorn solar guards were unconscious. Fearing her alicorn magic might burn her most trusted guards alive, Celestia shielded herself with the large ornately painted steel doors to see if the guards' chests continued to rise and fall from breathing.

 _Good, they are alive at least. A field this devoid of mana would keep any unicorn out cold, but it looks like I found them before whoever is causing this got here. Either that, or they're waiting for me to come to them._

Knowing her guards were safe for the moment, Celestia swept her senses forward into the heart of the magic-void to find a single pony buffeted against the mana winds. With her white hot alicorn magic at the ready, Celestia bounded over her guards and burst the front doors open to confront the pony.

What she found gave her pause. Standing roughly twenty meters away from Celestia was a large machine, easily rivaling her in size with several glowing tubes, chugging gears, and a steady cloud of grey exhaust while giving off a high pitched whir. Beside it was a blue unicorn stallion in a royal navy officer's uniform wearing a thick protective ring around his horn to keep from passing out. Celestia was momentarily disarmed by him prostrating himself before her, giving her cause to look for any concealed threats. Fearing her own heat, Celestia shut the door behind her and slowly side stepped away from the building to keep the guards from roasting.

Her fiery mane and tail expanded along with her senses, baking everything it touched as Celestia searched for any hidden threats. It didn't take her long to locate several ponies hidden among the rocky terrain just beyond the path.

"Princess Celestia, you honor me with your radiant light," the bowing blue stallion said above the whine of the machine. Celestia kept her eyes fixed on him while keeping her senses on the hidden ponies.

Acting as if she was satisfied she and the stallion were alone, she shrank her flaming mane and tail back to a more normal size while addressing him. She couldn't see his name tag, but his rank was evident on his shoulders. _A naval officer?_ "What is the meaning of this, Commander?" In this form, Celestia's voice resonated great power that threatened to burn with but a whisper.

"I am Commander Gleaming Light of the E.R.N. Trottingham," he said with unwavering reverence. "As for why I am here, please allow me to extend my apologies for meeting you like this, your highness. I know you have lived these long and difficult twelve years with a heavy heart. Always watching your step, fearing even a slight misspoken word would reveal your true motives. My gift to you and admittedly to myself, are these precious few moments. With this machine, I have pushed the Weave back, and in the process, have destroyed any and all listening spells and disabled any spying changelings nearby."

Celestia was wise enough to let him ramble on for a bit longer, if only to let him continue volunteering information. "We've discovered that drones are just as affected as unicorns by the Weave being pushed aside. As a result, you can speak without Cadista and her ilk listening in," he said with a thread of hate under his reverence for Celestia. "I beg your forgiveness for any inconveniences my dampener has caused you."

"That explains the _how_ , Commander," Celestia stated with a chilly tone. Gleaming Light felt it unsettling that his fiery princess had such ice in her voice. "But not all of the _why._ "

"I am a lieutenant in the PCE, my princess," he replied evenly despite his unease, "and I came to you today to speak with the true you behind your public face."

Celestia bristled at the admission, but let her head cool almost as fast as it had heated up. _This is obviously a game or a trap. A real PCE leader wouldn't be so daft as to approach me directly, hidden assassins or not._ "I don't suppose you've come here to confess you're actually a true loyalist who joined the PCE to secretly spy on them, by chance?"

Gleaming Light tried to keep his hopes up in spite of the implications of her words. His composure wasn't helped by his profuse sweating. Even if she was standing nearly twenty meters away on a slightly windy mountain top, it felt like he was standing before an open smelter. "To be honest, princess, no. I joined the PCE because I fear those love-sucking vampires will be the death of our great nation. Even so, I know my organization has much to answer for. The loss of ponies' lives is intolerable, and the debacle at the docks was beyond inexcusable." Celestia leveraged her countless years of politics to keep a cold and calculating expression. For now though, she remained silent, giving him the rope to hang himself with. "Ever since that disaster at the docks, and Dame Applejack's… biting condemnations, and these long, long years of your public denouncements, many of us are having a crisis of faith… Myself included."

"Is that so?" Celestia commented condescendingly.

Gleaming Light sweated bullets at Celestia's cold reception, and hoped it was only the heat. _Is she testing me? Why would she, now that she can finally speak freely!?_ "Yes, it is, your highness. My group has endured all these years of you publicly condemning us. Some are now taking it worse than others. I beg of you, Princess," Gleaming groveled in front of her, not daring to step one inch closer to his smoldering princess. "In this brief moment of free speech, now that we are all laid bare, please tell me you've secretly supported us. That you denounce us publicly, yet thank us in your private moments."

"And here I was thinking you had long since wedged cotton in your ears," Celestia stated bitterly, making Gleaming gulp loudly. "Well then, let's clear the air between us." She fixed him with a deceptively neutral stare that stood in stark contrast to her roiling fiery mane. "I despise every single thing that your organization has done, and I'd sooner banish myself to the sun than ever _thank_ you."

Gleaming was stunned as his world threatened to crash down around him. "But you did it all to secretly try to free Twilight Sparkle from Cadista's control!"

Celestia's age old composure threatened to break into a snarl. "Do you think me so weak that I couldn't do that myself? That I would lie to my people, or the _world_ for so long and so _completely?"_ Gleaming tried to speak, but Celestia's harsh gaze froze him in place. He was not a regular observer in the Day Court, and had never seen so much fury manifested in such a stoic expression. It was Celestia's eyes, burning a brilliant orange of the sun that ultimately betrayed the furnace of rage she held in check. "Since you've been so _kind_ to present me a chance to speak without you ignoring me," she stated coldly, making Gleaming recoil. "Let me put this as blunt and perfectly clear as possible. In all these years, Twilight Sparkle, and Rainbow Dash have remained masters of their own will since the beginning.

"I pried, I searched, and I did everything under the sun to see if they were being controlled, and I found _nothing,_ " she stated with all the steel her voluminous experience granted her. "If I had any inkling that Twilight Sparkle was being controlled by any force, Cadista or otherwise, I would not hide my true will for the sake of diplomacy. Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash were and remain paragons recognized by the very Elements of Harmony themselves. Including _Loyalty._ You believe that I would allow Equestria's greatest defenders to be controlled by another?" she demanded incredulously.

By now Gleaming Light was shrinking in on himself as his world crashed down around him. "I would not lie to my subjects to secretly find some way of purging any foreign control over either of them. No, I would have been right at the forefront, I would tell everyone the truth in this matter. Both queens are far too important to national security to do otherwise." While Celestia was heavily invested in both queens emotionally, she refused to let that color her words, not in front of her little audience of terrorists.

"I – I understand, princess." Gleaming tried to adopt a dignified stance, but ultimately the weight of Celestia's words crushed what was left of his spirit. "I… I accept whatever punishment you deem fit."

Celestia's fury hiccupped at him surrendering so quickly. "You clung so dearly to the idea I secretly praised you that tightly?" _And remained sane?_ she added derisively to herself.

"It was all we had," Gleaming replied half-heartedly. "Those of the founding members of the PCE, I like to think, did it all because we thought it was what you wanted of us. After you sent the Element Bearers to restore Princess Luna, defeat Discord, and thwart the First Invasion of Canterlot, we all assumed this was but another trial for us all since Twilight was corrup… changed. With her under Cadista's control, you couldn't use the Elements to free her, so I stepped in with twelve others to found the PCE."

"And yet I have never concealed my true will concerning any of those threats," Celestia chastised bitterly. _There's no way he knows under what pretense I originally sent Twilight to Ponyville for._ "Instead you think I would willingly let Equestria's 'enemies' settle within our borders, gift them that land, and help merge our two societies? All for the sake of two mares?"

For someone who had surrendered his fate to her, Gleaming Light took offense to being indirectly called a fool. "Did you not do the same for Princess Luna?" Celestia's stoic mask cracked with anger at him using her sister against her. "Anypony who spent any kind of time in the palace could tell Twilight Sparkle was practically family to you."

Celestia's reply was cut off by the mana-void engine started clanking loudly enough to draw their attention. "What is it doing, Gleaming?"

"It's failing early?!" He got no further before the engine gave off a startlingly unhealthy grinding noise followed by belching black smoke. Scant moments later part of the machine actually blew off, with the whole thing proceeding to topple over. "It was never designed to hold the Weave back for very long. Just long enough to give you a chance to speak without any changeling enchantment eavesdropping on us." _Or possible mind control._

The Weave didn't wait for him to finish that thought as it rushed to fill the void. The mana rocked them on their hooves, giving Gleaming Light a chance to duck and cover, but was less kind to the engine. The implosion of mana reacted violently with the inner workings of the machine, causing the whole thing to explode in a hail of shrapnel. With her alicorn magic unrestrained in her body, Celestia was more energy than flesh and blood, allowing her to stand in the face of the explosion that was actually chilly to her. The flying chunks of metal embedded deeply in several places in her body, but they simply melted and fell through her into the growing puddle of molten rock at her hooves.

Instead of any blood that she would normally spill, her ethereal body simply wavered at the holes punched into it before reforming back to normal. Once she was cleared of shrapnel, Celestia stepped out of the hissing puddle of rock before allowing her mortal magic to return to its balanced state, causing her eyes and hair to return to normal. Her body cooled rapidly, causing the air around her to roil wildly. Finally, she shivered a bit as blood started pumping through her once more. _Haven't done that in while. Gleaming must have done some research about me to not be startled by my inner form._ Celestia might have found her return from incorporeal to flesh and blood exhilarating were it not for the pony who caused it in the first place.

Gleaming Light was not fortunate enough to repair such injuries so quickly. Though being thrown into a prone stance allowed him to survive, he had bits of metal and crystal embedded in his entire left side. _Damn. I knew I didn't have long before it failed, but it never exploded like that during testing._

He had no time to assess his injuries, attempt to stand, or even check to see if the princess was unharmed when Celestia's shadow loomed over him. She magically probed his body to make sure his life wasn't in danger. "While I am typically proud to see my subjects exercise initiative. In your case however, it pains me to see such potential squandered like this."

Gleaming didn't bother resisting as she hefted him up in her magic for transport. His gamble for the past decade was a complete and utter failure. "I am truly sorry, Princess, we thought we were doing your will."

"If that was your real aim, then you will tell me where all of your fellow conspirators are located so the Guard and the military can deal with them accordingly. In particular, I want any surviving members of the attack on the _Deception_."

"Of course, Princess," he hissed in agony to which Celestia was in no mood to ease. "But not everypony will submit when they hear the truth, even if I tell them directly."

Celestia started slowly walking back over to the conservatory with Gleaming in tow. While she had a prisoner to handle, she still needed to make sure her personal guards were well enough to send a message to the palace. _I think I burned all of my scrolls, so writing a letter is out until I make it back to the palace, and teleporting with him injured like this would only kill him._ "Let me guess," she replied with forced neutrality. "Those 'honorable' original members started to leave once they realized they had been mistaken. So you had to turn to more unscrupulous recruits?"

"For the past four years, yes, Princess. If you could find it in yourself to forgive Discord, can you show this old fool and what few true Equestrians are left in the PCE some modicum of mercy?"

It took her a few more steps before Celestia came to a halt as her mind churned. "Discord is a victim of his nature, but more importantly, is only one person. Even now he remains closely watched." Celestia trailed off as she latched her magic onto half of the hidden ponies and forcibly pulled them out of hiding to hang in front of her. Each of them yelped in surprise only to either shudder in fear of reprisal, or hang as defeated as Gleaming was. "You on the other hoof, are far too many to give such a pass."

Celestia turned to yell at the rest of the hidden ponies. "If you wish to see any level of mercy from the crown, I want the rest of you to spread the word to your miserable brethren. Go to the southern palace guard station within twenty four hours and I will remember this cooperation when I decide your fate. Now go!" she commanded with all of the authority her crown possessed. The remaining ponies fled by air or hoof to do her wishes.

With them gone, Celestia turned back to her collection of prisoners. "In fact, I think I already have something fitting in store for you all."

Through the creeping depths of his defeatism, Gleaming Light remembered something with a gasp. "Wait, Princess, as a token of our sincerity, I can give you the time and place of the attack we were going to conduct today."

Celestia's regal mask nearly broke under the sorrow and fury, but reigned it in before it could manifest. "The day is almost over. Speak _quickly,_ Commander."

Gleaming Light glanced at the setting sun to guess the time. "Phoenix Roost was supposed to be unveiling some kind of new ship from the dry docks earlier today. We were planning to have it's destruction serve as a gift to you when you-"

Heedless of his cries of pain from being yanked in front of her, Celestia glared Gleaming down face to face. **"HOW?"**

* * *

 _Earlier that day…_

I can't believe we're having this conversation, Aegis. They're soldiers, they should be called the 2nd Rifle Brigade, Blitz groaned as she stood atop an elevated platform near the airship dry-dock. A gathering of citizens, both changeling and non-changeling alike were currently being dazzled by the _Steamrunner_ as it departed the shipyard. Its 650 foot length gracefully inched its way out into the world. It had a steel finish to it's paint, a contrast to the brass found on the _Deception_ and _Long Shot_. Like the _Deception_ it had four primary gun batteries, and a scattered array of close defense guns. Along the dorsal hull, twin Octavia sword-like pipes thrummed with power.

However, unlike the _Deception_ much of the ship's exterior was nearly bereft of gun emplacements. In their stead stood five hundred of the hive's best infantry in the latest metal plated leather armor with their rifles gleaming in the sun. One hundred combat Clockwerks filled in the gaps. Behind the soldiers and along the stern half of the warship were a series of closed hatches where thousands of drones could deploy in rapid succession. Only the occasional small mounted gun and one of the primary deck batteries on the ventral side interrupted the assault hatches.

The ship had streaks of sky blue and lavender to give it a dash of personality beyond the business end of a gun. Upon it all, Aegis stood on top of the command bridge so she was clearly visible to the cheering crowd below. And I'm telling you, they aren't just regular infantry, they should be called the First Airborne Brigade.

But we _all_ have wings! How does 'Airborne' make any sense? Blitz shot back. She finished giving the cast-off ceremonial speech and just waved at the crowd and the soldiers and sailors on the _Steamrunner._

It _would_ make sense if you know why Equestrians and the other races call different soldiers different names based on what they're trained in. Aegis stood tall and proud while posing with Burny at the photographers hovering nearby. Launching new ships in Equestria was always a cause for some fanfare, but new warships were a rare sight.

You're just pulling the 'militant' card so you can get what you want.

Aegis snorted in amusement. Hey, when we get our hive set up, you can name allll the civilian stuff, but you gotta let me have at least this much.

Blitz grumbled in reluctant agreement. Agreed, but I'll remember this verbal contract when we start making ships of our own one day.

Aegis wilted under the mental snickering she felt wafting from Blitz. _Why do I feel like I'm going to regret that…?_

By now, the _Steamrunner_ was slowly moving towards the western end of the hive along the standard maiden voyage route for all Phoenix Roost ships. Once the new cruiser gained a little altitude, a gunship escort slid over to take up formation with the _Steamrunner._

The ceremony ended shortly thereafter as the cruiser moved off to begin its shakedown. Aegis was eager to get started and retreated inside to find Captain Rourke managing the bridge. "How's that leg treating you, Captain?"

Captain Rourke looked up from the latest report from the engine room and gave her mechanical right foreleg a few test flexes. She tried to hide it, but pain lanced through her limb every now and again. "Just fine. Still haven't gotten the hang of wall-walking with it yet."

"I can relate, a bit," Aegis said hesitantly at memories of her old hand and toe gauntlets. "You sure you want to give up the _Deception?_ "

Rourke passed on a few commands to the crew, causing the ship to tilt slightly as it changed heading. "The _Runner's_ different from my old ship, true, but the _Deception's_ not going to be fit to fight for months if not a year. Our queens need my experience once the _Runner's_ good to go."

"Fair enough," Aegis replied with an approving nod. "I'll leave it to you to put her through her paces then while I do my rounds."

"By your will, sister." Rourke returned her attention to the crew while Aegis cantered off to inspect the airborne's drills. Engine room, let's bring the ship up to full steam. I want to see if the _Steamrunner_ can live up to the name.

Within moments, the whole ship vibrated under the deep baritone thrum of the engines spooling up to full power. Every last changeling on board reveled in the proclamation of technological power.

* * *

The hour was growing late when the _Steamrunner_ was at a dead stop over Ghastly Gorge as it started testing its damage control response times while Aegis monitored the Airborne drilling assault deployment action. About half way through, Rourke pinged her with concern. Aegis, we have a civilian griffin merchant ship coming in from the northeast.

What? But the gorge isn't on the normal trade routes. Aegis ran over to the nearest window to spy a small dot in the distance. It was a sizable freighter, easily as big as the _Steamrunner_ itself. Flashbacks of Canterlot made her scowl. A little too convenient for a freighter to be this far away from the trade lanes right when we're in the middle of a shakedown cruise.

It wouldn't be the first time the Everfree toyed with a ship's navigation compass, Rourke replied with all the confounding calm of a naval officer. Although I do agree that the timing is curious.

 _Something tells me it's not._ Load up live rounds in the main turrets, but don't take aim just yet. I'll order the gunship to divert the freighter, and request some additional gunships from the hive. Aegis turned to the brigade commander who already had several officers waiting for orders on whether or not to resume drilling. "Colonel Powder Charge, ready the mares for close combat. I got a bad feeling about this."

"Uhhh," the colonel started hesitantly, only for Rourke to give him the questionable honor of giving Aegis some bad news. "We don't have any ball or powder on board."

Aegis down looked at him as if the colonel had grown another head. "Why not!?"

"We only had training equipment up until yesterday, and troops only had time to polish their new rifles before the ceremony." Powder Charge wilted a little at Aegis' mounting exasperated scowl. Her imposing size at being nearly a full queen wasn't helping him stay calm either. "But the new arms are scheduled to arrive this Tuesday."

"Well a lot of good that does us _now_!" Aegis growled as she pulled Burny off her back and checked the gauges. "Do we at least have bayonets?"

Powder Charge and the other officers nodded quickly. Aegis calmed a little. "At least we have that, and the clockwerks. But I'd rather it not come to that. Worst come to worst, we can shoot the freighter down with the main guns if need be."

Aegis' easing nerves started to fray again when she noticed the Colonel and his staff looking around nervously. "We _have_ ammo for the deck guns, right?"

"We don't get those in until Tuesday, sister." Powder Charge started agitatedly rubbing his foreleg while Aegis was about ready to blow a gasket.

"So help me, if we have a repeat of Canterlot I'm going to _freak!"_

Powder Charge flew up and placed a reassuring hoof on Aegis' shoulders. "Even if the freighter is another PCE attack, we already have a gunship moving to intercept, with plenty of ammo," he added bluntly, "and we're over an unpopulated area. The gunship can shoot it down if need be. The situation is under control."

Aegis scrunched her face in painfully deep ire. "I still don't like it. Why bother a repeat performance when we can see the fireship from miles away?"

* * *

A few minutes passed as Aegis led the Airborne throughout the entire ship looking for any sort of weapon, besides her trusty flamethrower. Powder Charge remained at her side while keeping tabs on the gunship as it made its final approach on the freighter. Yet most of her concern was on Aegis and the forest of panicked hairs springing out all over her mane and tail. "Sister, maybe you should calm down."

"Calm down?" Aegis turned away from the depressingly unhelpful sickbay and the distinct lack of scalpels or anything that could be remotely used as a decent weapon. At least not unless you wanted to swing large pieces of medical equipment around like an unwieldy club, and at this point, that wasn't looking like too bad of an option to Aegis. " **Calm down!?** What if the freighter has hidden weapons and shoots the gunship down!? We have to be prepared to fight!" A few more hairs sprung out with Aegis' panicked face starting to develope an eye twitch. "What if the patrol ships from the hive don't arrive in time!? That thing's awfully fast for a freighter, don't you think?"

Powder Charge communed with the hive mind a bit. "Well the ship is starting to slow down to the gunship's command. This could just be a misunderstanding."

"Wait a minute," Aegis said with a start. "Where's the medical staff? What if we get casualties in the attack? The hive's over fifty miles away!"

 _She's not listening to me… I wonder if royal blood makes these panic attacks worse,_ Powder Charge mused worriedly. "They don't-"

Aegis cut him off with a hoof wave, "I swear if you say Tuesday again, something's going to burn."

"Umm… they come in next… week," Powder Charge answered weakly.

Aegis started grinding her teeth while doomsday scenarios revolving in a sunk _Steamrunner,_ and the subsequent disappointment of her mother played rapidly through Aegis' mind. _This is big, this is bigger than big! Momma_ needs _this ship! What if she-_

Her thoughts were interrupted by a letter flaming into being in front of her face. Aegis blinked, with some of her anxiety ebbing. The scroll almost hit the floor by the time she thought to snatch it up with a deft hand. "Princess Celestia? Why would she write me a letter instead of asking Rolled Scroll to pass a message along?"

Like Aegis, the purple drones around her, Powder Charge included, waited with baited breath at the unusual letter. The blue drones of the Colonel's retinue however, were derisively judging them for their proxy hero worship of Celestia.

After quickly breaking the seal, Aegis' anxiety heightened at seeing the hasty script before her.

Aegis, I hope this letter reaches you in time. I have discovered that the PCE plan to board your new ship when it reaches Ghastly Gorge. They'll be using a freighter as a decoy. Stay away from the Gorge until you have a sizable force to repel them! Since they are technically my citizens, I give you carte blanche to enact any measure of force necessary to remove the threat.

"By the First Mother…" The letter shook in her magic as realization dawned on her. All hooves, prepare to repel boarders!

* * *

Meanwhile, down below in the gorge, hundreds of figures gazed up at the lumbering unawares giant airship. One pair of eyes were fixed on the gunship far in the distance. A pegasus pony slid up behind the scout leader with ears alert. "Hey, no one said we'd be going up against a damned capital ship. They'll tear us to pieces if we attack!"

Without looking away from his spyglass, the leader replied in a gruff tone. "Don't worry about it. Of all the armed ships they've launched, not one of them was carrying ammunition right off the bat. Besides this just means the prize will be that much sweeter."

"And what about those clockwerks? They're bound to have those on a warship," he hissed back, making sure no one else heard him.

"You want to purge the parasites or not?" the scout leader growled back. "They're tough, but hardly invincible. The sphinxes say they can handle the golems."

Once the gunship had reached the distant freighter, the scout dropped his spyglass and picked up a signal horn. He blew a long growling note which was soon joined by dozens more. Within seconds, hundreds of pegasi, griffins, and winged sphinxes roared out of the eel caverns along the side of the gorge and raced up to the waiting _Steamrunner._


	72. Chapter 72

Battle and Proto-Queens Don't Mix

Today was shaping up to be a momentous day. Revealing Light stood with his PCE brethren at the lip of an eel tunnel in Ghastly Gorge. Though he was technically the one in charge, his command was quite loose by military standards. Such as it is, his chief scout was the one who would ultimately give the signal to attack.

The anticipation was almost too much to bear as the changeling warship hung overhead. _I can't believe it's a warship. What luck!_ He licked his dry lips, and felt his heart racing at the fight to come. His wings quivered with barely restrained excitement. Today wasn't going to be just a blow to the parasites. It was going to be a _crippling_ blow.

He looked back towards the hundred-strong group of ponies, griffin mercenaries, and sphinx warriors concealed in his tunnel alone. He found many of them were losing their initial fervent energy once word of the type of ship they were about to attack was intended for war spread. Almost everyone present had studied the changeling navy, and knew their guns were murderous. It was only the knowledge that freshly launched ships lacked munitions that kept them from fleeing into the more inviting maws of the eels lurking deeper below.

Seeing that he might need to give a few words, Revealing Light cast one last look at the retreating gunship to roughly gauge how much time he had. Satisfied he had a minute at least, he turned to his insurgents. "Brethren. What stands before us is the very thing that threatens Equestria, and by extension, all of our lands," he added to the griffins and sphinxes. "This ship is proof that the parasites are only using the princesses to gain power. How long would it take for them to build a navy that could enslave us all?"

Most of the ponies grumbled in agreement with a few sphinxes doing the same. The griffins remained impassive, simply waiting to get paid. "Twilight Sparkle has been completely consumed by that monster Cadista, and is doing what Chrysalis failed to do. We **must** destroy the parasites' symbol of power: their navy."

The growling note of the signal horn grabbed Revealing's ear making him turn towards the cave entrance. He picked up his void stone helmet, and agony-enchanted spear. A weapon designed to cause the pain from strikes with it to be spread throughout the body. "In the name of Equestria, purge the parasites!"

Backed by a deafening roar, Revealing Light charged skyward backed by close to seven hundred warriors. The wind tore past his face and wings as he sprinted towards the hapless ship. As they closed the distance, it was clear to Revealing Light that they had caught the parasites completely off guard. The guns didn't turn to face them, the smaller defense turrets weren't even manned, and not a single parasite was charging out of the ship to meet them. A short two-note blast of the horn forced Revealing Light to look north where the gunship had altered course far faster than hoped, and was charging full steam to the _Steamrunner's_ defense. _Damn, with that hive mind they're reacting even faster than I thought they would._

Revealing Light was within spitting distance of the _Steamrunner_ when he spotted the nearest entry hatch. He waved at his troops to follow him over. However, before he could grab the latch, a golden shield pushed him back and fully enveloped the queen-sized entry hatch.

"What?" He quickly recovered from the push and tried to ram the barrier with his voidstone armor. Yet instead of collapsing, the golden shield remained steadfast. "That won't work, boss," a pegasus from behind called out as she pulled on Revealing's tail. "Void stone doesn't work on holy magic, but that stuff's weaker than normal shields."

"Then let's bash it down!" a sphinx growled as he hefted a war mace that crackled with electricity.

A single long note on the horn caused Revealing's adrenaline to kick into even higher gear. "That gunship will get here long before you break the shield, let alone the hatch too. Spread out and see if you can find any other way inside!"

When everyone spread out from top to bottom of the ship, while Revealing Light raced to the stern. He passed by dozens of others, each of them searching for a way inside, but every hatch, every porthole, even the extremely rare window had that same golden shield. _The crew may just be trying to hold us off until the gunship gets back._

The cacophony of his brethren trying to force their way through the shields put a heavy pit of doubt in his stomach. For every second the PCE remained outside, the more of a risk that gunship posed. Revealing Light soared towards the surface deck of the ship, scanning for even a single overlooked entryway. _To think those parasites could even use holy magic at all._

A burst of three short and one long noted horn from further astern drew everyone's attention. Revealing joined his fellows towards a series of large bay doors that was four decks high and fifteen meters across that ran along in separate groups on the port and starboard side of the stern. Each door could easily allow an armored clockwerk through, with each door separated from the last with a foot or two of solid steel. Revealing Light, along with most others, were ecstatic to see the complete lack of defensive barriers around any of the doors.

Any other time, caution would have made Revealing Light call for a slow and methodical breach, but he could already hear the whine of the approaching gunship's engines. Several of the larger griffins and sphinxes were already bashing their way into the doors with shaped metal battering rams or enchanted warhammers. Revealing watched as most of the PCE rushed over to the series of doors before flying over to a quartet of sphinxes over by what looked like an exterior walkway with a reinforced defensive wall for rifle fire. The group was off loading a large cannon that had been broken down into four pieces. With practiced ease, the group deftly assembled the heavily modified spark cannon behind the defensive wall which granted a sweeping field of fire across the upper bow.

Revealing Light flew over to join the craggiest of the four. "Teldarlor, are you sure that thing can take out a warship?"

Teldarlor was not the gunner, so he let his kin ready the weapon. "Something as big as this?" he stamped his paw on the deck of the _Steamrunner._ "Not a chance in hell. But those little gnats?" he waved at the approaching gunship, which was distressingly close now. "As sure as the sun rises in the east."

As if insulted by the slur, the gunship fired its two pairs of quad flak cannons. Though barely in range, the hailstorm of exploding shrapnel rained down on all of them, making Revealing and most others dive for what little cover they could find. The cries of dozens of insurgents filled the skies as many fell helplessly down into the gorge below. Teldarlor started singing with a spell orb held up in his hand. A soft blue glow radiated around the crew and Revealing Light.

Though the flak tore many from the skies, those that managed to flee into the blue barriers escaped unharmed. Teldarlor sneered at the bulbous gunship as it maintained its distance while its guns reloaded. "Bastard thinks he's safe does he? Cladaya, prove him otherwise."

Revealing covered his ears as the cannon started giving a high pitched whine that grated the ears before firing off a dense orb of raw mana at such blinding speed it looked like a rod of light. The shot missed the gunship, and detonated in a blast of lightning that danced harmlessly over the gunship's hull.

Emboldened by that, the pilot pushed the gunship closer, and that was exactly what Kladaya wanted. Her next few shots either missed entirely or exploded harmlessly against the gunship. Three more volleys of flak tore at the PCE taking what little cover they could find. However, once the gunship was close enough, Kladaya fired a shot that punched through the thin aluminium starboard gunner's pod. Even from here, Revealing could see the explosion of electricity sparking all over the gunship's interior. Black smoke started pouring out of the gunship's starboard side, but it stubbornly remained aloft.

The port gunner fired off a salvo of flak while the now fearful pilot hastily pulled back, dodging two more shots from the spark cannon. "Think you're getting away do you?" Kladaya sneered as she adjusted her aim. Her next shot went wild when the _Steamrunner_ listed to port.

The spark cannon started sliding away from the crew who either tried to hold onto the wall or took to the air. Without a unicorn present, no one could stop the heavy spark cannon from sliding right off the side of the ship. Teldarlor roared angrily at the loss of his precious cannon. "Damn psykers! That cost me a fortune!"

Revealing Light shared his brethren's ire, yet the arrival of a fellow pegasus stayed his tongue. "Sir, we did it! We broke through the doors and our troops are already flooding inside!"

"Good, get a move on before that gunship thinks to return," Revealing Light pounced on the news and pulled Teldarlor away from the walls. "Forget the gunship, think of how much money the parasites will lose when we destroy this boat."

Teldarlor bared his teeth at the prospect of revenge and nodded curtly at the pegasus. Revealing Light raced after the informant. Now that they had made it inside, the PCE were opening all of the exterior doors they could get to in order to help move everyone inside quickly. Revealing Light waited impatiently by the closest open door as his troops poured inside.

Revealing started to wonder why his soldiers were filing in non-stop, but his answer came when the door next to him opened up. Within was a large open chamber wholly alien to his expectations for a warship. The chamber mirrored the four decks worth of exterior doors with a wide catwalk ringing an open area that had support pillars crammed with empty slots and cubby holes. Lastly, there was a single large tube off center that transported shot and powder to the dorsal deck gun.

"This place could easily fit hundreds if not over a thousand souls," Revealing Light thought aloud. "Just what kind of ship is this?"

Casting such concerns aside he grabbed the nearest warrior, a griffin. "You, get a team together and find your way to the engine room. I'll head for the bridge."

After giving a curt acknowledgement the griffin wormed his way through the growing crowd of bodies trying to cram inside the ship. The coughing chug of the damaged gunship and a spray of flak from outside was all the incentive the PCE needed to pile inside.

Revealing Light yelled as he threaded his way towards the front where the same griffins and sphinxes who were bashing their way into the hull in the first place were now trying to tear their way past the various hatches leading to the rest of the ship. A few brave souls tore open the deck gun's tube for a possible entry point, but no one could fit. It didn't take Revealing Light long to find out that all of the exit points were sealed tight.

 _More stalling. They know time is against us. We might have to settle for just destroying the engine room before the parasites' reinforcements arrive._ "Hunter Vardance, how long until you're through?"

The sphinx in question had a warhammer sheathed in violet energy that made each blow against the door dent the steel several inches. "Not long now," Vardance grunted. "Cowards are hiding behind their walls like mewling babes. We didn't even find a single defender in this... marshaling chamber."

Several more ear stabbing bangs of steel on steel spoke of their effort as at least a dozen other sphinxes and griffins trying to breach the doors. Revealing Light scanned the dense gathering of his army, packed like sardines along the catwalks. "If I was the crew, I wouldn't try to defend this chamber either. Far too many entry ways and not enough cover."

Another slam of Vardance's warhammer tore one of the hinges off the door, but the lock remained in place. "Aye. If they have any kind of warrior spirit, what little crew they have will be waiting in ambush."

Vardance readied the final swing when the whole chamber resonated with a bone chilling dirge. The magic heavy song weighted upon the mind with a drumming that threatened to sap the will to fight from even the most battle hardened among them. It was quickly joined in by a choir singing in a language unrecognized by Revealing Light, but it was no less effective at worming its way into his head, filling him with an intangible terror and riddling him with doubt. Seperately, Revealing had the mental discipline to resist either piece, but the choir and drums together seemed to pull up every regret, every moment of doubt he ever had, and brought back the intense guilt he suffered from watching the two Equestrian troop ships being destroyed when the _Deception_ crashed into them.

Some small part of him realized that the soul-weaking song wasn't coming from a PA system, but from the very air itself as it permeated his mind.

"Psykira!" Vardance screamed in fresh rage. "We need a counter-song now!"

Revealing Light was sluggish in trying to fight the effects of the mind-bending dirge when he saw a runic array flash to life directly under Vardance. Dozens more of these arrays lit up all over the marshalling area.

Flashes of orange laced lavender light started popping up all over the chamber with people getting pushed away from the source. The one under Vardance shoved him aside like a ragdoll. Revealing Light barely managed to avoid the sailing sphinx and caught sight of the being who had materialized from the summoning circle. In that brief instant, where time seemed to slow to a crawl, Revealing Light witnessed a winged sphinx clothed in the drab blue armored uniform of the Phoenix Roost Navy scanning his surroundings for a target. The moment the sphinx locked eyes with Revealing Light, the pegasus saw the crimson brand of a stylized open eye on the tom's forehead. The mark of a Psykira.

* * *

Aegis materialized at the very center of the marshalling chamber's lowest deck with Burny held lovingly in her hands. Three clockwerks covered her back as she gazed upon the disoriented mass of PCE before her. Calling upon the Silver City, Aegis wrapped herself in the golden light of holy magic. With a malicious toothy grin, Aegis activated Burny's pilot light and aimed at the closest PCE, a pegasus stallion who was trying to fight the magical-dirge clawing in his head. "Need a light?"

The sphinxes were the first to recover from the dirge, and turned to face her with crackling gauntlets at the ready. With the clockwerks starting to wade into the PCE behind her, Aegis unleashed a gout of burning oil across everyone in front of her, cackling madly all the while.

More and more changelings and Psykira materialized from summoning arrays, adding more confusion and death. With the gunship driving off the PCE from the exterior, more Airborne swarmed over the surface and blocked the exits so no one could flee.

A pegasus darted at Aegis' right side, away from her flamethrower arm, with arcane wings glowing a hot orange. Knowing she was too slow, Aegis let him strike her body-shield on her right leg, causing a stabbing pain in her horn and pushing her back. However, he had expected to slice clean through and stumbled askew when Aegis' body remained in his wing's way. Aegis twisted on her hooves and physically grabbed him by the neck, and threw his face into the steel floor.

Aegis kicked the pegasus away, far enough to roast him with a gout of flame. She kept firing while sweeping her flames across the PCE behind her who were starting to fend off the Clockwerks, with one of the automatones being smashed against two warhammers. The burning oil cooked them all, but left the clockwerks more or less intact.

Between the defending clockwerks and the fires surrounding her, Aegis gazed around to get her bearings. A fifth of the Airborne had managed to be summoned and were cutting their way through the enemy, but Aegis noticed the PCE were not panicking like they should have been. A changeling tried to stab a griffin with a bayonet, but the blow was parried by a pegasus while a second griffin came in from behind and skewered the drone.

Joining the din caused by the dirge was a new song in near perfect contrast to the first. The dirge's effect destabilized as the trio of sphinxes singing it were rendered mute for the next several hours. The dirge's collapse caused the battle to teeter as the PCE rallied. Many of the Airborne who were summoned in were either getting cornered, corralled towards their brethren, or being overwhelmed. _It's almost as if they don't care their escape routes've been cut off._

Aegis felt the floor vibrate heavily with a loud clash of metal behind her. She spun around to find a massive Grecian tom with an equally huge hammer embedded in one of her clockwerk guards. He yanked his hammer free of the sputtering mound of twisted metal to face off against the remaining clockwerk and Aegis herself. "To think I get the honor of killing one of the queens personally. Know that your killer's name is Hunter Teldarlor."

"I'd tell you my name, but you already know. But I haven't met my killer yet," Aegis sneered as she readied Burny. The moment of inaction gave her time to bring her shield back to full strength. With Teldarlor standing between her and the remaining Clockwerk, Aegis quickly thought up a plan. "Clockwerk unit: Gamma Five Oh. Attack pattern theta!"

 **"Commencing."**

Teldarlor immediately spun around to slam his hammer into the charging Clockwerk, but the robot jumped over the blow while Aegis fired off a stream of burning oil. Teldarlor tumbled under the clockwerk and grabbed a spell orb. "By winter's touch I shall not burn!"

The stream of oil froze in mid air as a cloak of bitingly cold frost surrounded Teldarlor in a whirling barrier. Aegis scowled, but noticed the cloak wavered as Teldarlor passed over a few of burning bodies. "You honestly think to use fire, _parasite!_

"Aaayup!" Aegis snarked back as she poured on the flaming oil. The clockwerk charged in from the left side of the ribbon of fire. Teldarlor's hammer swung down at it, but the clockwerk vered to the side far before it would have reached him. Teldarlor tried to get back into a proper stance, but the unburnt oil was starting pool at his paws and soak into his fur and clothes. The oily reek alone threatened to curse him with dizziness. He tried to fly up and off the slippery floor, but the clockwerk dove in, pushing him back onto the floor, causing them to slid into a mound of cooked bodies.

"Let's see your cloak defend you now!" Dropping her shield, Aegis conjured a fireball bigger than her head. The clockwerk kept Teldarlor pinned. Having no other resort, he let go of his hammer and grab a spell orb from his belt. **"Rebuked!"**

Aegis' fireball fell apart while a slice of mana shot back into her horn, making her cry out and stumble in agony. Gritting her teeth and ignoring the stabbing pain, Aegis prepared a second fireball to spite Teldarlor's instinctual fear of it.

 **"Censored!"** he cried out, before the clockwerk could smack the orb out of his hand. Aegis nearly let go of Burny at the vice-like headache caused by the counterspell. She stumbled back with black spots forming before her eyes and the hive mind distorted from the agony.

The dizzy spell lingered, but it wasn't enough to cause Aegis to take her eye off of Teldarlor. "Do that again, and I'll have my buddy there turn you into a hoof puppet!"

Teldarlor grunted with effort in trying to keep the clockwerk from snapping his bones, yet he chanced a glance at Aegis who was recovering with agonizing slowness. "You're not the only one with buddies, parasite."

Clarity sliced through Aegis' haze and she blindly dove aside barely a second before an arcane wing could cleave her skull. Revealing Light sailed past his intended target and opted to decapitate the clockwerk. The machine locked up, but not so much that Teldarlor was unable to pry it off of himself.

Aegis wavered as the aftereffects of the spell-feedback lingered. Trying to ignore the growing instability of her arcane magic, she launched a torrent of fire before her opponents could act against her. Teldarlor's weakened cloak of frost couldn't take the heat any longer and collapsed after barely a second. Revealing Light used Teldarlor as a distraction to close in on Aegis once more with his arcane wing and bloodied spear at the ready, confident his void armor would make any counterattack impossible.

Before Aegis could even think to redirect Burny, a Psykira tom intercepted him with an electrified wrist blade meeting Revealing's left wing, edge to edge,and striking the haft of his spear. The magic on Revealing's wing and spat against the blade's electricity as the two forces vied for superiority. The spear however was broken completely in two, with the point flying away.

Yet it was the angle of attack that forced Revealing off balance. The Psykira's second wrist blade would have lacerated the pegasus' foreleg as well had Revealing not kicked the Psykira away and retreated to Teldarlor's side.

The Psykira flapped his wings to fall back and shield Aegis. "Are you alright, your highness?"

Aegis twisted off the spent fuel canister and replaced it with her lone spare. "Nothing worse than a rough night at the pub. Thanks, Atomosal."

Teldarlor and Revealing Light were hardly idle as Aegis recovered. Teldarlor reclaimed his warhammer while Revealing begrudgingly tossed his useless spear away and tried to think of an arcane wing pattern that could counter Atomosal's enchantment.

As the Airborne started to make progress in pushing the PCE away from the doors, Aegis' patch of ground was getting ever more crowded with members of the PCE. The majority of the Airborne had either been killed or had joined with their siblings at the exits.

"Proto-Queen, I highly suggest we get out from the center before we have too many blades to contend with," Atomosal warned as he saw the PCE was taking notice of them en masse.

 _If I try to burn them this close, some of them might run right at me and spread the oil on me._ Remembering the layout of the ship, Aegis quickly found an unobtrusive hatch leading below deck. "Then let's blow this popsicle stand."

* * *

Meanwhile, Teldarlor could see the tide of battle turn once more, as the PCE could no longer keep any of the breaching teams at the doors leading further into the ship. It was obvious that the PCE were being herded towards the center of the marshalling chamber. He fished out the last of his intact spell orbs. "Damn it, Revealing, next time you better verify whether or not we're assaulting a warship. I'm pulling us out of here!"

Revealing Light growled with impotent rage. "We're not leaving until she dies!" Without waiting for a reply, Revealing charged headlong at Aegis.

Teldarlor spat a curse and pocketed the spell orb to chase after him with his hammer. "Stupid galkof!"

* * *

Aegis had just popped the hatch only to feel one of the last things she wanted at that moment: her eggs moving to be laid. She buckled over and clutched her abdomen. _Not now!_ Movement to the side and above caught her eye. She fired off a sheet of flames to fend off the approaching threats.

Revealing Light's warcry was barely enough to draw Aegis' attention away from her imminent laying. "Arrgg, Atomosal, get in!" The aftereffects of two counterspells forced Aegis to fall to a knee as her body acted against her will.

Atomosal threw his bayoneted rifle at Revealing, forcing the pegasus to vear off and smack into one of the nearby pillars. "You first, your highness. You-" Atomosal risked looking back at Aegis only to see her lay an egg. _Damn!_ Without asking, Atomosal unceremoniously shoved Aegis down the hatch, who was in no shape to stop him, while grabbing the first egg off the floor and barely snatching the second in his hand as the egg left Aegis on her way down.

Teldarlor caught Atomosal dead to rights with the Psykira in such an awkward position, hanging over the lip of the hatch, and sneered while swinging down with his warhammer to crush Atomosal's spine. With no other recourse, Atomosal kicked off to fall into the room below, but the hammer struck a heavy hit on his left wing, crushing the bones within.

Aegis landed hard on her back at the bottom of the short ladder and was too busy trying to recover from the wind getting knocked out of her to even secure her growing collection of eggs, let alone check Atomosal. Atomosal himself yelped in pain as he crashed painfully on the hard metal floor beside Aegis. They found themselves in one of the small empty cubical armories that were barely larger than a doctor's office.

Aegis stared daggers at Atomosal as she wheezed breathlessly. "Stop trying - to play - the hero."

"Says the royal bug fighting on the front lines," Atomosal shot back with a pained smirk, "while she can't stop from laying eggs, no less!" With what tenderness he could muster, Atomosal handed over the two eggs he had rescued.

Aegis breathed a sigh of relief as she tried to collect the eggs that were still coming. However, neither of them had any opportunity to even think to call for help when three devices were dropped down the ladder with the hatch slamming shut behind them. Terror dawned on them after realizing what they were.

Grenades.

Aegis reacted in an instant to telekinetically fling them away, only to realize she tossed them at the only other exit, and nowhere nearly far enough to be safe.

Seeing only one recourse, Atomosal threw himself onto the devices, much to Aegis' horror as the mare was telekinetically pushed open the lone exitway. Barely a moment later, the grenades exploded in a shower of hot shrapnel. Atomosal's armor took the brunt of the explosion, yet the rest of him was blown apart in a hail of visceral. What was left of him was blasted back towards Aegis who was curled up in a fetal position. His armor slammed against the walls around her, with one piece slicing her left hind leg. Aegis was showered in blood and bone, with some of that shrapnel and bone digging into Aegis' flesh, lacerating her in multiple places, and shredding her wings to tatters.

Aegis' ears were ringing badly, but the last second shield around her head had kept the concussive force from killing her. She uncurled shakily with each piece of shrapnel ripping at her as she moved. The blast had destroyed the lights in the armory, casting her into complete darkness. Ignoring the digging pains, Aegis hastily unfolded herself to inspect her clutch. What she saw pushed the rest of the world out of focus. In her haste to protect herself, she had only gathered two of her eggs properly. The others had been exposed and were now little more than broken puddles of shell and yolk. Out of all of them, only those two eggs remained intact.

Aegis' mind threatened to shut down at the sudden loss of her clutch. Yet Aegis didn't get a chance to have a breakdown when a shaft of light appeared from above. Revealing Light dropped down with his wings burning with mana. He wasn't facing Aegis immediately and feared she had made it through the blackened exit and into the curved and narrow hallway beyond. However, Aegis' hard breathing drew his attention towards the proto-queen in the other side of the darkened room.

Aegis ignored the dozens of cutting pains as she shakily lifted Burny right as Revealing Light saw her. "That fire won't kill me before I separate your wretched head from your shoulders."

Rage. Hot burning rage rattled through Aegis like a demon. Aegis' common sense warred with her fury. Burny rattled in her grip as she placed the last two remaining eggs into a wall-slot meant for a rifle. "You better hope you're right," Aegis replied with poisonous hate. "Because I assure you, your death will be drawn out for weeks." She grabbed at the wall behind her to climb to her two legs.

"That won't be happening," Revealing said darkly. "Even if you burn me, I'll only cover you with the same oil when I tackle you. I'll gladly trade my life to take yours." The dialogue had given Aegis enough time to remember the pegasus was wearing leather armor embedded with void stone. "For Equestria!" Revealing shouted as he charged her.

Aegis let go of Burny while bringing up a holy shield. She balled her right fist and punched him with all of her mounting fury in the face. The blow threw Revealing off course, but not enough to keep his wing from raking Aegis' shield. The impact lanced pain all through Aegis' injuries, but it also forced her to turn with Revealing Light as he collided with the far wall. That gave Aegis a chance to grab onto his wings at the root. Her shield fought with his arcane wing, sending sparking mana everywhere. She roared with indignant rage while Revealing screamed with intense pain as he strained to free his wings.

"I don't know how you managed to smuggle so many of you bastards into the gorge." Aegis twisted his wings, dislocating them at the shoulder. The act made Revealing shriek in unbridled pain with his magic cutting out. "But you're going to tell us one way or another."

In a moment of clarity, Revealing lashed out with his hind legs and blindly bucked Aegis in the right leg, crashing through her weakened shield and throwing her to the floor. Aegis yelled as knives of burning agony lanced through her after falling on her shredded wings. She instinctively tried to grab Burny in her magic, but Revealing's proximity with his void stones made her efforts slip around her weapon like water over a rock.

"Damn you, Teldarlor, get down here!" Revealing demanded up at the ceiling hatch as he tried to fight back the pain in his wings to finish Aegis off. The proto-queen was bleeding from dozens of cuts all over her body, and she was staggering badly in an attempt to crawl over to her fallen weapon. Unfortunately for him, his dislocated wings shot crippling pain into him at every movement he made, thanks to the feathery appendages hanging limply around his body. The most he could muster was climbing to three hooves.

"Sorry, boss, but the parasites are closing in. We're bugging out before they can block our exit strategy."

"Don't you dare!" Revealing roared with shocked anger. "She's not dead yet!" He looked back at Aegis to finish her off. Bearing the full fury of his hell-storm of pain, Revealing jumped at Aegis intending to crush her neck if that's what it took.

However, Aegis had finally grabbed Burny with her hands. Using what was left of her strength, she swung its armored side at Revealing's face, clocking him in the side of the head, and knocking him back towards the far wall. She propped herself up on one hoof, while the other arm shakily raised Burny. However, the sheer scope of her injuries was taking its toll.

Aegis was breathing heavily to stave off the drowsiness from bloodloss. The stench of Atomosal's charred remains and the reek of her broken eggs made her trigger finger tighten around Bruny. "I should kill you."

Revealing Light tried to kick her good leg out from under her, but Aegis stumbled backwards to prop herself against a wall, but still plenty close for the flamethrower. Having failed in his assassination, Revealing Light simply glared at Aegis from his prone position on the floor. His pain was so intense he was starting to blackout. "Then do it, _parasite!"_ Revealing goaded.

Ragged breathing and her heart pounding in her ears was all Aegis could hear at that moment. Revealing Light spawned a twin as her vision started swimming from the blood loss. Burny rattled in her shaky hands. Aegis couldn't even use her magic which had been badly destabilized by the corrosive counterspells and the proximity of the void stones. Burny only stayed on target every few seconds or so. Even in her anger, Aegis couldn't summon enough strength to pull the trigger. She was too drained to bother thinking about the risk of burning herself this time. The stench of broken bone and sinew was almost overpowering now that her blood loss and full body pain were taking the edge of her adrenaline-fueled hate away.

A massive wave of mana from above heralded a collective gasp of surprise from the hive mind. Aegis heard an echoing sound of hoofsteps from the side passage at the far side of the armory. The moment she saw they were drones, the last of her strength fell away. Aegis let go of Burny and both she and the weapon fell to the floor unconscious.

* * *

Some time later, Aegis awoke to a blinding light and leaden limbs. For the longest time, she couldn't summon the will to bother going further than that. She had a soft bed, warm sheets, and the gentle song of the hive mind; what more could a changeling want?

"Ah, so you're finally coming around," said a brusk feminine voice off to the side. "I thought you might."

Lazyitis reigned a little while longer, resulting in Aegis trying to pass off as still being asleep. Awake or not, she still felt exhausted.

"I hope you don't plan on letting _this_ clutch go without a love feeding too I hope."

It took a few seconds, but Aegis' brain finally synapsed. Her eyes shot open and she bolted to a sitting position. At least that was the plan. Her muscles cramped, making her yelp and fall over.

Blinking, Aegis looked around to get her bearings. She was in her chambers at the hive's palace. The morning sun was angled perfectly through the sweeping window to jab her in the eyes. Although that was mostly because the bed had been moved. Resta was the only other person in the room, and she was currently glancing between Aegis and a clip board hovering in her magic.

"Well, at least your subconscious priorities are still intact, that's a good sign." Resta gave Aegis a bemused frown. "Shocking, given how the royals of our family are such danger junkies."

The cramps in Aegis' back and legs went from paralyzing to a throbbing ache. "My eggs! Are they okay?!"

Resta huffed and exaggeratingly rolled her eyes. "You haven't laid today's clutch. I merely said that to get you up."

The very mention of eggs brought the last few minutes of the battle back to her mind's eye. Aegis shrank into herself as her loss returned in full clarity. "I - I." A sorrow that surpassed even what she'd felt at Riposte's death clung to Aegis like a leech. "I was so _stupid_ going out there like that."

"We all make mistakes," Resta replied gruffly. Aegis looked at her with reddened eyes and disbelief. Resta grumbled irritably. "I'm not going to elaborate, but there's been more siblings who died under my knife than I care to admit."

"At least they got a chance at life…"

"Sure doesn't make them dying on me any better you know," Resta stated bluntly. Aegis shot her a death glare, not that it stopped Resta from continuing in the least. "Like I keep telling our mothers," Resta chastised while poking Aegis' bandaged abdomen, making the proto-queen fume even harder. "You royals have countless changelings inside each of you, waiting their turn at a chance at life. Yes, you lost ten, sad loss to be sure, but if you die going off on some fool's errand on a battlefield, _all_ those changelings just die with you."

"Probably died 'cause of your horrible bedside manner," Aegis retorted spitefully.

"And yet she's completely right," said a new voice from the door.

Aegis rolled her head over to see Cadista standing in the doorway. Aegis tried to sit up and look presentable, but that only served to agitate all the wounds along her right side, resulting in them reminding her of their presence. "Acg!" Aegis rolled back over to lay on her left side.

The various bandages along her right side developed spots of bright crimson when the wounds beneath them reopened. Resta was quick to act and weaved a spell to keep Aegis from thrashing around and making things worse. "Hold still. Damn PCE made healing magic useless."

"Useless!?" Aegis asked incredulously through clenched teeth.

"Aye," Cadista answered as she waited for Resta to do her part in ensuring Aegis would recover. When Aegis settled down, she continued while Resta changed the soiled bandages. "Those grenades they used on you were heavily laced with the same toxin that originally forced me to rebirth your mother."

Aegis searched her memories at the mention. "Wait, you mean ghast spider venom? How did the PCE get ahold of that?"

Cadista considered telling her the source of her information, but thought better of it for the moment. "The black market. Once word got out about how Twilight couldn't be healed by magic, criminals and assassins alike wanted that spider. It took a few years, but they've clearly succeeded in their efforts.

"It's because of this exact sort of thing that Yumia and I starting going down the path of technology with limited reliance on magic."

Resta applied some salve on Aegis' opened wounds. "Don't want all your eggs in one basket, and all that?"

Aegis shot the doctor a scathing glare at the mention of eggs. "Fine, whatever. I messed up, bad."

Cadista walked over so she could affix a grandmotherly soft grin at Aegis. She gently scratched Aegis's mane. "It takes a lot to admit such things to one's self, especially for royals."

Aegis hissed in pain as Resta inspected her patient's back. _The wings are a total loss. The venom's saturated everything. It'd take months to purge. Better to cut them off and let the roots regrow naturally from there._ "Please keep it brief, your highnesses, but I have to prep her for one last surgery."

Aegis slackened, sinking into her bed. "I was at least hoping I wouldn't have to face this until _after_ my kids were adults at least."

"It's always a risk we must endure." Cadista knew Aegis was strong enough to bottle those sorrows until the next Day of Mourning. "But it is ultimately worth it in the long run. Provided you stay off the field of battle. It's no place for a queen."

Aegis somehow found the will to give her grandmother a weak smile. "I am my mother's daughter."

Cadista huffed disapprovingly. "Yes, and with all the faults that come with it." When Aegis' grin didn't waver Cadista shook her head, but had no real ill will in it. "There are worse faults to have, I suppose."

Resta moved on to inspect Aegis' hind legs, and had a bed-pulley prop one leg up for ease of access. "You mean like lacking common sense half the time?"

"Well if I had your level of common sense," Aegis grumbled, "I'd be just as fun as you are at funerals." Resta didn't remark, however she moved away when a nurse arrived with surgical tools. Aegis looked back at Cadista. "We won though at least, right?"

At last, Cadista matched Aegis' smile. "Aye, that you did. The _Steamrunner_ ultimately suffered only minor damage. Nothing a few days back in port can't fix if we work around the clock. The Airborne didn't fair so well. Although I'd like to attribute that due to the lack of ammunition.

"As for the PCE, those we didn't kill were whisked away, likely with the same method the archmage used to abduct Twilight in Canterlot."

"And the pegasus who was next to me?"

"Intel 'La 'Gence is interrogating him now," Cadista replied with a dark smirk. "But she's only doing that until I return."

Aegis dropped eye contact to stare off in the distance. She could only imagine how unpleasant that would prove. "...Good."

When Cadista didn't elaborate further, Aegis decided not to press. "They'll still be ready on time right? The Airborne, I mean."

"Don't worry, Blitz is making sure of that." Cadista looked to Resta who wordlessly gestured to the nurses that she wanted to begin. "Take care, Aegis."

Aegis watched Cadista stand protectively over her as Resta's sleep spell started to take hold. "I… will..."

Cadista patted Aegis' head before stepping away to let Resta move Aegis onto a portable operating table. Without further preamble, Cadista departed Aegis' quarters only to find Twilight Sparkle puppeting one of the nearby Queen's Guard.

"Looks like I was too late to speak with her."

Making sure to close the door behind her, Cadista spotted a small nook to sit down. "She's fine, my daughter. Though she won't be flying for a couple of months."

Twilight cantered over to join Cadista on the uncomfortable bench. It was one of the few that was still a holdover from when Phoenix Castle was still a colony ship. "You may not care for it, mother, but the _Steamrunner_ might very well have been lost if Aegis hadn't been there."

All Twilight got out of Cadista with that point was a mild frown conceding the point. "Her paranoia was partially correct at least. The griffin freighter had been paid off to distract the gunship, but-" Cadista remembered that Twilight and Rainbow were both right in harm's way in the middle of the war torn jungle. "Forget it. I speak to deaf ears."

It took Twilight a few seconds to realize what her mother was referring to. "It's the pony in us."

"So I feared." Cadista couldn't help but to huff at Twilight's knowing grin. _She loves to test me every now and then._ "Seeing how the hive mind isn't in turmoil, I assume your assault against Polybia was successful."

Twilight tilted her head and shrugged. "Yes and no. We stopped Polybia's advance, but her feral undead are proving difficult to root out and eliminate. It's costing us time since the _Long Shot_ is too exposed to continue on its own."

Cadista nodded sagely. She brooded until a new drone cantered by and delivered some soda for Twilight. "Sorry, mother, but he asked for this, and I didn't realize you were borrowing him."

Chuckling, Twilight took the soda and waved off any discomfort. "Don't worry about it, Candy Cane." She took the tall glass complete with a bendy straw into her magic, before sending Candy Cane on her way. Twilight loosened her control enough for her puppet to take some long drags on the soda while Cadista silently communed with the Link to get a clearer picture on the battle's aftermath. _Wow, this cherry soda's not bad._

Cadista was still going over the carrier's battle, highly enjoying that her intuition about the carrier was being vindicated. Twilight was doing the same with the soda, when Rolled Scroll contacted her. My queen, I have news from Princess Celestia. Twilight hesitated before taking another drink. In an hour, she's going to make a public announcement where she's committing several Equestrian warships to the fight against Polybia and Grogar

"She what!?" Twilight yelled bugged eyed. Cadista gave her a worried look, prompting Twilight to include her on the conversation. But this is a changeling matter. The public won't accept it!

Not to mention that those ponies have no idea what they'd be getting into, Cadista added in agreement.

I thought the same, Rolled Scroll added worriedly. Though I didn't think it my place to voice such objections.

Twilight looked to her mother who ultimately shook her head. "Do what you think is best, Twilight."

Twilight nodded slowly. Scroll, let me borrow you. I need to speak with Celestia about this before she goes public.

My body is yours, as always, my queen.

In her haste, Twilight departed the guard's body without thinking, leaving him in a very embarrassing position next to Cadista. She watched the poor guard run off to recompose himself. The empty drinking glass nearly rolled off the bench, forcing Cadista to catch it. _So many unexpected side effects in Twilight's bloodline. None of my drones ever had such a… compromising reaction to puppeting._

She sniffed the syrupy scent coming from the glass with curiosity. It wasn't unpleasant, yet hardly appealing to her. _So many side effects. I trust Twilight can set things right with Celestia's daft plan._


	73. Chapter 73

Turbulent Wind

The Sparkle Manor was an unsettling place. At least for a particular quasi who was doing her best to remain calm, friendly, and competent. Pear Butter couldn't stop squirming in her seat in the front lounge. All in all, it was a warm and sunny day, with the sun's brilliance shining through the large windows. The lounge itself was tasteful in its opulence, speaking of wealth that didn't go out of its way to flaunt.

Pear Butter was disguised as a unicorn, and had gone with a pleasing color originally, mostly to get Stopwatch and Paint Brush to let her go. Yet before approaching the Sparkle Manor, Pear Butter had returned to her natural peach coat and blonde hair. As a personal compromise to herself. _If Ah have to be a unicorn for ages, Ah'm at least going to be mah natural colors._

Presently, she was sitting in the least comfortable chair she could find in the room, mostly to keep herself awake among such risky company.

"The master of the house will be with you shortly," Pranceton, the family butler, said from the door with a very curt and neutral tone. "They are tending to the little one."

Pear Butter nodded nervously. "Thank you, sir."

Being left alone, Pear Butter recalled her last talk with Paint Brush in an effort to distract herself. _Alright… So. Ah'm glad Ah never used my real name ever since coming here, and after Paint Brush made sure there weren't no Pear Butter in the city's records, Ah can finally live by my old name again._

Pear fidgeted nervously when she heard hoofsteps pass by the only door leading away from the lounge. Her anxiety didn't ebb as much as she would have liked after she noticed whoever it was simply passed by. _'Course, Paint weren't the only one looking up names,_ Pear thought with a conspiratorial grin as she recalled the comic-con. _Apple Bloom, Ah don't know who ya are, but Ah know yer a friend to th' Sparkles. Maybe Ah'll get a chance to talk to ya if ya ever visit._

Hoofsteps pulled Pear Butter out of her musings again, only this time it was actually Night Light and Azure Skies. Pear Butter practically leapt to her hooves and hastily gave a respectful bow. "T-thank you for seeing me, Sir Sparkle, ah-" Pear hesitated at the unexpected mare, unsure of how to address her. Yet it was the sudden intrusion of Polybia on her mind that caused her to choke up.

Act normal, quasi, I am only here to make sure you get the job.

Y-yes, my queen.

It took Pear a moment to realize the ponies were talking to her, and mentally slapped herself for being so badly distracted. "-And here I thought my honey was the talk of Canterlot," Night answered comically, only to get a gentle prod in the ribs from his marefriend.

"Don't worry too much about him," she said before giving Pear a friendly smile. "I am Azure Skies, pleased to meet you Miss Butter."

"The honor is mine," Pear replied with a little less anxiety at how casual the pair was. A stark and welcome contrast to Polybia and Stopwatch.

Nightlight gestured to an arrangement of furniture with a loveseat and armchair divided by a coffee table. "Please, have a seat and get comfortable. We have much to discuss."

The group took their seats right as Pranceston arrived with a platter of tea. The beverage was served and Pear tried to put on a brave face while sipping the warm peppermint tea. Being only his marefriend, Azure Skies decided to take a backseat and let Night Light do most the talking. Polybia's presence was kept light enough that Pear still maintained control, but it was only the disguise that concealed the queen's eyes. Sadly Pear Butter didn't get much of a chance to get used to the heavy weight upon her mind since Night Light didn't waste any time in opening the interview.

"Now, Pear Butter, I want to thank you for applying the position of full time nanny. It's not a commitment many are willing to take, or adhere to," he added with a careful studious eye.

"You can count on me, sir," Pear Butter replied with what she hoped was confidence. "Ah truly love children, and Ah know Ah could get along famously with Stellar Drift."

"Well I hope so," Night Light replied with a wiry grin.

"Um, Ah have ta ask, sir, there are bound to be a lot of nannies in Canterlot. Probably better…" Pear trailed off, not sure if she was suddenly hurting her chances.

Night Light nodded as he sipped his tea. "Yes, well, there are plenty to be sure. However, I don't want a nanny native to Canterlot, and it was your accent that caught Pranceston's ear. Given who my daughter is, I didn't want a nanny who might be more loyal to one of the other noble families, filling the child with the typical useless gossip and fads that swirl around the city.

"I don't want Stellar to grow up a diva socialite. I want her to _actually_ contribute to society, much like her new brother and sister."

"Well, Ah can certainly agree ta that, sir," Pear replied with a nod, unconsciously exaggerating her accent. "Pappa always said ya gotta work to eat."

"As should anyone, noble or otherwise," Azure Skies interjected with a stern edge.

"Now," Night Light said with a professional tone. "That being said, I want to groom Stellar to be an intellectual. If by chance she would prefer physical pursuits, as an athlete or soldier," he added after his son came to mind, "she will still need a strong and well educated mind to succeed.

"Yet it is not enough to simply instruct her, we must be able to instill a _love_ of learning. After all, the best teacher Stellar could ever have, would be her own desire to learn."

Being so tightly bound to Polybia, and the queen's inexperience in dealing with intelligent underlings, the queen's musings leaked into Pear Butter's awareness. _Interesting. Perhaps this will be a boon after all. I'll be able to use my puppet to gain insight and possible leverage on Twilight Sparkle._

For her part, Pear Butter was having difficulty trying to pay attention to both her queen and the couple before her. So it took her a few moments longer than she would have liked to respond. "Ah must admit, sir, Ah wasn't expecting such a refreshing outlook from a noble family."

"Hmf," Night scowled aimlessly. "Yes, well, sadly most families seem to have forgotten the true definition of nobility." Azure Skies patted his shoulder to give him symbolic support. "In any case, I'd like to know how adept you are in academics." Pear gulped as he continued. "Now, Steller is not even old enough to speak yet, and I'm not asking for a doctorate or anything like that." _I'd honestly expect you to be a researcher or doctor if you had one, not a nanny._ "So you'll have plenty of time to brush up on related topics, but I need to know how you would instill a love of learning in our child."

Given Twilight's famous studious nature, Pear Butter half expected a requirement along these lines, and had studied up on a few solutions from the Canterlot Library. Unfortunately, that knowledge was getting hard to remember with Polybia's weight upon her mind. "Well… Ah… Ah would get young Stellar used to reading start'n with pop up books. Get the little sprout ta start thinking of books as being fun first off." Night Light nodded approvingly. "And…"

This was at least something that Polybia approved of. _That much I can agree on. A queen must be intelligent above all else._ Tell them you would show the child how to solve problems with her mind instead of her brawn.

As per usual, Polybia's command was that of queen to drone, and Pear had no control over her wording. "Ah would show the child how to solve problems with her mind instead of her brawn."

"As all ponies should," Night Light replied with a hum.

The interview progressed over an hour as Pear Butter was prodded and poked, verbally of course, over her potential qualities as a nanny. While Polybia was able to assist via probing her various other quasi for information, the queen's heavy presence was hard to work with.

It was during lunch that Night Light had given the last question. After Pear Butter gave her answer, he leaned in to whisper into Azure's ear as she bit into a sandwich. _"Well I think she's a good match so far. Plus, Pear doesn't have any ties with the other houses."_

 _"That we know of,"_ Azure cautioned. _"All told, however, do you think she's ready for the main trial?"_

With only a nod in reply, Night Light pulled a simple charm off the tea platter and charged it with mana. Seeing Pear trying to hide her confusion by nibbling on a biscuit, Night Light affixed a reassuring smile on her. "I believe the most important part of any nanny relationship is compatibility. Pranceston?" he yelled behind him.

"Here, sir." The butler pocketed the charm's glowing twin right as a bullet of fur and giggles ran out from under him.

The moment she entered the room, Stellar Drift locked onto the two biggest sources of love: Night Light and Azure Skies. The tiny disguised princess was quickly wrapped in the couple's embrace, giggling all the while.

Through Pear's eyes, Polybia glowered angrily at the sight of it. _Damn you, Stopwatch. It's bad enough my daughter must be coddled, but taken in by that… blasphemer's Sire._ Polybia's mind was at war with itself between the boon of gaining insight into Twilight, and the curse of having her sole daughter raised as a pony. Fearing she might blow Pear's cover with a random bout of fury, Polybia decided it was best to depart. I have other matters to tend to, quasi, acquire this job or your life is forfeit.

"Looks like she's taken by you," Azure Skies said, snapping Pear from her fearful communion with Polybia. It was all she could do to keep from gasping at the perspective shift. However it still took Pear a couple of seconds to look down and find Stellar Drift propped up on the chair leg and giving off happy baby babble.

With Polybia gone, Pear found herself in strangely familiar territory. She matched Stellar's smile and bent down to coo at Stellar Drift. "Hi there, little one." Pear glanced up at Night Light for silent permission to hold the filly. He nodded, prompting Pear to gently pick Stellar up in her forelegs and hefted her up onto the chair to join her.

Stellar Drift was quick to nuzzle Pear Butter, and started cooing at the familiar mare. Pear Butter held back a tear as fragmented memories of holding children flooded her from an age long since gone. _Ah - Ah remember. Ah was a mother after all… Ah think Ah had two, or was it three children?_

Pear Butter chased that fleeting memory as best could, but it was just shadows of a feeling, faces so indistinct she couldn't even tell the gender of them, let alone any features or colors. _Is the third one mah husband or one of mah children?_

Try as she might, Pear couldn't stop tears from welling up at the pain of such loss. Stellar Drift had fallen asleep cosied up against her chest. Despite it all, Pear could feel a trickle of love flow from the child. _Does she recognize me from after hatching? We didn't keep her asleep all the time before giving her over._

"I must say," Azure Skies said just loud enough to draw Pear's attention away from Stellar. "You're the first one she's taken a liking to, let alone cozy up to besides us, and only some of the staff."

Though he was a pale shadow compared to the embodiment of honesty itself, Night Light believed himself to be a good judge in character. He'd be right on most counts, save for love's blindness during Velvet's decline. Not even Twilight or Rainbow's children could ever fool him for long with prank disguises, and he had even rooted out a few of the other queens' infiltrators over the years by just listening to them over a meal. They all lacked that intangible quality, that he sensed in Pear Butter.

"Ah'm sorry." Pear said morosely. "Ah'm just-" She didn't know what else to say. Pear felt trapped - a rat in a cage - between needing to please her queen to stay her wrath, and the mortification of being an emotional mess in front of her would-be employers and charge. She wanted to hide, bury her face somewhere. But no, Pear Butter could do nothing but wait in slight torment.

Night Light studied Pear carefully as the poor mare struggled to keep some semblance of dignity intact. _She must have suffered a grievous loss to be so emotional over a child's affection._ Night Light was not blind to the raw pain that Pear kept in check as she doted over Stellar Drift.

 _Stellar will need every strong role model she can get, and I can hardly turn away such a good honest mare._

"Miss Butter," he kindly announced just loud enough to cut through her mounting depression. She looked up from Stellar to meet his gaze with red-rimmed eyes. "You would hardly be the first lost soul to come to my family looking for a new life." Night cast a brief glance at Pranceston who was watching the whole scene impassively. Yet Night knew the old butler was emotional through the stallion's eyes, a tell he could never truly cover.

While his eyes betrayed him, Pranceston's voice remained as calm and collected as ever. "Indeed, sir. Your father was an honorable stallion to the last, may he rest in Elysia."

Night Light stood up and approached Pear Butter who was too stunned to move, save to turn her head to follow him. "Whatever you're running from. Tell me true, will whatever happened in the past ever come to harm my daughter or this family, should I accept you into my employ?"

If there was one thing that Pear expected of Polybia, was that she wanted Stellar to survive at all costs. "N-no sir, it won't. And even if it does, Ah'll lead whatever trouble away from the family. Ah swear on my soul, as long as Ah live and breathe."

Night Light paused to measure Pear Butter's words and tone. He liked what he saw. "Very well, Miss Butter. I'll have the staff prepare one of the servant quarters for you. Be here by the seventh bell tomorrow."

Pear Butter stared at him wide eyed, uncomprehending of her fortunes. "A-A Yes sir!" she yelped as her brain caught up with her. Pear gently slid the sleeping Stellar Drift onto the seat so she could stand free. "Thank you, sir, Ah'll do everything Ah can to help rear Stellar as you wish."

Azure Skies cantered up to to Night Light's side as the stallion let off a brief chuckle. "I'm sure you will. I look forward to seeing your talents first hoof. Until then," he added with a courteous nod.

"It was nice meeting you, Miss Pear Butter," Azure Skies added with a polite nod as well.

"Don't you worry none. Ah can get ready right quick an' be back before supper if you want." Pear fought to keep that massive grin from making her look any more foolish than she had already had.

"No need to go that far out of your way," Night Light replied with a smile. "I plan on taking the three of us to a symphony concert, and I'd only require your services when work demands too much of my time." A thought struck him after spotting Pranceton in the corner of his eye. He fished out a decent bag of bits from a coat pocket and levitated it over to Pear.

"Here, call it an advance if you will. I will not pry, but I am not unfamiliar with the sort of troubles you may have had to endure to survive until today." _At least if the detective novels have any shred of realism._ "If you have any outstanding debts, please do pay them off. I doubt I need to express my concerns of creditors casting their eyes on Stellar or yourself."

The changeling in Pearkicked in and she graciously took the coin purse in her magic. "Thank you, sir, this is more than enough for… that." After bowing a few more times as she backpedaled to the exit. Pear bade a quick retreat to gather her wits and report her success to Stopwatch. _Ah better use this money to buy some personal effects. It'd look a mite suspicious if Ah return with an full sack._

Azure Skies remained silent until Pear was out of earshot, then shot Night Light an amused smirk. "I have to ask, Nighty, do all of your interviews get so emotional?"

"Not unless we're discussing money," he replied with an amused huff. "So you really think She'll work out?"

Azure smiled at him and planted a light kiss on Night's cheek. "I - appreciate you asking my opinion in this. I'm flattered, really."

"I care about your input, Azure. You know that," he comforted with a brief nuzzle.

Azure blushed at the level of trust he was giving her. She tried to refocus on the original question by tapping her chin, humming all the while. "Personally, I'm not all that comfortable with somepony having an unknown and potentially checkered past taking care of Stellar." She watched Night Light take the aforementioned filly into his magic to cradle her. "I mean, if we can take her at face value, I'd say yes, but…"

Night Light glanced back towards Pranceton who had remained by the door. The old stallion gave a shaky nod in silent permission. Night Light roped Azure into a side hug. "My father saw a similarly troubled youth many years ago. Though barely a stallion, that youth had a miserable life that would have destroyed him. Instead my father gave him a chance and invited him into our home where he became our family's most trusted friend. Isn't that right, Pranceton?"

Surprise caused Azure to turn around to face the typically stoic butler was struggling to keep his composure. "If you are asking, sir, I see a good mare in Pear Butter."

"If you are so sure of this, Nighty," Azure relented. "Then I'll go along. I just hope her past doesn't cause problems." With Stellar still sleeping, Azure got an idea. "Why don't I go get some baby food. She'll be hungry when she wakes up."

"Sounds good," Night Light replied as he returned the earlier kiss and watched Azure Skies leave for the kitchen. It was then that Pranceton stepped forward and looked busy by inspecting the child.

"You honor me and your father greatly, sir. But I must say that your father watched me very carefully for years."

"Can I trust you to take care of that then, Pranceton?"

The butler dipped his head agreement. "I will be discrete, sir."

Pranceton backpedaled a step before departing the same way Azure did. Left alone with Stellar Drift, Night Light sat back down to cuddle and keep her warm. He sat there in contemplative silence as he watched the little filly nestle against his fur. She had proven to be a very loving and intelligent filly, always acting to make those around her happy. It was a quality he desperately wanted to preserve. _Don't you worry little one. I'll make sure you grow up smart and strong like your brother and sister… I'll have to watch out for your cousin's influence, though._

* * *

Deep within Canterlot Castle, Twilight Sparkle, while puppeting Rolled Scroll, had caught Celestia in the middle of drawing up her orders while speaking with Rainbow in regards to a press release. Within Blue Flare's body, Rainbow Dash sat back on a sofa with a scone in her maw, while Celestia was at her desk, quill still held aloft with ink threatening to drip on the parchment below. For her part, Twilight was panting from lack of breath in her mad dash through the castle to find her old mentor.

Celestia was hardly surprised to see her former student in such a state, though most of that pity was for Rolled Scroll who was by no means physically fit. "I know what you're going to say, Twilight, and this is hardly impulsive."

Twilight was glad that Rolled Scroll had filled her in on Gleaming Light's surrender during her dead sprint through the castle. "But sending troops to fight in a changeling matter will only weaken this victory!"

"Like hell it will," Rainbow Dash declared with a smirk.

Twilight shot her sister a scathing glare. Don't curse in front of Celestia for pete's sake!

She's like a kajillion years old, Twi, I'm pretty sure she can handle it. All Rainbow got out of Twilight was wordless grumbling.

Celestia calmly allowed the telepathic exchange to go on without her for a little bit, giving her time to place her scroll and quill down. She loudly cleared her throat and gestured to the sofa Rainbow Dash was sitting on. "Please, sit, Twilight. It looks like your son could use a breather."

Twilight was dubious of Celestia trying to change the subject, but she agreed with the idea nonetheless. Sorry, Scroll. I had to catch her before she sent word to the press or public. Twilight nodded to Celestia and claimed her seat.

Tis nothing, my queen. Playing host to you is a reward in of itself, though I think I might need to hit the gym more often if this becomes common.

Even though it was practically expected, Twilight always felt honored by her children's willingness to be puppeted by her.

Celestia levitated a steaming cup of tea and a few scones over to Twilight, while claiming a cup for herself. Rainbow Dash was quick to swipe up all the chocolate scones. Twilight was too distracted by the impending press release disaster if Celestia went through with her plan to care about scones. Ultimately, old habits took over, and Twilight waited impatiently for Celestia to explain.

"You know me to be a champion for diplomacy, Twilight, but rulers such as us must plan for everything, and war is one thing I always plan for." Celestia sipped her tea. "The fact of the matter is, there is nothing in the world that unites people like a common enemy or threat. The windigos united the three tribes, the first invasion of the minotaur empire brought an end to our two hundred year war with the griffins, and the rise of Discord allowed the Zebras a chance to show themselves as honorable people when they helped the very ponies that had been warring against them for decades.

"This declaration of military assistance against Polybia in tandem with the leadership of the PCE confessing that they were… horribly misguided," Celestia put diplomatically. Rainbow grumbled spitefully at the wording while Twilight merely frowned at their mention.

However it didn't take Twilight long to realize some depth to Celestia's plan. "You mean to send troops that hate us into the jungles, don't you?"

 _I've always loved her sharp mind._ Celestia gave a slight frown and wobbled a hoof. "I wouldn't go so far as to say they hate you, but more along the lines of belonging to the anti-changeling camp. Admiral Harper hoof-picked the battalions that will be going with you, just to make sure they are willing to follow orders, even if that means putting their lives on the lines for your own.

"The purpose is to have these particularly stubborn ponies realize your bloodline is starkly different than that of the other queens, and thus, be the next step in seeing you more as the newest tribe rather than outsiders." Celestia fished through her desk for a file. "As I'm sure you already know, Twilight. The common pony can see the difference between your hive and those of the other queens, but sadly that perception only goes skin deep."

Celestia found the file she was looking for and removed several papers and split them between the queens. The documents were an assortment of statistics and transcribed conversations. Celestia gave the queens a few minutes to go over the reports in silence.

Donut shop patron: "Sure, sure, the PR lings are all hunky dory out in broad daylight, but… I don't know, mare. How can we really tell they aren't disguised amongst us right now, feeding on us, huh?"

Shop owner: "Don't you pay attention to the papers? Those changelings don't need to feed on us 'cause they can do it to each other."

1st Patron: "Oh yeah? Who's to say they don't prefer the taste of pony over another ling?"

2nd patron: "Ah come on, (redacted) I've spent the past three semesters with a few blues and purps. They've never done anything wrong, well, 'cept for TPing the dean's house."

1st patron: "See? They act all nice, but deep down…" (speaker looks nervously around) "Just keep an eye on them ya hear? And don't go down a dark alley if you see one."

Twilight skimmed through the rest of the data and transcripts in short order, only to sink into her chair at the confirmation of a fear she desperately wanted to be unfounded.

Rainbow Dash wasn't as put off by what she found. "Are they seriously saying pranks are that bad? What, did they forget ponies pull pranks on each other on a regular basis or something? I know I did."

"Prejudice is always difficult to combat, Rainbow Dash," Celestia said as she looked up from her press release. "And ponies are as friendly as they are xenophobic towards newcomers. It doesn't help that, thus far, pony and changeling forces have not fought side by side in battle." Celestia sighed as she looked up on her way down memory lane. "I remember how it was fairly soon after the unification. The tribes stuck together for the most part, but true unity was barely a pipe dream, even while those original six leaders still lived and breathed.

"It took a war with the griffins before the stubborn hardliners really took the old saying 'No matter what our differences, we're all ponies,' to heart. 'Course it wasn't old then."

Twilight scuffed the soft velvet lining of the couch in a bout of defeatism. Rainbow Dash, however, saw what Celestia was ultimately planning. "So you're going to send reporters along with the troops right?" Rainbow asked as if she already knew the answer.

"Correct." Celestia cast her gaze on her former student who perked up a bit. "Between the returning soldiers and the media coverage, the public will finally see that your bloodline can be trusted in both broad daylight, and the dark alleys of the world." _At least as much as anypony else in a dark alley._

Twilight brooded in silence for far longer than even Celestia was comfortable with. Rainbow Dash had initially wanted to wait her sister out by going over the deployment plans. For her part, Celestia knew Twilight just needed some time, and nibbled on her scones and tea with ageless patience. However Rainbow hadn't acquired such long lived patience, which made her slap the papers down with a huff. "Come on, Twilight, this is probably the best thing we could hope for." You know Celestia wouldn't go to war lightly. Besides, Celestia's got a year or two on us, she knows this kinda thing a lot better than anyone.

"...Alright, Princess." Twilight spoke while shoring up her regal baring. "If you really want to do it this way, then I'll support you."

Half expected though it was, Celestia was still moved by how much trust the three of them shared. "Thank you, Twilight." Celestia let the conversation lapse to give Twilight a few moments to mentally shift gears. "Now that we're all in agreement, I'll fill you in on the details so you can share them with Aegis and Blitzkrieg."

* * *

 _Two days later…_

Polybia sat in her primary hive's throne room as her consciousness permeated her vast brood. She had eyes all across the jungle, following her enemies' every move. Most of that attention was focused solely upon the _Long Shot_ as it hovered in the middle of the remaining bulk of Chrysalis and Kreesus' swarms.

 _The pieces move into position, the players reveal their cards, and yet I can't quite shake the feeling that Rainbow Dash is holding something back._

Polybia ordered several scouts to watch the skies immediately around and further away from the swarms. _They must have been able to salvage something of their cloaking technology. So why is that flying hive always visible?_

 _It's obvious now that it shies away from direct combat, so why doesn't it have cloak?_

Feeling the need to brainstorm, Polybia summoned forth the mental images of her two primary quasi generals: Split Horn and Commander Talon.

The throne room was already fairly small and poorly lit. Only silvery decorations bore witness to her reverence towards the Silver City and her version of the First Mother. This caused the blue glowing images of the quasi to stand out in almost painfully stark contrast. Split Horn knelt immediately while Talon simply saluted.

"Generals, this flying hive's standoffish nature is proving to be more of a nuisance than I thought it would. After that little tussle over the ruins of Stripped Gear, I half expected the thing to flee in the face of a real army."

Split Horn grumbled at the memory of the failed attack on Chrysalis' farmlands. "Such a pitiful cowardly machine. Hiding behind a mountain of bodies instead of being in the thick of battle. At least archers or siege weapons must still dirty their hands."

Commander Talon tsked at himself. "You are as violent as you are dense, sometimes, Split. Though I can hardly talk when I didn't realize this sooner." Polybia's growing irritation at the generals' bickering abated when the griffon got back on track.

"I've seen this type of warship before," Commander Talon said with begrudging respect. The statement earned a surprised look from both Polybia and Split Horn. The ghostly griffin raised a claw and created an image of a very old style of Equestrian airship. It looked for all the world to be a river barge held aloft by a massive balloon.

"The Equestrians used a vessel that was similar in concept ages ago, when I still flew alongside my kin. These ships served as platforms for pegasi to not only rest, but to enter battle from high altitude, rather than try to climb up from the ground. In addition they offered better protection and mobility than clouds.

"Not only that, but these warships also served to get unicorns high enough to lend magical support in aerial skirmishes."

Polybia drummed the edge of her throne impatiently. _Is it possible that's where Cadista and Yumia originally got the idea to focus their military around airships?_ Polybia shook the errant thought aside. "I hope this means you have a plan to counter this tactic."

"Shouldn't be too hard to adapt the old stratagems."

Polybia settled more comfortably in her throne in anticipation when a harsh taboo occurred: someone spoke unbidden over the hive mind. My queen, I have dire-

 **Stopwatch!** Polybia roared in a flash of rage. Were you not a fragment of my mind, I'd kill you here and now!

But my queen, Equestria is going to war! Stopwatch said hastily before Polybia remembered she could still enact punishment over the Link.

The news halted Polybia's ire. "Against whom?" she said dangerously.

You, my queen.

...Is that so?

Quickly realizing she wasn't going to be killed via disconnection, Stopwatch tried to shore up some confidence, if only to placate her queen. Yes. The press is stating a flotilla of Equestrian warships are being prepared to sail to the jungles.

Polybia went silent. Stopwatch and the two generals waited in cold dread for the expected outburst to come. _So… Celestia has finally grown a spine, hmm? Took her long enough._

"Looks like a change of plans is in order. We'll need to capture either Twilight or Rainbow alive so they can force Equestria to exit the war before they can add their full weight of force." Polybia mentally dismissed Stopwatch and sent her consciousness far to the south. She puppeted a drone located in a secret hive along the very fringes of the jungles.

It took barely a thought to drag both the griffin and minotaur along with her. Polybia's latest puppet stood at the lip of a massive chamber with the walls and ceiling completely covered in eggs. Short pillars covered in bioluminescent moss offered poor lightning, but it was more than enough for a changeling to navigate. An uncountable number of drones flew to and fro either carrying eggs, food, or water.

Polybia directed her puppet towards one of several large individuals spaced evenly throughout the area. The individual in question was a queen covered in green chitin that was muttering to herself. However, unlike most other queens, this one had an enormously enlarged ovipositor that dwarfed the rest of her body by several factors. The ovipositor pulsed and quivered as well over two hundred eggs were being created daily.

Drones crawled all over the bloated sack that was simply too large for the queen's normal lungs and intestinal tract to keep her alive at such a production rate. Even now, after personally overseeing these transformations take place, Polybia was repulsed by the fact that that a few extra lungs, mouths, hearts, two extra GI tracts, and every other internal organ necessary for life had grown in as the ovipositor continued to expand, even years after the queen's capture. Polybia's sense of disgust was only partially stymied by the fact that the growth was by far much slower than it used to be. _And to think, each and every queen could become the same thing with just a few changes in drone pheromones._

The immobile queen was thus far unresponsive to Polybia's puppet, and simply muttered constantly with her head down and eyes closed. Polybia flew over to the queen's head and made a snapping sound with two plates of her chitin. The noise, along with Polybia prodding the queen's face snapped the green queen out of her stupor.

"Ah, so you're awake," Polybia stated with mockery as thick as tar. "I trust your accommodations are keeping you comfortable, Yeelindrus."

Yeelindrus instinctively tried to back away, but her egg sack proved an effective anchor. "P-please, just let me die. I can't s-s-stand being like this."

"If that is your wish, I'll grant it," Polybia replied cooly, causing Yeelindrus to look up hopefully. "But only after my rogue status has been reversed. _Not_ before."

"You… you were declared rogue?" Yeelindrus' orginal fearful tone slowly morphed into a vindictive sneer as her mind cleared from the pheromones' effects. "Serves you right, _bitch._ Only the most depraved criminal against the First Mother would ever force another queen into being a Vel'chu!" Yeelindrus slapped Polybia with a satisfying crack, turning the puppet's face around. "If not true death, why couldn't you at least give me the dignity of being raised as an undead?"

If Polybia had any anger at being struck, it never showed. "I have no use for an undead queen. The dead can not lay eggs, and I need a swarm the likes of which has never been seen before." Polybia idly tested the puppet's injury to make sure it would not interfere with its work once she was done with the puppet. "I'll have you know, it took quite a bit to bring you back to life. And as repugnant as being a Vel'chu may be," Polybia's eyes took on a twisted malicious light. "You don't want to be undead. At least for now, you get to have a will of your own."

Yeelindrus growled impotently as Polybia made a show of looking at Yeelindrus' mammoth egg sack and broken horn. "For all the good it will do you, at least."

"You best pray Chrysalis never gets her hooves on you," Yeelindrus threatened as she tried to slap the puppet again, only for Polybia to dodge it this time. Yeelindrus went into a tirade of threats and revenge fantasies, but Polybia tuned it all out, primarily out of boredom.

"You know, I think I'm going to start keeping count of how many times you repeat certain threats. If I recall correctly, this should make it forty two." Polybia's blasé faire tone only enraged Yeelindrus further, making her try to reach forward to grab the puppet.

The drones covering Yeelindrus started vibrating and releasing pheromones which took the fire out of her. Polybia shook her head in mild irritation. "Can't let you get too worked up. That might halt the expansion of your egg sac."

Yeelindrus' eyes drooped and she calmed back down. She eventually returned to her original state with her head down, eyes closed, and muttering to herself. Polybia huffed indignantly. "Why do I even bother trying to have a decent conversation with you?"

General Split Horn, who had been silent thus far, believed the question wasn't rhetorical. "Perhaps you queens need more conversation partners other than fragments of your own mind."

"I suppose I'll have to settle for the two of you," Polybia chided. She fully turned around and gave a wide command to the drones in the chamber. Over half the caretakers departed the birthing chamber to locate the hundreds of thousands of adult drones hibernating in countless tunnels buried deep in the soil.

Polybia's legion was waking up. Polybia actually felt a thrill coursed through her at the sensation of so many minds joining her hive mind. "It's time I finished this war."


	74. Chapter 74

Fighting One's Pride

The Trunal'kal Mountains stretched east to west along the narrowest points of the changeling jungle. The Trunal'kals reached three hundred miles across with vast oceans on either side. It was here among the snowless peaks on the southern half of the world that Kreesus made her home.

Her hive sprang from a single massive spire, the only mountain that was surrounded by four other peaks on all sides. Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash stood within a ventral observation blister on the _Long Shot_ as they watched the hive come into view as the morning sun peeked over the ridge.

Both queens couldn't help but to be impressed upon seeing the inner side of the four outer mountains was completely carpeted in green. Crops grew along terraces going all the way down the mountains and partially up the sides of the inner spire. Drones were everywhere, tending to the plants while dozens manually operated a long wheel and pulley system bringing in seawater from the ocean below. The hive itself was so high above the clouds that the crews of the _Long Shot_ and the _Breadbasket_ starting to suffer mild lightheadedness and the octavia engines were nearing their operational ceiling.

"Kind of amazing how Kreesus' hive gets all they need from just three different crop plants, and has adapted to living off of saltwater," Twilight said to her sister in an attempt to keep her in a good mood. Even though Rainbow was quiet, Twilight had known her long enough to feel Rainbow's smoldering ire could lead to an incident with Kreesus.

Rainbow Dash didn't reply. Right now, she was in a little happy place, she was in a ship, surrounded by her drones, the ever enjoyable scents of fresh oil, grease, and lemon scented floor cleaner filled the air, and there was a distinct lack of traitors… inside the ship at any rate.

Outside of the ship however, was something Rainbow distinctly wanted to keep out of mind. Rainbow Dash couldn't enjoy the rather impressive mountainous farmlands without seeing Kreesus' backstabbing face around every corner.

"Let's just get this over with," Rainbow said after letting the silence hang far longer than comfortable. "The less time we stay here the fewer chances I get to accidently order a bombing run."

Disgust rippled off of Rainbow Dash like a salty miasma that made Twilight's nose wrinkle in shared vexation. Not wanting to even see the place anymore lest she actually have that lapse in restraint, Rainbow Dash departed for her quarters, leaving Twilight Sparkle to her thoughts.

 _Might be best. Kreesus should know to avoid RD as much as RD knows to avoid Kreesus…_ Twilight leaned against the glass and let gravity drag her face across the surface. The sheer amount of despondency towards her job as diplomat was at an all time high. _And with no one else who's qualified around, that leaves me alone to keep the peace._ Joy.

As her analytical mind just loved to remind her, unlike her militant minded counterpart, Twilight Sparkle didn't have an excuse to remove herself from diplomacy. Even if it was with the queen who brought down her mother's hive. The very thought of that betrayal made Twilight push herself away from the glass and shake herself.

 _Drop it, Twilight, just remember what Celestia always said, 'A ruler's personal feelings are secondary to the good of the nation'._ The memory suddenly made Twilight feel like Celestia was watching her from the sidelines, making Twilight feel self conscious about the next few hours. _Well, Chrysalis' scouts says Poly's keeping her distance, so it's up to me to keep everything smooth with Kreesus._ Unbidden, and most certainly unwanted, memories of Stripped Gear aflame with Kreesus' swarm bringing everything to ruin surfaced to Twilight's mind.

Squeezing her eyes shut, Twilight pushed herself off the glass and did her breathing exercise. Bit by bit, she stuffed all her snark, wit, and pre-made aristocratic sass in a neat little box with a 'do not open until after war' label on it. _There. Now once this conflict is over and done with, we go our merry way, and forget Kreesus even exists for the next several decades if we're lucky._

As if to taunt her, a part of Twilight's mind reminded her of all the young princesses the other queens had, guaranteeing a string of summits in roughly thirty years time. _That'll be future Twilight's problem,_ she thought while shoving that little addition into the box as well.

Twilight Sparkle ended up taking lunch in the singular port side observation blister as she watched the first resupply freighter arrive to restock the carrier and the cloaked, jury-rigged gunship carrier _Breadbasket._

Twilight Sparkle lightly oversaw it all via the hive mind, allowing Rainbow to rest until the next skirmish. It was a moderately light exercise for her to keep the logistics teams and shuttles moving efficiently, mostly because the drones did the majority of the thinking.

Well over a dozen new pilots and over thirty new fighters would bring the _Long Shot_ back to full strength, yet Twilight still had to steel her nerves for the fighting and loss yet to come. She wasn't quite sure how to take it that such preparation was getting easier, yet the impact never did.

Trying to keep her mind off of that depressing thought, Twilight refocused on the gargantuan Fluffy, Kreesus' favorite drone/living airship. The living airship that was more than a match for even the _Steamrunner_ in size. Fluffy had settled down into a truly massive wax covered bedding area near a small reservoir where it started to feed on a warehouse amount of food already waiting for it. _I'm kinda surprised the thing can actually land. The skeletal structure alone must be a marvel._

For the next three hours, the rest of the armies of the allied hives descended upon the mountain hive and on the surrounding areas to serve as pickets. By then, Rainbow Dash had returned to the bridge where Twilight was still standing. Partially overseeing the last of the resupply, and partially to examine state of the new aircraft and pilots.

However, Rainbow Dash couldn't find the strength to focus on that when her paranoia kept drawing her attention to the hive surrounding them. All around the _Long Shot_ was a writhing mass of chitin bound drones blanketing the mountains. I don't like it, Twilight. When the chips are down, how do we know Kreesus won't try to backstab us once Poly's dead?

Twilight, through the eyes of the ship's observers, spied one of Kreesus' drones flying towards them, gave her sister a confident look and a brief nuzzle. I'd like to think she'd adhere to the 'Last Bastion' clause.

Why? Poly's supposed to be the big time dogmatic nutcase, and she broke one of the biggest no-noes of all time! Rainbow grumbled, barely keeping herself from vocalizing. Yet she didn't want to distract any eavesdropping crewmembers.

Twilight sighed at how Rainbow was intentionally pushing her buttons on that. I'd like to think that's from the necro-demonic magic rotting her ability to make rational decisions. _But_ we can play it safe and limit just how reliant we are on her. Twilight waited for her sister to nod agreeably, and smiled at finding a good compromise. Kreesus may not attack us directly, but she could 'not save us' if she had the chance.

By now, Rainbow Dash noticed the arriving drone as well. Speak of the devil and she shall appear.

Want me to handle this, RD?

Rainbow Dash started to speak, but checked herself. She looked down at her hooves in frustration. ...No. She's probably here to talk about the next part of the campaign. _What kind of example would I be setting for the kids if I let Twilight do all of the work with that traitor?_ Resolving herself, Rainbow Dash teleported through the glass to await Kreesus above the flightdeck.

Twilight couldn't help but to smile at her sister's sense of duty. _Just hang in there, Rainbow. The sooner we win this war, the less you have to deal with her._

* * *

In a poorly lit rocky hole in the ground, Grogar was unceremoniously dumped on the cave floor, and rolled over to be near a glowing green pool. His chained waxy tomb was as strong as ever. He didn't have the strength to test it in any case.

Polybia lorded over him, positively brimming with stolen necro-demon magic. Yet that very magic was quickly taking its toll on her body. Polybia's eyes bore a red haze while betraying a wild slightly unhinged look, a sight Grogar was all too familiar with. Her shell developed discolored splotches everywhere, her holes even seemed to enlarge themselves.

"What's this?" Polybia chided derisively. "No subtle attempt at possession?" Polybia gazed upon Grogar who looked almost skeletal with his face pulled taunt on his skull while his ribs were painfully tight against his skin. He also shook like he was freezing. "No glare of contempt or revenge fantasies?"

"Give me some time," Grogar eventually said with an irritating lack emotion. He didn't even waste the strength to face her. "Your mind won't last much longer."

"That's where you're wrong," Polybia scoffed as she turned around to leave. "Once I deposit your magic into my drones, I can simply abandon this tainted body, as I have all the others."

Polybia lingered a little while, waiting for the inevitable retort. Be it prophesying her doom or foretelling of her imminent defeat, Polybia had heard it all. Yet this time, Grogar remained passive.

Mild curiosity at his silent treatment slipped into anger at being ignored before Polybia quickly felt paranoid. The longer Grogar refrained from speaking, the more worried Polybia became. _Perhaps I took too much power this time and it's actually warping my mind._ A cold sweat took hold. _I have to dole out this magic quickly before whatever he's planning can be acted upon._

With a dismissive huff, Polybia moved to leave Grogar's new cell. "Feeding time will be in four hours. Do try to not _expire_ before then," she added condescendingly. "I still have need of you."

Failing to get a rise out of him, Polybia departed in silence.

Grogar remained impassive, save for his involuntary shaking. _She took so much of my power that life is clawing its way back into these bones. She had better allow me to feed soon._ Thoughts of his suppressed incubus nature reverting itself fueled his anger.

Silence reigned for the next couple of hours, with little more than the occasional dripping of water and occasional fidget from Grogar's two guards ever breaking the false peace that had claimed the prison.

Even with such little to do, Grogar was not idle within his waxy cage. With what little strength he had, he reached out for his stolen power. He quickly realized it, and by extension Polybia, was extremely distant now. _She must have portaled away. Polybia must have realized how I was able to strike her last time._

Not to be dissuaded, he still had some old tricks to try out, though for a being of his age, every trick was old. Yet before he could put any of those plans into motion, the faint sound of hoofsteps caught his ear. However, Polybia had dropped him to the floor in such a way that he could not see the exit.

"While I know we only met just recently, Grogar," said a familiar echoing voice with a playful purr. "Seeing you like this all the time is not doing wonders for your reputation."

Grogar drew his gravely reply out to sound unimpressed. "If I cared for my reputation on this plane, I would have made sure my coat was groomed, Chrysalis."

Even in his crippled state, Grogar sensed a hoof approach to roll him over, yet stop just before touching it. Instead, Chrysalis' puppet walked around Grogar's pod so they could speak face to face. Grogar quickly noticed a sour musk wafting off of the drone that came into view that grew much more intense with every vibration of the puppet's wings.

"It's amazing how sloppy Polybia has gotten within the past several hours." Chrysalis revealed a fang-filled smirk. "You wouldn't be poisoning my dear old friend Polybia would you?"

The comment made Grogar pause longer than he would have liked. _She was definitely sloppy today. No, not sloppy. More like she was having difficulty focusing. Strange. My influence on her shouldn't be affecting her that way._ Keeping the revelation to himself, Grogar shifted topics. "I hardly need to try, given the nature of fel magic. I assume you tracked the portal she used to bring me here."

"A trivial effort, really," Chrysalis flaunted as she answered. After stroking her own ego, Chrysalis buzzed her puppet's wings, causing the musk to become even heavier, before she bent down to get a better look at Grogar's missing horn. "You know, I couldn't help but to be intrigued by your desire to become a royal changeling."

"I mentioned that, yes," Grogar stated without giving anything away.

Chrysalis turned away from the horn and looked nervously behind Grogar, undoubtedly towards the incapacitated guards. "I've not the time to go into the details, but I might be able to accommodate your goals." She finally got a rise out of him. "You sign a contract of servitude to me, and I'll get you a royal body."

To his credit, Grogar took a few moments to think it over. Chrysalis didn't need to say that he had little time to contemplate the offer. "I will only sign a _written_ contract of that nature, and only after I inspect it personally. I tell you now that I will never sign a contract with indefinite terms."

"Not good enough," Chrysalis hissed quietly. She made her drone buzz it's wings rapidly, filling the air with the potent musk to the point where Grogar was starting to miss the stench of the undead. "If I free you without a signed contract, there's nothing stopping you from fleeing."

The necromancer leered at Chrysalis with a toothy humorless grin. "I don't need you to get what I want. Sooner or later, my efforts will bear fruit, and I will take what is mine. I only humor you to see if you can give me a worthy offer, not to negotiate terms on the fly."

"And _I_ will not be responsible for unleashing a living embodiment of sin upon the world with a royal changeling's body," Chrysalis countered harshly. "Not unless you are bound to _me!_ "

"Embodiment of sin? Me? You give me far too much credit, as I only personify one of them." As much as he was enjoying himself, any excuse to shorten Polybia's hold over him was a welcome change, causing Grogar's mirth to fade a little. "Tell you what, Queen Chrysalis. I can give a verbal agreement that when this business with Polybia is over, I will negotiate a contract with you at your leisure, within a reasonable timeframe, of course."

"...I can agree to that much," Chrysalis said after giving it what little thought she could spare. She lit her horn up and saturated it with magic before taking a hoof to it and snapping it off at the base. "Eat this horn so that we can stay in contact."

While his face revealed nothing, Grogar inwardly smirked at Chrysalis' mistake. _She's giving me a way out without even realizing it._ "Very well." He opened his mouth impossibly wide, revealing the row upon row of needle like teeth that led to a pitch black hole.

Chrysalis shrugged off the oddity of it. _I've created weirder drones than that._ With an almost casual toss, the severed horn fell into Grogar's maw where he promptly devoured it. "It will take time to complete the connection, Grogar, so you will hear from me when it is complete."

"I await with unbound enthusiasm," he deadpanned.

"Yes, I know how liberating freedom can be," Chrysalis teased, having taken his comment lightly. "Now that this puppet's no longer needed…" Chrysalis stepped back towards the far wall. Grogar watched as within moments the drone's chitin started to rupture and break. The heavy stench of sulfur and ozone filled the air as the puppet collapsed in a heap. Scant seconds passed before the puppet was broken down into little more than a oozing puddle that sank into the very rock itself, taking any chance of possessing it along with it. The chemical release also broke up the heavy musk, clearing the air to smell more akin to a latrine.

 _These queens have more intelligence than I realized. Killing the body removed any chance of jumping to the puppet's body upon death… These queens are nothing like the typical mortals trying to bargain for power. Then again… most of those mortals rarely have the wisdom and intelligence of those passed middle age._

 _Still, even the best of my rivals back home can let the wrong clause slip through a contract,_ Grogar mused with humor creeping its way onto his face.

* * *

Back in her hive's throne room, Chrysalis sat in silence as she mulled over her next course of action. Binding Grogar to a heavily partitioned section of her hive mind had been trivial to complete, but Chrysalis wanted time to plan her next encounter with the fabled necromancer. _If I had known Polybia was only going to use a single portal, I'd have waited a few days before speaking with him._

Chrysalis' meditation on her next move didn't last long before her sister, Jstrul piped in. "Are you sure this is wise, sister?" Chrysalis, who had been thinking with her eyes closed, graced her blind sister with a simple look out of habit. "With the Equestrians adding their presence to this war, dealing with Grogar like this could turn both Equestria and the Soft Sisters against us."

"Grogar is on the inside, dear sister," Chrysalis started placatingly. She even went so far as to give her sister the briefest of nuzzles. "Albeit in a limited fashion. Any information he can give us will be invaluable."

Jstrul stiffened at the affectionate touch. Centuries upbringing railed against it. Had the sign of affection been done via a drone proxy, there would be no issue, but the embrace from Chrysalis directly was highly uncomfortable. "Please, keep that… **pony-rearing** to the children."

"A bad yet necessary habit," Chrysalis said apologetically, as she turned away. It took a few brief moments for both sisters to recollect themselves. "Our daughters need such treatment to be of use."

"I - I know." All of Jstrul's instincts screamed at her to mark Chrysalis as going soft, so she had to beat that feeling down through sheer willpower alone. The fact that supreme embarrassment wafted off her sister made it easier for Jstrul to brush it off. "What are we going to do about Grogar in the end when he comes looking to collect."

The obvious answers of turning him over to the Equestrians for destruction or to sequester him away to allow him to possess a new royal egg jumped to the forefront of Chrysalis' mind. Try as she might, she couldn't bring herself to decide. "We'll cross that bridge when we get there, sister."

* * *

Back in Ponyville, an undisguised Roseluck was doing some much needed housework. Yet her mind was only half focused on the dishes she was washing. With Scootaloo off in the Equestrian Navy, the house had fallen quiet with just Rose and Lucky around.

With the pots and pans cleared away, Rose turned to head up to the bedroom, only to stop in nostalgic recollection. She missed seeing the red and gold crusader cape Scootaloo always left on the table instead of the coatrack, the omnipresence of tree sap that always managed to escape her notice for days, and the occasional fits of laughter when Scootaloo's friends slept over.

Sighing, Roseluck walked over to the kitchen table where Scootaloo's latest letter sat open. As a running joke, the paper had a few splotches of tree sap stuck along the edges, courtesy of Scootaloo herself. With a wistful smile, Rose read a few lines. Pride filled her chest at how strong, independent, and loving her adopted daughter had turn out.

 _Maybe we should adopt again. I'm sure my little gumdrop would love a brother or sister._

Roseluck lovingly folded the letter and started to take it to a cabinet in the den when a knock rapped on the door. Rose poked her head out into the main hallway towards the front door. With it being dark out, she couldn't see if the visitor was trying to show themselves through one of the side windows.

Even with the leadership of the PCE publicly denouncing their own actions, Roseluck couldn't shake off her mild paranoia ever since she started living openly about her changeling heritage. She trotted over to the door, and peered through the peephole to behold a plain looking grey earth mare with a dirty brown mane. The mare had an impatient look, but didn't appear threatening to Roseluck.

A second knock made the anxious changeling jump at undoing the deadbolts, but she kept the two chain locks in place. She cracked the door open as far as the chains would allow and peered through the slit. "Hello?"

The grey mare showed little emotion outside of mild surprise at Roseluck's glowing blue eyes, clearly meaning she wasn't disguised. "You are the one called Roseluck, correct?"

"Y-yes?" Roseluck tried to sound friendly, but the late night visit by a stranger brought her natural paranoia to the forefront.

"I must speak with your queen-mother. It is of the utmost urgency."

Roseluck narrowed her eyes in suspicion. All of Rose's queens were careful whenever they puppeted a drone in public so that the common pony had no idea that ability even existed. "Begging your pardon, Miss…"

"Creed," the mare replied with a curt yet not overly harsh tone.

Even so, Roseluck was getting weary of her visitor. "If it is so important, why not go to the hive itself? She should be there," Rose offered friendly enough.

"That I cannot do," Creed replied with mounting impatience. She had to collect herself to speak calmly. "I need to speak with your queen, and I know she can speak through you."

Roseluck's paranoia jumped three fold at that, yet her gut reaction to summon the local drone soldiers was cut short when a sickly green spire of light appeared above Creed's forehead. The light was shaped exactly like a horn where no horn was present. Within a few seconds, a round object was summoned and dropped into Creed's awaiting hoof. From there she presented it to Roseluck.

Though she had been a love collector all her life, even Roseluck knew exactly what it was: the Stone of Parley. It took Roseluck all of two seconds to go through the very short list of queens who would ever want to speak with with Cadista. And with that realization, Roseluck's anger and fear took over. "You must be _Kreesus,_ " Rose spat as if it was the most vile word she knew. "My queen wants nothing to do you!"

Kreesus had expected this, and tried to imagine Roseluck as a royal rather than a disobedient drone. "I have invoked Parley, whether your queen is willing to speak to me or not is irrelevant."

Roseluck ground her teeth at the law, causing her fangs to cut her a little. " _Fine._ " Rose looked out behind the disguised puppet and saw a few late night ponies going for the growing night life in Ponyville. "Get inside before anypony sees you. I have to wake my husband about this before I tell my queen." Rose undid the chains and bruskly ushered the puppet inside.

Not wanting to give Kreesus any chance to turn violent by making her wait, Roseluck raced upstairs to her bedroom and found Lucky just leaving the shower. He instantly noticed Roseluck's anger marred face and cringed. "Whatever I did, it wasn't my fault."

"For once, I believe you," Roseluck snorted, trying to hold onto her anger. She cantered inside to keep her hate-filled tone from carrying down to the living room where she left Kreesus' puppet. "You won't believe who just knocked on our door!"

"Judging by the look on your face, I'd say my brother," Lucky replied honestly.

"I _wish,_ " Roseluck seethed. "It's that bitch, Kreesus."

 _"The_ Kreesus?!" Lucky half freaked.

"The same," said a highly impatient voice from the door. Both Rose and Lucky turned to find Kreesus' puppet had dropped the disguise, and looked decidedly unhappy. _The more time wasted here, the more time Twilight or Rainbow can find out and stop all this before I can speak with Cadista._ "Can we move this along?"

"If it'll get you out of my house, then so be it," Rose spat hatefully. "I'll relay your request to my queen."

Kreesus stayed by the door as she pondered about Roseluck's behavior. _I thought I understood Cadista's brood. Her drones were always rather professional towards me, largely because of Cadista herself. If Twilight spoke true, and Cadista forgave me, then why is her drone so hostile?_

"What do you think you're doing going behind my back?!" yelled a familiar raspy voice, jarring Kreesus from her thoughts. Instead of Cadista's vibrant blue eyes, Kreesus was met by Rainbow Dash's magenta eyes instead. "Get out of Rose's house, _now_!"

Kreesus actually jumped in shock. "R-Rainbow Dash!? But I ask-"

"I'm her queen now!" Rainbow Dash whisper-shouted to keep from waking Ponyville.

 _I knew Cadista had given up her crown, but she went so far as to relinquish her place in the hive mind too!?_ Though she was able to hide it by removing motor control to the puppet, Kreesus was absolutely stunned and horrified by the revelation. She slumped in her throne, utterly appalled at what she had reduced her old friend to.

By the time Kreesus thought to refocus on her puppet, Rainbow Dash had shoved Roseluck's face into Kreesus' puppet's own. "What's with the silence huh? Am I not good enough for you to acknowledge as an equal without Twilight around, is that it!?" Rainbow raged with flying spittle smacking the puppet in the eye.

"No, no…" Kreesus said weakly as flashes of good memories with a strong and proud Queen Cadista raced past her mind's eye. "Please, I - if Cadista doesn't want to speak then I'll leave."

Rainbow Dash was disgusted by the brief glimpses of sorrow that kept breaking through the surface of Kreesus' eyes. She would have thrown Kreesus out of the house, alliance be damned, but some small part of her wanted to know just what Cadista thought of it. Rainbow snorted at the request and backed up. "You want to talk to her? Fine, but mark my words. I will have your head if Cadista asks for it."

Kreesus gave a shaky, yet regal nod. She stood there with frayed nerves as Rainbow Dash spoke mentally with Cadista.

Lucky was about as lost as he possibly could be. While he knew about puppeting, he had never seen his wife possessed before. _I hope she'll still be her old self once the queens are done._ Another part of his mind latched onto a rumor he'd heard in passing when Rose had been speaking with a few purple drones a while back. _Hey wait a minute… this whole puppeting thing makes drones go crazy for some loving. She might be up for some angry sex when all this is over. I know I'd need some if I had a bunch of pissed off royals in my head._

Oblivious to her husband, Roseluck's eyes shifted to sky blue as Cadista assumed control. The former queen fixed Kreesus with a regally neutral scowl, but her eyes almost betrayed the pain she kept locked away. "Hello, Kreesus," she said in that achingly familiar voice.

Muscles twitched anxiously in Kreesus' jaw, and she couldn't stop herself from flipping her tail in agitation. "Hello, Cadista. I - I see you…"

"Have done well for myself?" Cadista replied calmly, though the words should have been bitter. Instead Cadista remained unwaveringly stoic. "About as well as can be expected."

"I heard that you forgave me," Kreesus said too quickly. Cadista's words flooded her with extreme embarrassment, but she was too old to let that render her speechless. "Is it true?"

Cadista was silent for a moment before turning to Lucky. "Dear, I know this is your home, but could you excuse us?"

 _Hearing a different voice out of Rose is damn scary._ "Changeling matters, got it." Lucky snapped a hasty, yet sloppy, salute before squeezing past Kreesus' puppet to busy himself in the kitchen.

Cadista waited until Lucky left the stairs to continue with a weary thread in her voice. "It has taken me a long time, Kreesus. My home, most of my children, centuries of work. All of it is a molten ruin now. Were it not for Twilight and Rainbow Dash," Cadista didn't bother hiding her mounting grief. "I would rather have joined my hive in destruction.

"Yet I know now that I share an equal amount of the blame for Stripped Gear's destruction." Cadista mentally chastised both Roseluck and Rainbow Dash who yelled against it. Kreesus hated where Cadista was going with this, but Cadista spoke first. "I should have offered you the secret to making a love-producing heir. I knew full well the monumental achievement I had made, and was proud of it."

As you should be, Rainbow said heatedly, not seeing why Cadista was sharing the blame. Roseluck mirrored Rainbow's sentiment, yet all Cadista did was tell them to wait.

"Are you seriously taking the blame for my actions?!" Kreesus asked with deep shock.

"Aren't I responsible, though?" Cadista rebuked with sudden shame and inward anger. "I did the _impossible!_ **I** created a changeling strain that could produce love. All those centuries of being mocked and ridiculed for giving my drone intelligence and self-identity, for Yumia and I going against all logic by developing cold metal technology instead of advancing my biology."

Even now, with her royal blood all but gone, Cadista couldn't fight the overwhelming pride she had in her life's work, and let that pain filled pride shine in her voice. "And for chasing that impossible dream of love creation. Honesty is one of the highly regarded Equestrian values, is it not?" Cadista broached the rhetorical question to not just Kreesus, but to Rainbow and Roseluck as well. Rainbow Dash was starting to get worried, and patched Twilight into the conversation (after she had physically walked into the room where Rainbow was) in some hope she could make sense of this where Rainbow couldn't.

"So why not let it all on the table, hmm? I was, and still am, _profoundly_ proud of Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash, both as my daughters, and as living vindications that all my work, all those years of public ridicule, were not for nothing!

"So where Twilight or Rainbow Dash might have shared this secret with you, old friend, I - I," Cadista's rant faltered as her soul was crushed all over again by her loss. Tears started drenching both Roseluck and Cadista's real face. "I didn't. I would have, if you had come to me first. But no. I wanted to bask in my achievement. Dare I say it, some part of me wanted to see you beg if only a little. For you to apologize for all the mockery, light though it was compared to the others."

Having no Day of Grief for herself, Kreesus had no buffer for the tidal wave of misery and regret that was flooding her. "Don't - don't you dare say another word!" Kreesus practically shouted, shattering Cadista's rant. "You do not control my hoof! **I** destroyed your hive, yo - your everything…"

Centuries of friendship flashed before both Cadista and Kreesus' mind. Countless talks, dinners, and even shared battlefields taunted them with what they had once shared. Friendship.

While they hid most of it from their puppets, both of them wept chest-wracking sobs. Neither of them could stand the sight of the other, but couldn't bring themselves to leave.

Twilight Sparkle was at a loss for words. She didn't have many memories with Kreesus, but she had originally thought of her as a trusted ally. _Mother… I wish I knew how to help you._ Twilight's helplessness dredged up the last thing Twilight wanted on her mind: Twilight Velvet. Twilight couldn't stop herself from wishing she was in Cadista's place with Velvet begging for a chance at reconciliation as Kreesus was.

Ignorant of her sister's spiking sorrow, Rainbow Dash's smoldering anger at Kreesus barely let up, even after hearing Cadistia's reasonings. However, she wasn't going to stand idly by. _I can't believe I'm about to do this._ With Cadista so paralysed by renewed grief, it was trivial for her to take back motor control of Roseluck. Rose, I'm sorry in advance.

While Roseluck shared her mother's grief, she let Rainbow do as she wished with her. So, Rainbow slowly walked over and gave Kreesus' puppet a strong hug. Cadistia barely realized what happened before Rainbow gave her control again. Both she and Kreesus' cries faltered at the embrace.

Twilight was so stunned by the hug, she was thrown out of her wishful daydream and nearly broke contact with Roseluck to stare at Rainbow in disbelief.

It took Kreesus and Cadista a few brief moments to realize what had happened before Cadista left her pride to the wind and gave Kreesus a crushing embrace. Kreesus in turn was at a total loss as to how to act. Centuries of staying aloof from others, going whole centuries without physical contact with another queen, only fed her ignorance. However, some long forgotten part of her subconscious drove her to return the embrace.

Neither Kreesus nor Cadista could find the right words. _I don't want my last years on this Earth to be without you my old friend,_ Cadista thought. Yet even without her crown, she couldn't bring herself to say it aloud.

 _I let my pride destroy my one true ally and friend. I swear I'll make it right,_ Kreesus desperately wished she had the courage to say.

Not wanting to witness anything more private, Rainbow Dash narrowed her focus on the connection, allowing Cadista to stay within Roseluck, but eliminating Rainbow's awareness of the room. The act had also knocked Twilight from witnessing anything further.

As much as she wanted to keep her mother company, Twilight was compelled to reach out to Rainbow before she could leave the little nook they had occupied at the stern side of the _Long Shot's_ command tower during the whole ordeal. "Sister, wait a minute." Rainbow begrudgingly stopped before taking to the air, she didn't turn around to face Twilight, however. "I'm glad you did what you did back there."

"Don't get the wrong idea, Twilight," Rainbow replied heatedly. Twilight was taken aback while Rainbow faced her with fire in her eyes. Her scowl had not improved at all. "If granny wants to make peace with that traitor, then that's her business. I don't care what excuses granny makes for her, Kreesus was _still_ the one who destroyed Stripped Gear."

"I know what you're saying, sister, I really do." Twilight used Rainbow's hesitation to come over and lean against her affectionately. "I know where she's coming from, though, and in some small way, I - I envy mother for this."

Rainbow Dash arched an eyebrow at that, with her scowl deepening. "This ought to be rich. Last I checked," Rainbow started ranting, "granny lost her hive, gave up her royal blood, any ability to have more children, and gave up her crown. How could you be envious of that?!" Rainbow steamed while stomping her hoof on the loud metal floor.

The act turned a few heads from the drones on spotting detail, although all Twilight did was fall intensely quiet, both physically and within the hive mind. Even her emotional aura became unreadable. "Because for all she's done… I still hope Velvet will do the same one day."

"Twilight," Rainbow called out with with her anger ebbing a little as her sister walked away. "You've got to let her go. She certainly did with you."

Twilight charged her horn for a teleport to her quarters while looking at her sister with a forlorn frown and drooped ears. "Would you?" Not wanting to let the drones see her cry, Twilight teleported to her chambers, leaving Rainbow Dash alone and fuming.

 _Damn it all. I can't see why Twi and granny try so hard. Traitors betrayed you once, and they'll do it again. They're not worth the heartache._ Opting to leave Twilight alone, Rainbow Dash departed for the pilot briefing room to give orders for the next mission.

* * *

Well over an hour later in Roseluck's bedroom, Kreesus and Cadista had slowly managed to recollect themselves, and eventually released their embrace. Their faces were stained with tears and their noses drenched in runny liquid, but for the first time in years, Kreesus felt lighter than ever before. How little did she realize her actions at Stripped Gear had weighed upon her.

Cadista had an even harder time reigning in her emotions, though it was for reasons Kreesus didn't suspect. In truth, Cadista had to wrestle with herself to keep an emotionally open aura masking her deeper longing desires of retribution against Kreesus. _It would take more than an age to forgive you Kreesus, but my daughters depend on you for now._ Making sure her emotional mask was in place, Cadista gave the object of her ire a friendly yet weak smile. "I have missed our dinners together."

"They were happier days," Kreesus added with a more genuine grin. "We must do so again…" Her breath caught in her throat. "I - I can't say how badly I utterly ruined everything we had, Cadista. I will do all in my power to keep your daughters alive through the war, as if they were my own." Cadista was caught off guard by the heated steel with which Kreesus put into every word. "I swear it!"

"Thank you, old friend." Cadista heaved a shuddering sigh as she finished wrapping her true emotions up into a little box in the back of her mind. "I believe we've taken enough of my daughter's time. I'll await those shared dinners after Polybia and Grogar are dealt with."

Kreesus felt her heart warm at the prospect with a renewed fire she hadn't had in years. "A sound idea." Kreesus made for the window and opened it to leave, yet she stopped before climbing out and turned back to her renewed friend with a mournful yet happy smile. "Farewell, Cadista."

With that, Kreesus' puppet jumped out of the window and flew away. Cadista sighed again. "Thank you, Roseluck, I shall send you some compensation to make up for such a trying night."

"It was an honor to serve you, my queen," Roseluck said purposefully instead of the more fitting moniker of mother.

Cadista briefly thought about correcting her, yet a part of her felt renewed purpose and satisfaction at being called a queen, even if it was for the last time. With wordless thanks, Cadista departed Roseluck with Rainbow's mental bridge falling away along with her.

Roseluck felt her strength give out and slumped heavily onto the carpet. She laid there, with only the rise and fall of her chest giving any movement for a couple of minutes before Lucky poked his head through the door. He spotted his wife on the floor, and quickly swept his eyes over the room for any possible threats before rushing over to her side.

He carefully rolled her over and pulled her head off the floor. She gave a relieved smile to see the lack of distress on her tired face. "Hey, everything go okay?"

Roseluck sagged into his strong forelegs, while wrestling with how she was supposed to feel. An unintended side effect of Rainbow's mental bridge was that Roseluck heard all of Cadista's inner thoughts. Including her deception. Slowly, Roseluck summoned the strength to pull herself up to hug Lucky. "Yeah, nothing some sleep couldn't fix."

If he was honest with himself, Lucky felt a little confused at how physically calm Roseluck was. _Shouldn't she be trying to jump my bones after playing host to the queen?_ Sensing she was exhausted, Lucky deftly slid Roseluck onto his back so he could drop her off at the bed. _Ah well, at least she's in a good mood._

After depositing her on the bed, Lucky didn't like how bedraggled Roseluck was looking. "You should take the day off tomorrow, go to the spa or something."

Roseluck yawned sleepily and wiggled into the sheets. "That sounds nice. I love you, dear." Roseluck only scantily heard Lucky's reply while pride filled her as her thoughts returned to Cadista. _Your secret is safe with me, my queen._ With Lucky snuggling against her, and giving his love, Roseluck quickly drifted off to sleep.


	75. Chapter 75

Showing One's Hand... or Hoof

Unlike the fetid wildlands below, the skies above the changeling jungle were almost peaceful. Provided you either went unnoticed or were too frightening for aerial predators.

One such group of predators soared high just above the dense cloud layer. Rusty Spring led the rest of Viper Squadron along, deep in the southern reaches of the jungle, near the heart of Polybia's bloated territory. Above the clouds, the midday sun burned hot, cooking the pilots and their fighters. In between the ten aircraft of Viper Squadron were a dozen additional biplanes of a jury-rigged design lugging incendiary bombs.

Rusty Spring checked his watch while Twilight lightly watched through the eyes of her pilots, allowing them to retain full control over themselves. With nothing akin to radar to guide them, and the use of heavy cloud cover, Twilight had to resort to letting Rainbow Dash calculate both direction and distance to the target.

A few hours into the flight, she gave the word. It is time, Warrant Officer. Begin the bombing run.

Aye, my queen.

Rusty Spring signaled the rest of the pilots before banking sharply to the left. The rest of the aircraft joined as one. Greasy Piston howled in excitement as she whipped past the dense clouds.

Down below in a craggy valley rested a dense patch of multicolored crops with the solid green of the jungle above it. Twilight drew every pilot's attention to the northern side of the valley where it met with a small clearing. There, a gathering of drones was packing foodstuffs together. Chrysalis' scouts say the crops will be harvested soon. Burn as much of the valley as possible in addition to the storage area.

At once, my queen, the seventeen pilots replied as one.

Rusty split off the main group with five other biplanes right behind her in a wedge formation while Greasy Piston and the rest of the squadron went for the storage area. Be ready for the counterattack, boys, Greasy advised with a mad hatter grin.

Diving nearly straight down, Greasy unloaded a fusillade of fire on the hundreds of bundled crops. The enchanted ammunition caught fire upon impact as both crops and drones burst into flames.

Rusty Spring was just as successful with the valley suffering a string of small fires that threatened to spread wildly. Strangely, the expected anti-air defense was sluggish to start. While the worker drones acted on instinct and fled the devastation, the cadre of warriors started to use spellfire against the aircraft only after they had finished their strafing run.

But it was too little too late, upon finishing their strafing run, the pilots skimmed the treeline to escape retribution before fleeing back to the clouds.

Chrysalis and Kreesus watched over the valley farm through their scouts' eyes, having directed Twilight towards the target. Both queens were puzzled by the lackluster response from Polybia. They kept their eyes on the growing fires while their real bodies sat within a mocking recreation of an equestrian theater hall hall that Chrysalis had assembled deep within Kreesus' mountain hive. A cadre of quasi, former ponies and griffins, were reenacting a current popular equestrian play, _She Lights my Candle._

While Chrysalis still kept a large portion of her mind focused on the plethora of drones scattered throughout the jungle, she always seemed to find time for some enjoyment in life. Occasionally without causing suffering or at least mild irritation in the process.

Sitting beside her, if only out of curiosity for the play, Kreesus was highly distracted by the aftermath of the air raid. "Strange," Kreesus mused with cautious worry, "it's not like Polybia to be so lethargic to act."

Chrysalis cackled at the morose failure of the play's protagonist before giving Kreesus, and a local scout of her own, any real attention. "Clearly the years of dark magic and war are starting to take their toll on her."

Kreesus watched through her scout as the real threat of the biplanes' attack revealed itself in the form of bull sized howlers that constantly prowled the grounds of the farm. With the temperament of a rabid manticore, packed with several bladed limbs and curiously enraged by fire, the beasts would prove devastating. The dozens of howlers, normally beguiled into protecting the farm by the scent of the crops, were now shaken from that control with the fire whipping them into a frothy vengeance as the blaze quickly overpowered the hypnotic smell. The beasts started trampling the crops, slashing at them with animalistic rage, and slaughtering the drones and warriors alike with wild abandon.

"As much as I would like to believe that," Kreesus replied with a touch of irritability, "This is too much all at once. Just yesterday she reacted nearly instantly to our attack."

The comment caused Chrysalis' grin to falter. "It could be that Grogar is giving her more trouble than usual. An overconfident fool like Polybia could have easily made a mistake." _She certainly doesn't make it too difficult for me to visit that wretched goat._

Chrysalis' scout pressed itself low to the branches to avoid getting spotted and watched the fight between Polybia and the howlers. She took primal delight in watching Polybia's misfortune unfold, grinning wickedly all the while. "Perhaps we've been giving Polybia too much credit. We should strike deeper into her territory and end this war quickly before she can recover from whatever malady has befallen her, or let Grogar escape."

Kreesus' scout remained at at the edges of the valley, and kept an eye on the farm as well to make sure it would get destroyed completely. "I don't like it. This farm was too big to just throw away with sloppy defense. We can't rule out that this might be a feint or outright deception. Something you live by more than is healthy, I think."

Chrysalis cackled with a fang-filled smirk, and idly watched through her scout as the terrain before it took a steep decline towards a large flat area of moonlit jungle. "Come now, Kreesus, we're all allies here. Our fates are bound together in this war."

Kreesus was pleased to see the howlers were still coming in droves, and would soon leave the area a charred ruin. With her real body, she cast a knowing scowl at Chrysalis. "And that would do nothing to stop you from turning on me as soon as Polybia's final death."

"Such are the risks of the jungle," was all Chrysalis said in snide response.

Kreesus boiled at Chrysalis' taunting, yet she decided to sit on that rising fury lest she make a second colossal mistake. _Were it not for Polybia, I'd have killed you long ago._

Any further vengeful thinking were put on hold after Kreesus saw something rather strange through the eyes of her scout. Far, far to the south just above the rolling treeline of the jungle was a massive writhing black cloud the likes of which set Kreesus' scales in a chill. The cloud was easily a mile wide, deep enough that the scout couldn't see through it to the other side, and tall enough to give the distinct impression of a stormfront.

The sheer size of it made Kreesus briefly wonder if Lukia parasites had infested the scout's eyes. The cloud was simply too large, too absurd to contemplate the very idea that the cloud could be a swarm of drones. And yet her instincts rebelled against her rational thinking.

"Chrysalis, stop flaunting your false superiority and turn your gaze south. Do you see what I see?"

As much as Chrysalis wanted to irritate Kreesus even further, her victim's shaken tone made her skip any taunting and complied. It took Chrysalis' scout a minute or two to safely extract itself from the area near the inferno of the farm to find a chance to get above the treeline. It didn't take her long to wish she hadn't. The moving black mass was simply too large to miss despite its distance. "It, it can't be what I think it is," Chrysalis huffed dismissively at her snap shock at the sight of the cloud. "Polybia expects us to have spies in her land. This is nothing more than a ploy to hide something else."

Kreesus was slow to dismiss the notion. While her scout's vision was designed to pierce illusions, that range was measured in meters, not miles. "If this is an illusion, it is a costly one. There is no ley line anywhere near the farm, the sheer magic cost must be staggering."

Chrysalis nervously chewed on her inner cheek as she couldn't tear her eyes away from the chilling cloud of drones. "...It has to be a trick," she said at length with a definitive tone. "Silandrus was the best of us in terms of mass control, and even in her prime could only control three hundred thousand, not the…" Chrysalis did a quick estimate on the cloud. "Million or so drone swarm she wishes us to see. Besides, I refuse to believe she could have laid so many eggs so quickly, or held them in reserve for this long."

Kreesus watched carefully as the mass of drones split in four with the biggest section flying straight for her mountain hive. "We don't know what sort of dark magic she could have been holding in reserve. In case you forgot, _Chrysalis,_ the lot of us have been on the back hoof thanks to her for a year now. She had no reason to play her cards fully… until now anyway."

Chrysalis tried to get at least some part of her mind refocused on the play, but no matter how much logic she threw at the impossibility of a million-strong swarm, she couldn't shake the undercurrent of fear it caused. With a mental command, she ordered the play actors to abandon the performance for the time being. "You can investigate this farce if you like, but _I_ will find out Polybia's true aim."

Passing her caution on to Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash, Kreesus' scout started moving south to get close enough to the approaching swarm to confirm her suspicions. "Waste your time if you like. Perhaps you'll discover her plan to expand her She-Mare collection."

* * *

Pear Butter stood before the mirror in one of the servant quarters of Sparkle Manor. It was a modest bedroom with a window offering a good view of the colorful rear gardens. She was primping herself to play her part, and allowing her disguise to drop for the moment to rest her already stressed magic. _Just think of the filly, old girl, she's why you're here, not because that bit -_ She tried to force the word out, but her thoughts rebelled against her. _My queen commanded it._

She couldn't stop a depressed sigh from escaping. She didn't _want_ to get used to being half a changeling or having Polybia be able to end her life with but a thought.

Shoring up her resolve and restoring her disguise, Pear Butter was about to return to her duties when something akin to a rope snapping hammered her mind. She reeled at the headache, groaning in pain and slumping against the wall while cradling her head. _By the winds of Elysia, what was that!?_

It took her several long moments to recover from the shock of such a psychic blow. She started hyperventilating at the sudden sense of emptiness. She noisily knocked a chair over and fell to the floor and curled up involuntarily. Yet as terrified as she was, she couldn't consciously understand why. It was that realization that blunted her sudden fear, allowing her to stop shaking. She waited a bit longer, when she felt nothing physically off, she expected it might be some punishment from Polybia for some slight. However, no answer was forthcoming. _Why did Ah freak out? My queen wouldn't randomly punish me would she? Did she hear what Ah was about to call her?_

Pear Butter quickly donned her disguise and waited for the expected reprimand. _An 'oops' sorry Ah didn't mean to do that would be nice._

As the time of her shift was coming, Pear lost patience and meekly tried to communicate with Polybia. My queen? Did Ah error in some way?

The clock on the wall ticked away with no answer. _Ah hope Ah'm actually doin' this right._ My queen? Are you there?

The clock chimed without even a nonverbal blurb from Polybia, Stopwatch, or even Paint Brush. _Not that they've talked over the mind before, but_ something _happened!_

Checking the mirror one last time to make sure her disguise was spotless, Pear left the bedroom behind to make her way to the dining area where Stellar Drift was scheduled to end dinner. _If it weren't for that Twilight Sparkle, Ah keep hearin' about, Ah'd think that keep'n a foal on a schedule wouldn't ever work._

Pear Butter passed through halls and down stairs, half going over the planned activities with Stellar and the other on the mysterious absence of Polybia.

* * *

Twilight Sparkle was in semi-meditation as she communed with several shipmasters and logistics officers of the very long and vulnerable supply chain. She opted out of making a Linkscape this time for a simpler voice only communication. Fleece Coat, have you had any issues with Polybia's raids against you?

No, my queen, It's been strangely quiet thus far. Although I think the additional presence of the Equestrian flotilla might be keeping Polybia at bay for now.

Good, proceed to the mountain hive at best speed, shipmaster.

Twilight's attention shifted to a stubborn naval officer of her brood, Captain Rourke, now in command of the _Steamrunner._ A feat made easy by injured captain not needing to be too physically active to do her job. Sadly, that also led to having a personal nurse constantly hovering around her just in case she collapsed. Captain, how long until your convoy arrives?

About a week, assuming we're not harassed and that the weather report is accurate, your highness.

 _That puts them over the gorge at the edge of Equestria._ Proceed with caution, Rourke, don't rely on our allies entirely for your security.

Rourke couldn't stop Twilight from picking up a fearful twinge in her voice. Of course, my queen. I'll redouble the watch.

A mental ping forced Twilight's awareness to return to her body where Rainbow Dash was caught somewhere between being panicked and failing composure. "We've got a potentially seriously huge problem, Sis." It took but a glance at Rainbow's emotional aura for Twilight to climb off her couch as Rainbow approached. With both queens being in Twilight's quarters aboard the _Long Shot_ , they didn't need to worry about the prying eyes of their 'allies'.

"Kreesus just spotted a freak'n insane number of Poly's drones rising up from the south." Rainbow levitated over a few moderately well done, if hasty, paintings of what Kreesus' scout saw. "Something close to a million strong!"

"A m-million?" Twilight sputtered in disbelief, only for Rainbow to, for some aweful reason, nod in return. "A _million!?_ "

"You're taking it better than I did," Rainbow remarked with a dower frown.

"That can't be right!" Twilight protested with a wave of her hoof. "It's impossible for a single queen to control that many drones. I don't think even _we_ could handle such a Link load, even with our children needing no real oversight!"

"Yeah well, she found a way." Rainbow nodded her head at the porthole and the mountain beyond it. "Sticky Spit thinks it's a distraction. As much as I would love to believe _that_ delusion, I'm not taking any chances. I'm ordering the kids to stay within the ship." Twilight was still reeling from the very notion of a single queen commanding such a swarm of mindless drones to truly acknowledge her sister's comments. "With the four of us here, Poly's going to hit us here to try and end it quick."

Twilight's mind kicked back into gear as Rainbow started bouncing various ideas in her head about how to counter such an overwhelming force. "Wait. Are you _sure_ Kreesus is right about this? Shouldn't we at least wait for her to verify this?"

"I am, I am," Rainbow assured her with an absent wave of a wing, "but I gotta plan for both. Sticky might be right, and fleeing could make us walk into a trap. Kreesus' hive is defensible, but against a million? Not a chance."

Twilight tried to think of a plan, even with her sister being the better military strategist. Several ideas blazed past her, each one discarded as quickly as they came until one thing stuck in her mind. "Wait… wait a minute..." She turned to Rainbow Dash who was already giving new orders to the ship to prepare to flee just in case. "Momma always said the other queens prefered inhabiting ley lines. Did Kreesus ever tell you whether or not this place has one?"

Rainbow Dash was puzzled by the question with the mention of ley lines bringing her back to the Battle of Rookhaven. "What would it matter if there was? Gethar had a whole nexus point to himself and he couldn't stop a single warship and a battalion of drones. Even if our kids are the best on the planet."

 _She always finds time to boast,_ Twilight inwardly chuckled despite the looming threat of Polybia's legion. "First off, I believe we got away with a lot thanks to Gethar having no idea how to properly damage a steel warship. Second, he came across as somepony who was narrowly focused in his magical experience. Ancient magic isn't as grand as most storytellers like to make it out to be. Aside from alchemy of course, arcane spellwork was quite primitive compared to the spellcraft we have today."

 _Scary how easily she slips into lecture mode when it comes to magic._ Wanting to avoid a school lesson due to Polybia, Rainbow conceded. "Fine, I'll take your word for it. But that aside, that traitor never told me about any ley line below her hive. Beside, if she _did_ have one wouldn't you know already?"

To that, Twilight frowned a little. "Kreesus actually has two hives. The one in the lowlands during 'peace time', which is the only one I've ever been to, and here. She never had a reason to tell me, nor I to ask."

"Well if you think a ley line could help, then by all means, go ask her about it. I for one am going to see what I can salvage out of this campaign if this million legion is legit."

 _Probably best that I do it instead of you anyhow._ Twilight nodded and mentally searched for the closest child to one of Kreesus' drones. "Right. I'll let you know shortly."

* * *

Hours had passed for Pear Butter with nary a word from Polybia. With Night Light and Azure Skies gone for a social engagement to reveal their adopted daughter to more of Canterlot's elite, Pear Butter was more or less left to her own devices. There was still at least an hour and a half before the family of the house was expected to return. With this in mind, Pear timidly approached the family butler, Pranceston in the grand entry hall.

Pranceston was meticulously dusting one of the decorative vases along the staircase when Pear walked up and politely cleared her throat. "Mister Pranceston, sir. Ah've finished cleanin' Miss Stellar's bedroom and playroom. Is there anythin' else for me to do?"

The immaculately groomed stallion in a perpetually sharp tuxedo turned away from his work to fix Pear with an appraising stoic expression. "Have you prepared her bathing supplies? At this hour the master will undoubtedly want her in bed straight away."

Pear bowed respectfully. "Yes, of course. The filly's playfulness permitting, Ah'll have'r ta bed promptly."

Pear was still new to the job, and with only Polybia's hair trigger temper to go on, Pear initially feared she might have taken too much of a liberty by passing future blame onto Stellar Drift not wanting to cooperate. Yet all the old stallion did was nod with understanding, catching Pear's worried grimace. "Adopted or not, it seems all of the Sparkle children have that fiery spirit about them. And the family wouldn't have it any other way.

"Very well. In the meantime, you may take this time to do as you wish, within reason. I highly suggest you relax while you can."

Pear blinked in surprise at the offer. "Ah thought Ah would take the role of a normal house maid when my foalsitting wasn't currently in need."

Pranceston shook his head and returned to his dusting. "Your employment contract clearly states you are a foalsitter, not a house maid. If Twilight Sparkle and Shining Armor are any indication, you will learn to treasure your free-time while you can."

Rather than feel slightly terrified at the warning, Pear Butter felt a maternal instinct she didn't know she had flood her. "Ah think Ah can manage a feisty youngin, sir."

"We'll see, Miss Butter. Just know that I'll be watching both you and Miss Drift closely."

The front door opened, an earth pony guard sticking his head in cut off Pear's reply. "Mister Pranceston. There's a stallion at the gate wanting to speak with a Miss Pear Butter. Said his name was Paint Brush."

Pranceston turned first towards the guard then to Pear. "You know of him, Miss Butter?"

 _Why in the world would he risk coming here!? Could it have something to do with that incident earlier?_ Not entirely shaking off the surprise in front of Pranceston, Pear nodded. "Y-yes Ah do. He's an old friend a' mine. Probably just here ta congratulate me on gett'n the job, or ask for a date," she added at the last minute. "Probably both."

Pranceston studied her for a moment, narrowing his gaze just enough for her to notice before letting his suspicions fall away. "Very well. It is your break time after all. Just remember to return before the master returns. Master Night Light hasn't given you leave for the whole night."

With a quick thanks and a nod, Pear raced past the guard with as much tact as she could muster. From the door she saw Paint Brush waiting for her near the closed gate where two more private security guards were standing watch.

Pear made her way to the gate to find Paint Brush visibly appear calm, but that annoyingly persistent empathy of hers could feel the cold blue aura of his fear. It didn't help matters that he wasn't even using a special disguise, outside of merely looking like a normal unicorn.

Pear Butter was quick to flash a smile at the guards. "Thank you sirs, he's my date tonight."

Paint Brush was caught mildly off-balance by the sudden cover story, but quickly rolled with it. "Heyya, GG, you good to go?" He asked as the guards opened the gate to allow Pear Butter to pass through.

"You know Ah am. Ya know how Ah love going to Doughnut Joe's with you." Pear gave Paint Brush an affectionate nuzzle before leading him away and waving goodbye at the guards.

After seeing the casual act had appeased the guards, both quasi quickly made their way out of earshot near one of the other aristocratic manor exterior walls. However, Paint Brush started nearing a full gallop instead of slowing to talk. "Alright, PB, what's goin' on?"

Paint Brush let his calm demeanor fall away into one of near panic. "Ah -Ah don't think we can talk here, Ah better take you to Stopwatch's place."

Not wanting to risk any possible eavesdroppers, Pear Butter remained silent for the entire run to the brothel Stopwatch lived above.

The Madame of the establishment paid them no mind as the pair raced through to the loft apartment. There Paint Brush revealed Stopwatch in a small green cocoon surrounded by a collection of hastily assembled take out boxes still loaded with half-eaten food.

"The queen was saying to watch over her for a week or something and that Stop was some kind of plan B. And then she just cut us off from her!"

 _So that's what that was._ Pear's rebellious heart soared at the news with her barely managing to hide a massive grin that threatened to betray her. _Yes, Yes! Ah'm free of that_ bitch! _Oh that felt_ good! _If we're free, then maybe Ah have a real chance at getting PB to abandon the queen too!_

The gears churned in Pear's head at how to do just that. She briefly watched Paint Brush inspect the cocoon for any imperfections. "Did she tell us what we should do besides that? We can't leave her cocoon here."

Paint Brush gave her a quick nod, yet returned his attention to Stopwatch. "We might be able to take her to my new apartment. It's just down the road." He spotted an area where the wax was thin, so he tried to smooth it out as best he could.

"Ah can't do it now. Night Light and Stellar Drift should be back home in half an hour, and everypony thinks we're on a date."

"Ah can't move her by myself," he protested hotly, to Pear's mild surprise. "We owe it to our queen to act on good faith of her trust."

"Good faith? **Good faith!?** " Without Polybia's connection, Pear Butter was finally able to speak her mind at Paint Brush. "Oh _rut_ her good faith!" she spat venomously while jabbing Paint Brush with a hoof. He stumbled back in utter shock at the hatred in her eyes. "The only thing she deserves is a good stone prison, Discord style."

"You can't mean that!" Paint Brush held a hoof up in a placating gesture. "The queen hasn't abandoned us, she's trustin' us ta watch over the princess."

Even though the geas threatened to smother her anger at the mention of the child, it did nothing concerning Polybia herself. Yet despite that, Paint Brush only succeed in making her angrier. "Th' youngin ain't done nothing wrong, but 'er mother is a different story. Ah say we get rid'a Stopwatch and live our lives on our terms. S' only fair since our _queen_ stole our old lives in the first place."

This time, Paint Brush pushed himself into her Pear's face and matched her anger. "We don't know what our lives're like back then! For all we know, we coulda been criminals, or maybe suicidal."

"Or we coulda been the happiest ponies ever!" Pear rebuked just as harshly.

"Do ya ever think for a moment and think that maybe, _just_ maybe we mighta' wanted her ta take us?"

At that, Pear visibly hesitated, but not for the reasons Paint assumed. _Ah need him on my side. But fer that Ah need proof, one way for another._ "Alright, fine. How 'bout this."

Pear pushed away and slowly walked over to a nearby wall to think. "Ah'll play it your way, but only until Ah find somepony who can tell us what we were really like back then."

With his lack of his old life's memories, Paint Brush cooled off to speak a little more evenly. "Sounds fair. Go on back to the Sparkles then, but come by mah place later so we can move Stopwatch. No matter what happens, Ah ain't letting any harm come to her, at least not until she wakes up." He started gently taking the cocoon up in his untrained telekinesis to hide her in the bedroom.

Pear was about to leave when something occurred to her, making her turn back towards the cocoon. "Wait a tick. Didn't Stopwatch always say if she were disconnected from the queen that she'd die?"

At that, Paint Brush could only shrug in ignorance. "She said that, yeah. Ah guess the pod's there ta keep her alive."

Working with no more information than he was, Pear let the thought go. "See you later tonight then." _And Ah have a certain lead to follow up on Miss Apple Bloom's sister, or should Ah say, Applejack._

* * *

Only a few hours after the raid on Polybia's farm, Kreesus herself flew towards the _Long Shot._ The carrier was a hornet's nest of activity with the next fighter squadron nearly ready to sortie. Flightdeck crewmembers ran to and fro in an organized chaos that Kreesus was all too familiar with. Upon landing, she got a cold reception from the nearest crew members with most deliberately ignoring her, with especially hostile glares from the blue drones.

 _I trust Rainbow Dash will change her tune by the end of this war._ Kreesus outwardly ignored the hostile glares. "Tell your queens that I was right. Polybia's million is real, and they will be here within a day."

Within moments, Rainbow Dash and Twilight teleported from the bridge and onto the flight deck near Kreesus. Being the militant queen, Rainbow spoke up first. As much as she hated Kreesus, even she could see now was not the time for it. "Then I suggest we force her to split up and use hit and run tactics to whittle her down. A force that large is too unwieldy."

"I actually have a different strategy in mind," Kreesus replied in a knowing tone. "We hold Polybia's attention and her might here. By doing that, you can strike her primary hive located on the southern shores of the jungle."

"You want to make a stand here? Against a million?" Twilight asked with only one logical thing in mind: the ley line. "How?" Twilight gave Kreesus a questioning look. "Polybia has to have eyes everywhere. There's no way she could be caught off guard, and there's no chance the carrier could slip away unnoticed."

"Not your carrier, no. She undoubtedly knows that Equestria is sending a fleet, but we can use that fleet's size to our advantage."

Rainbow scowled, but not necessarily at Kreesus. "Split her attention and forces between here and the fleet?"

Kreesus shook her head at the question. "That is only part of it. But I suggest we go a little further than that."

Rainbow arched an inquisitive eyebrow first at Twilight, who shared the gesture, before both turned back towards Kreesus. "Alright, what exactly do you have in mind?" they asked in unison.


	76. Chapter 76

Meet the Troops

Hushed voices murmured amongst themselves as Captain Rourke finished her presentation on the chalkboard. The briefing room was filled with over a dozen Equestrian captains from the various ships in the fleet along with Princess Luna as acting admiral. Rourke stood at the head of the briefing room with her eyes dancing between Cadista and Luna at the inquiries she knew were coming. "Any questions?" she directed at everyone.

Princess Luna bore a sour face, complete with an intense scowl, one she had been wearing since half way through the briefing. It was a look shared by many in the room, outside of Cadista. "I don't like the idea of the _Steamrunner_ going off alone like this. You said it yourself, the new cloaking field isn't perfect."

Cadista felt personal betrayal resurge towards Kreesus at the mention of her once plentiful crystals. "We've had an issue with our admittedly limited production capability. We couldn't have known for sure if the ship's size would become an issue with the cloaking field. We had to abridge the shakedown cruise after all."

"One can hardly blame you for that, Regent Cadista," Luna said with an almost reluctant tone at such a lowly title for her. "What if the weather changes and the skies turn clear?"

"No plan is perfect, your highness," Cadista replied with a polite yet firm tone. "Yet it is the best one we have. Polybia's swarm is simply too large compared to our own to spread it out enough to have a traditional campaign. Not to mention that Chrysalis' scouts have detected a near constant stream of new drones coming from the southern hive."

"I don't like basing our plan of attack on a traitor and the intelligence of a duplicitous queen," one of the more senior pony officers called out. Cadista and Rourke's eyes fell upon the bulldozer of an earth pony with the name Spear Point on his uniform. "I am no stranger to suicide missions, both running and ordering them, but the risk of detection is far too great."

"I firmly stand by my queens, Admiral," Rourke replied with steel matching Cadista. "Time is of the essence. I fear with Equestria starting to turn more of its industry and marepower towards the war effort, Polybia, in her mental instability, might unleash something truly devastating."

 _It amazes me how far Twilight and Rainbow Dash have come as rulers to abide such a terrible risk._ Luna tsked at the whole thing, but wasn't about to argue further. _I can't imagine what they are going through giving such an order to their own children._ "If this is going to work, we need to maximize our chances. I'm going with you."

Rourke was stunned, along with a few of the pony officers. The others, Cadista included, fully expected it out of Luna. "Your company will be much appreciated, your highness."

Those ponies who were not expecting it started clamoring about her safety with a pegasus commander being heard by all. "It's dangerous enough for you being in the vanguard as it is, Princess. Surely-"

"I am not here as just a symbol, Commander Flash," Luna rebuked harshly, cowing the officer back into his seat. Luna took to her hooves and made it a point to stare at each officer in the eyes, to convey what her words could not. "I am here to lend my strength to our friends and allies. My _strength_ does not lay in commanding ships and cunning naval maneuvers." She turned to the pony admiral. "I would be deferring to you far too often if I remained here." She resumed her attention on the rest of the crowd. "My place on the battlefield is in the thick of it with the common soldier, and that is where I shall be.

"I will be trusting all of you to play to your strengths as well, for it is through that, that we shall find victory over Polybia and Grogar."

A brief silence amidst the officers revealed that they knew she brooked no further argument. Shortly, a pale yellow pegasus mare in a skin tight blue uniform stood up. "Then let me and a squad of my best Wonderbolts accompany you."

"Very well, Captain Sky Flurry, but only the best. Polybia will be suspicious if all of your fliers are absent from patrols."

Rourke spoke out before any more volunteers could come forward to stand with the princess. "The _Steamrunner_ is already above maximum capacity in our troop quarters. We can only take on a hoofful more."

The announcement brought about many scowls and hard, yet professional glowers. Luna decided to let the officers brood on their own time. "Flurry, you depart within the hour. The rest of you, get a rotation drawn up for our magi. We have a rogue queen to kill."

* * *

Shortly thereafter, the fleet of seventeen Equestrian warships and the _Steamrunner_ entered a massive cloud bank a few miles south of the ruins of Stripped Gear. Once the fleet was obscured, the _Steamrunner_ broke away while magi on the remaining ships fabricated an enormous doppelganger of the changeling cruiser in its place.

The _Steamrunner_ extended several crystal bound arms around the hull before shimmering into obscurity. However, it was all too easy for the pony observers to spot the rippling air and roiling cloud at the ship's passage.

The Equestrian admiral puffed heavily on his cigar as worry threatened to compromise his ability to command. _I pray those imperfections are unnoticeable at a distance._

* * *

Princess Luna was quick to depart the queen's quarters she was given (in the absence of Twilight and Rainbow Dash), and set out to inspect the troops as it were. Escorting the princess through the halls were two drones being puppeted by their queens.

Twilight was beside herself with worry while Rainbow Dash couldn't help but to admire the princess' commitment. "I hope you like my room," Rainbow said with slight amusement. "Not the best accommodations I admit, but…"

With a thin smile on a hard face, Luna hummed at her. "It is spartan, cramped, and to the point," she said with an approving tone. "Although I suspect the large bed is put to more use than sleeping, given its owner."

All Rainbow did in response was to shrug shamelessly. "What can I say, I enjoy my royal duty."

Twilight rolled her eyes. _I swear, sometimes I wonder whether Rainbow influenced Aegis or the other way around._ "My apologies, Princess. I was the one who ordered the shipwrights to minimize our quarters so we could accommodate more marines."

"Nonsense," Luna declared sternly, catching Twilight off guard. "The last time I was in a real war, I slept in a tent along with every other soldier. It gave me the clarity I feel many generals and… admirals these days forget. I only allowed myself a larger tent for the war table, and nothing else."

"Hear, hear," Rainbow Dash cheered. "Makes the luxury of home all the better I say."

The group was passing through the midline of the ship, closing in on the barracks. The conversation had lapsed enough for Luna to change topics. "How fares your side of battle?"

"Badly," Twilight stated flatly, sapping the joy out of her sister. "Polybia sent twenty thousand after us. We've been able to keep our distance, but it will be difficult to spare a squadron to assist in Kreesus' defense."

 _Not that she shouldn't be left to rot,_ Rainbow fumed heatedly to herself. "I'm not worried about that traitor. She's using the ley line under her hive to conjure up a heavy mana storm around the peak and harden the mountain stone itself. Polybia will have to fight the storm and climb rather than fly. She can hold out indefinitely."

"It's why she's lasted this long in the war, even though she's been surrounded by enemies for centuries."

A Jevruun Vrunningee passing along the ceiling brought Luna's focus on where they were, and the warriors she wanted to see for herself. _Especially that bunch of terrorists._

It was not long before Luna and the two queens passed through the final bulkhead and into the forward most part of the marines' quarters. Luna found herself in the same chamber that Aegis had fought the PCE, only now it was prepared to carry the host of marines within. The large open space in the center had been closed off by removable flooring to allow more bunks and lights. The bunks were two a piece, with enough room for each marine's equipment.

The marines themselves were standing at attention by their beds, awaiting inspection. The narrow confines made it difficult for each marine to stand in a line while giving the royals enough space to move through, so only half of their number were present.

The closest marine, a lieutenant if Luna guessed correctly clicked his hooves at the royals' entry. "Royalty on deck!"

All conversation both physical and over the Link died in an instant with every marine snapping to attention. Rainbow Dash took immense pride, smiling broadly, at the display of military bearing. While Twilight would have liked to avoid physical conflict, she too was impressed by the professionalism of her children.

Luna remained stoic however, falling into old habits she had half expected to be forgotten. After quietly nodding to the changeling officer, she walked deliberately slow down the narrow path to do a proper inspection. _Good. There's none of that softness I've seen all too prevalent in the Equestrian naval staff._

The first few dozen marines Luna, Twilight, and Rainbow Dash observed were all changelings wearing their drab blue or purple uniforms. Each drone wore the opposite color of their fur. _A statement of unity perhaps?_ Luna mused inquisitively.

Held aloft in their magic was each marine's weapon of choice, ranging from short swords and shields, to a specially designed short barreled carbine with gas-based flame throwers being just as common. The latter being without fuel at the moment.

Luna's focus however quickly shifted to the spattering of sphinxes interspersed throughout the rows upon rows of changelings. Both queens quickly picked up on the curious look upon Luna's face, but wordlessly decided to ask her about it later.

However their patience was not needed when Luna came upon a grecian tom with an NCO rank upon his shoulder. "Yelger Vonbukin… You're one of the Psykera who've joined the PR navy I've heard whispers about."

"It is an honor to serve the sister-queens, your highness," he said with professional pride.

Luna revealed nothing through her calm mask. "How far does that honor go, I wonder."

Without a second's hesitation he replied, "I would march on Gilandrus City itself, if asked."

Luna only hummed at the statement, keeping her own council. "Let us hope it never comes to that."

"I concur," Twilight replied evenly as she followed after Luna. Rainbow Dash lingered behind just long enough to convey her approval with a curt nod towards the NCO.

The inspection proceeded at a careful pace. With the _Steamrunner_ now off on its own, and no signs of Polybia, the trio of royals wanted to be sure there were no possible snares. Save for one.

Located in the far stern-port side section of the barrack, and guarded by other marines, was a large group of former PCE ponies who were more than willing to keep to themselves. "I'm surprised they're even allowed to remain armed on your ship."

"They wouldn't be if they hadn't submitted to a geas," Twilight Sparkle replied sourly, and loudly enough for the closest PCE to overhear.

Unlike the marines, some of the PCE ponies had lost any sort of discipline that may once have had. Clothes, weapons, and kit were strewn about as if it were a child's dirty room. The closest PCE pony, a unicorn mare with a scar across her snout perked an ear at the insult. She and several others quickly spotted Luna but ignored the two drones. She quickly bowed and barked at the others to do the same.

"Your highness, Regiment Commander Sea Breeze at your service. I half expected our little penance regiment would be forgotten once we left Equestria."

Luna briefly glanced at the puppets, and noticed their eyes were back to that of normal drones. _They still do not want others to know of that ability do they?_ Playing ignorant of the queens' presence, Luna focused entirely on the former PCE. "Believe me when I say this: the crowns will _not_ forget what you have done. Both past… and present.

"If any of you wish to journey to the Elysian Fields when your time on this plane ends, then act out of honor and penance. Not just so some of you can escape prison and execution."

"You need not fear our sincerity, your highness," Sea Breeze proclaimed.

In disjointed unity, the rest of the PCE came to some semblance of attention. "We offer our lives for the preservation of Equestria and the princesses!"

Twilight, Rainbow, and just about every other changeling who heard the declaration internally scoffed or jeered that them. _They're only here because they'll finally get a chance to kill changelings with the princesses' blessing,_ Rainbow growled to herself.

Luna quickly picked up on the growing friction surrounding her. _I hope this idea of yours doesn't backfire on us all, Tia._ "I trust all of you, both pony and changeling alike, to keep the peace. There is an enemy to direct such energies toward."

Twilight mentally prodded her sister. She's right about that. Plus I don't want you abusing the geas keeping them complacent.

I'm not about to stoop to their level, Twilight, Rainbow hissed back, grumbling that it needed to be said at all. But they're going in the meatgrinder first. Let that be their penitence.

Rainbow Dash withdrew from her puppet while casting her focus on the air battle that would soon resume in earnest. This unfortunately forced the poor drone to race away to find some privacy from the ponies and sphinxes before the after effects became uncontrollable.

Twilight bid Luna goodbye for the time being, but only departed her puppet after the drone was away from public. _What strange bedfellows we've accumulated. That geas doesn't stop them from fleeing. I hope they don't flee at the first sign of what actually hostile changelings are like._

While the fate of the _Streamrunner_ and its crew weighed heavily upon her, Twilight's mind couldn't shake a troubling conundrum. _Everypony is so fixated on the numbers Polybia is showing, but where exactly did she get them all from?_

With the focus of her mind back in her body, Twilight sat back in her throne on the carrier's bridge, pondering the mystery. Yet there was one person who _did_ have an inkling.

Back on the _Streamrunner_ , Cadista was also lost in thought upon her bunk. She was fortunate enough to have a personal, albeit tiny, room. Dearly wishing she had even a lone piece of charcoal and a canvas, instead she poured through her oldest memories. Memories almost as ancient as her race itself, and as dark as the abyss Polybia had perched herself so precariously upon.

 _The numbers simply don't add up. It's too many drones for one queen, and as far as Chrysalis' intelligence says, only a tenth of those drones are undead._ The old, best long forgotten aspect of every living queen today doggedly refused to leave Cadista's mind. _Could we have been fighting nothing but enhanced drones made to look like Polybia? If the dark magic of Grogar has been rotting her mind for the better part of four years… No._ Cadista shot up into a sitting position to grab the glass of water nearby.

She chugged the entire glass in one go, her mind reeling at the prospect. _Could she have really gone to such lengths as to-_ Cadista shuddered heavily at the dark thought. The memory was old, far too old for her to get any real context on it, save that it was heavily tainted with disgust, heresy, and unbound contempt. _Once you eliminate the impossible, the only thing left, no matter how inconceivable… is the truth._

 _Polybia must have awakened the Sa'rook Shol'va within her real body._


	77. Chapter 77

A Deal Once Struck

Towering over the summit of the mountain, Kreesus stood at the focal point of the ley line that ran under her hive. The storm that raged above her deafened those below with the constant clap of thunder. Hurricane force winds roared along the edges of the peak with raw lightning tearing at anything the wind didn't blow away.

And yet Polybia's swarm was as relentless as a machine. The drones' wall walking abilities gave them the strength needed to force their way up, only to be met by Kreesus' defenders. Polybia's climbers were cut down with laughable ease by the numerous spine firing drones nestled all along the edges of the peak, with some in stone towers, giving perfect fields of fire on every approach.

The scant few that survived the deluge of lightning and spines clashed with the thick armored drones that sported sharpened claws and dagger-like legs that rent Polybia's meager survivors asunder.

With Kreesus' link to the ley line, she also enchanted the very mountain itself to be impenetrable to tunneling, leaving the summit the only point of attack.

Yet the week long siege was taking its toll on the hive. Blindly fired spells from below rained death of its own upon her ranks. Blackened and festering tumors sprang up from the impacts, killing drones within seconds, or seeping into the rock itself. Previously, a full squad of Rainbow's marines had been stationed on the summit to lend their talents with holy magic to directly combat Polybia's necrotic assault. However, Polybia had, by either sheer luck or skillful assassination, eliminated the entire squad by the third day. With the the squad dead, and the _Long Shot_ being directly assaulted as well, nothing but a few biplanes could be spared to aid in Kreesus' defense.

With the marines gone, the tainted magic was relentlessly creeping up the summit, even up the sheer cliffs protecting the ranged drones above.

That very same corruption was now seeping into the spire that channeled Kreesus' ley line. Upon the fifth day of the siege, the spire of old stone and wax that stretched thin and tall along the northern edge was now a jet black edifice with motes of sickly purple pulsating within cracks that were widening each moment.

As much as she wanted to, Kreesus couldn't use her holy magic since the ley lines were incapable of channeling such power.

Without even reaching her platform, the toxic magic was poisoning the ley energies she wielded. With five days of no rest and only honey to sustain her, Kreesus was starting to make mistakes. The hurricane force winds slowly faded, the lightning struck increasingly at random, and worst of all, her defenders had been forced back away from their fortifications. The rotting corruption decayed any who stood upon the ground. Even Fluffy itself was being corralled towards the center of the summit.

Its massive hide, while earlier enchanted with holy protection, was already pockmarked with necrotic lesions, yet still it fought with the same ferocity as its smaller kin. Its enormous legs swept the troublesome gnats away, its contours gave other drones protected firing positions. However, its wings had already been burned away in the first few days, leaving the living airship grounded.

* * *

It was an hour til dusk on the fifth day of the siege when Polybia's drones had clawed enough of a foothold on the summit to start exploiting the corrupted soil. Well over three hundred throats started chanting a hymn that clawed at Kreesus' mind. The clawing became a slash within moments, before evolving into an outright verbal spike in her brain as the vile symphony pierced the wind as if it were a calm day.

Starting from the land nearest the ring of Polybia's drones, the corruption that had sunk into the ground all week now erupted in necrotic mana. Kreesus watched in horror as all that was left of the fertile summit quickly burned away by the blackish purple magic as it swept over her remaining troops and scorched Fluffy from end to end.

Her panic redoubled as the erupting corruption raced up the spire. _Damn you, Polybia!_

Left with no choice, Kreesus lept away from the top of the spire as the explosive energies reacted to the ley lines. Upon hitting her channeling platform, the entire spire exploded in a shower of stone and dark magic. The storm above dissipated in one final gush of air that rippled from the center, with enough force to throw dozens of drones off the mountain, ripping their wings to tatters in the process.

Kreesus did not escape the fallout of the exploding spire, and was sent hurtling towards the desecrated ground. Yet before she could splat onto the rock, several of her drones combined their magic to telekinetically arrest her fall so that she could start flying again under her own power.

There was no thanks to her saviors, and none was expected. _It seems the corruption hasn't penetrated very far. I should be safe underground until I can reach my portal chamber._

She had scarcely reoriented herself towards the nearest entryway when a deep mechanical buzz joined that of changeling beating wings. She looked towards the lip of the summit to see three full squadrons of biplanes roar into the airspace above, raining flak and small holy-infused bombs all across the poison choked battlefield.

The footholds Polybia had secured were blasted away with the holy bombs giving Kreesus' scant few remaining surface defenders small patches of consecrated ground to make one final stand. Explosions rattled the summit as Kreesus made a beeline straight for the nearest cavernous entrance, sending shards of rock and bits of drones raining upon her. It didn't take her long to reach the relative safety of the entrance into the deeper hive. But before descending into the depths, she felt her gaze drawn back towards Fluffy.

The living airship was still fighting with the ferocity of a cornered animal, yet it was never meant to walk. So it lay there like a living hill, with Polybia's undead horde seeking to tear it down, one scale at a time. With his thick iron-like scales, the biplanes were free to fire on the of ghoulified mass that was trying to claw their way into Fluffy's much softer interior. However, with Kreesus' more mobile defenders being pushed back to the hive entryways, Polybia was able to focus her counterattacks towards the biplanes and bringing Fluffy down. As searing bolts of mana started filling the skies, the aircraft started being torn from the skies, one by one.

Several of Polybia's drones combined their efforts to fire larger burrowing spells into Fluffy's scales, threatening to pierce through to its vital organs.

Kreesus ordered the other entryways to be collapsed. Before abandoning the Summit and Fluffy, Kreesus glared hatefully at the nearest living drone of Polybia. She flared her horn and latched onto the hapless puppet and pulled it from the sky while a different spell sliced it's horn off at the base. Kreesus brought the helpless drone before her and shook it violently. "You honorless filth! Mark my words, Polybia, I'll pay you back a thousand fold for what you've done to me!"

Polybia didn't bother taking too much control over the puppet, and simply spoke through it. "You had your chance to cast your vote to cancel my rogue status. You brought this on yourself."

"I would never forsake my honor by siding with you!" Kreesus threw the drone against the stone wall of the entrance, heedless of the air war above her growing ever more desperate.

The puppet chuckled, uncaring about spurting up blood in the process. "Your idea of honor already cost you your friendship with Cadista, and any chance of having a loving daughter." Kreesus bristled with rage, and started strangling the smirking puppet. With a final breath, Polybia poured on the contempt like rain. "Now it will cost you your hive and your future."

Kreesus' rage overtook her and she snapped the puppet's neck, and hurled it as far as she could before it could explode in a necrotic bomb. _The future of our race is everything. And I'll rest that future in Twilight and Rainbow's hooves._

With the rest of Polybia's forces running the gauntlet of aircraft fire to reach Kreesus, she left the corpse behind and ordered the entrance to be collapsed. The act would only buy her time. With the ley line spire destroyed, the ribbon of the world's magic sank back down into the depths of the earth, and far out of Kreesus' reach. And with it, the enchantment upon the mountain side that kept it too hard for Polybia to burrow through. Within moments of the enchantment dying away, the tens of thousands of drones Polybia still had on the mountain side started worming their way in.

* * *

It was dusk on the sixth day when the siege ended. High up the lonely mountain, an entire wing of bi-planes made a pass over a blackened mountain summit. With Polybia's swarm withdrawing en masse from the area, the _Long Shot_ had moved in close and now loomed a few kilometers to the north while half of it's remaining fighters scouted out the battlefield.

Through the eyes of their pilots, Twilight and Rainbow Dash saw a mountainside blanketed in drones, undead or otherwise, that had been torn asunder. Giant cracks in the ancient stone crisscrossed throughout the summit along with thousands of new tunnels threatening to bring the whole mountain down. Alongside the drones were several biplanes that had joined them in death. Those pilots had long since fallen silent in the Link.

As the first scout plane passed over the lip of the summit and into the farmland, what lay beyond was more of the same: blackened, smokey ruins. Honey pot drones, large individuals with abdomens bloated full of honey to feed the defenders, were dead to the last, having been too ponderous to be evacuated effectively once the front line broke down. Their golden honey now burnt into useless char. The crops and the very soil had been poisoned heavily by dark magic, leaving what plants that had survived to start growing tumors and malformations. Well over a dozen more wrecked aircraft added to the thousands of dead.

Towering over them all was Fluffy who was somehow still alive, but only just. Every crack, every injury, and entryway into the living airship sported blackish purple signs of necrotic decay. The leviathan's breathing was loud and labored, and it didn't help that the shattered remains of a biplane was lodged in one of it's many throats. The aircraft's burning fuel only worsening Fluffy's miserable state.

Yet the most disturbing thing to both the queens and pilots, was how quiet it was. Neither Twilight Sparkle or Rainbow Dash had been spared the darker elements of a battle's aftermath, from the tutelage of Celestia and Spitfire, respectively. Aside from the slow wind, a few smoldering fires, and Fluffy's wheezing there was no sound. No moaning or screaming of the wounded and dying, only the silence of the grave.

Twilight sat on her throne aboard the carrier's bridge, the tension in the air was palpable. The thought of so much death, even if they were drones with no individual will, weighed heavily upon the entire crew. "Do you think Kreesus is still alive? Her liaison went feral so…"

Rainbow Dash's scowl was pressed into a thin line, and dragged out her response. "I feel obligated to hope she is. We saw several of those undead Silence Behemoths trying to climb up the side." Twilight gave her something between a scowl and a sigh, but otherwise remained silent.

 _What I wouldn't give for peacetime again._ Steeling herself, Twilight refocused on the ruined battlefield. I need some volunteers to search Fluffy in case Kreesus took refuge within it.

Every last one of the carrier's fifty marines stepped forward, but Rainbow Dash stepped in to only allow half their number to go. After amending Twilight's order, Rainbow leaned across her throne to speak with her sister. "We can't risk everypony in that deathtrap. Why else would Poly leave Fluffy still breathing?"

With her mind fully drawn back to the matters at hand, Twilight nodded in agreement. "Good point. Polybia's withdraw might not have been total. I need magi to report to the field. Start purifying that necrotic magic while time and opportunity allows. _Less rot for us to clean up later on._

"I hope you don't plan on us sticking around for long, Twi. We rescue Kreesus, then we're gone. Assuming she's still alive."

* * *

With the biplanes forming a perimeter around the mountain, the single squad of magi started working on channeling the purifying light of the Silver City upon the worst of the necrotic corruption.

Two teams of marines, weapons held at the ready, found two of Fluffy's normal entry points. The locations were little more than large sphincters that had been torn apart with blood and ichor oozing slowly onto the rocky ground. Rainbow Dash watched closely through the team-leader's eyes while Twilight took a more diluted view by watching through all the marines at once.

Fluffy's resting place was atop a broken stone watch tower in the middle of what used to be a corn field. The structure had once housed a cadre of spine flinging drones, but was now little more than crushed rock and lifeless husks. The farming fields were a festering mass of plants being slowly mutated by the dense dark magic. Worst yet, a heavy nauseating miasma was starting to pool along the ground, and was slowly rising in areas where the wind was slow. If left unchecked, the mountain could end up spilling the corruption down into the jungle below. We need to find the Traitor, so let's make this quick, Rainbow ordered as the troopers came in for a landing near Fluffy. There's no telling how long it'll take before that corn starts spewing poison clouds or something. I want Cleaner Team Theta burning out those crops.

With the point-drones levitating a pair of steel shields in front of them, they led the rest of their squads up a mound of rock and broken flesh to reach the entryways.

Yet before Rainbow's group could step hoof into Fluffy, a small stone shot out in a slow, lazy arc. Thinking faster than the marines, Rainbow quickly puppeted the flamethrower trooper, who was directly behind the shieldbearer, and held the stone in the air while Twilight, through the rest of the drones' horns, snapped off a quick counterspell to disarm the expected mana bomb.

However, nothing happened. No spell fired from the stone for the counterspell to disarm. The marines clumped up to watch for any hostile drones to pop up from hiding places, but again, nothing revealed itself.

With no threat presenting itself, Rainbow brought the stone before her puppet's eyes. "A Stone of Parley?"

"I didn't want you killing my messenger on sight," called a familiar voice from the darkened depths of Fluffy. The changelings of Phoenix Roost bristled at Polybia's voice, and only readied for a fight even more when a single tan drone stepped out in front of Rainbow's group. The drone had pieces missing in it's chitin along with a fractured horn, but by the color of it's exposed flesh, it was clear that this drone was not among the undead.

Rainbow promptly assumed full control of her puppet with Twilight taking the shieldbearer. "Why shouldn't we? You don't get to call parley anymore!"

"Maybe not, but I at least, still honor it."

Twilight drew herself up into a proud stance that smacked of insult, one of the few times she let the Canterlot noble in her show through. "Just like you 'honored' the sanctity of the last summit?"

"We've all done things we regret." Polybia ignored the threatening glares to gaze upon the corrupted ground she had wrought. "I'm sure Kreesus could attest to that."

Rainbow Dash leveled her squad leader's flamethrower, aiming it right at the head of Polybia's puppet. "You've got ten seconds before I melt your face off!"

"Well I suppose I should start off by telling you, you're safe from me while you're on this mountain."

 _This should be good,_ Twilight mused humorlessly as she placed a hoof in front of Rainbow's awaiting flamethrower. "And why should we believe you?"

Rainbow shot Twilight a cold glare with her real body, but didn't let it show through her puppet. Twilight knew her well enough to speak before Rainbow could challenge her. "There's no point in attacking a single drone. Let's see what info we can get out of her."

Satisfied with that, Rainbow nodded with her real body, and lowered her puppet's flamethrower. She still regarded Polybia's puppet with harsh bitterness. "Don't tell me you're getting second thoughts on this whole war."

"My victory is already guaranteed, Queen Dash. Your warship is hobbled with so many of its flying machines destroyed." Rainbow moved to argue, only for Polybia to continue uncaringly. "Kreesus is dead by my hoof, you can check the Parley Stone if you don't take my word for it." Twilight and Rainbow hesitated and took a look at the stone more closely. Aside from it being a sphere engraved by the symbol of parley, there was nothing else of note.

Um, Twi, were we supposed to personalize those things?

Mom never told me to, Twilight replied with equal confusion.

"...and I will soon descend upon Chrysalis' hives as well," Polybia rattled off like she was a salesman. "I would prefer to leave you alive, and avoid antagonizing Equestria."

Twilight gave her a slightly troubled look. _Has she become so unhinged that she's detached from reality?_ "You _are_ aware that an Equestrian fleet will be here within the hour."

"This dark magic may be clouding my thoughts, but I am not so addled yet as to miss that," Polybia countered with a flash of annoyance. However, a flash of her daughter living in the Sparkle house soared to the forefront of her mind. "But none of them have died yet," she said with brief flash of wavering emotion, "and I would prefer to keep it that way."

Rainbow Dash scoffed harshly at her. "Why do you care about others all of a sudden?" She waved a hoof at the desecrated ground. "You seem plenty willing to poison everything around you."

"You think I _want_ to use dark magic?!" Polybia roared at Rainbow, bringing the blue queen up short out of surprise more than intimidation. "I was losing this war, horribly in the first year and a half. It was either use that magic or die, don't you dare tell me you'd have chosen differently."

"Don't act like you know me!" Rainbow snapped back heatedly. However, Twilight placed a restraining hoof across Rainbow chest. "I'd rather die than kill the very land I call home!" With her patience gone, Rainbow started to squeeze the flamethrower's trigger, only for Twilight to telekinetically push the weapon off target.

Hold on, there's still more information we can get out of her. Rainbow's inner soldier warred with her need to smack some sense into Polybia.

Damn it… Fine. It'll buy time for the fleet to link up with us anyway.

With her sister mollified, Twilight addressed Polybia with wary caution. "You made a deal with Grogar. He's the source of your new power is he not?"

"A deal?!" Polybia belted off a disturbingly unhinged laugh that echoed through the dying land. Twilight saw the barely checked madness behind Polybia's eyes, while all Rainbow Dash beheld was a mad mare. "What kind of fool do you think I am? I've enslaved that demon and robbed him of his magic."

Twilight saw an opening and jumped for it. "He's a being of untold age and power, Polybia. He must be manipulating you through that magic-"

"You think I don't know that?" Polybia barked with none of the hidden madness showing through now. Brackish purple mana churned around the puppet's horn, worsening the horrid miasma to be almost overpowering to the senses. "He may be old, but he was still foolish to think my will was as feeble as some short-lived mortal, so I got the better of him.

"As for his magic, for all the military success it's given me, it has cost me my place in the Silver City." Polybia's eyes narrowed to thin slits. "But once I defeat Chrysalis, you two will be the only ones left to correct that."

"Is that a threat?" Rainbow demanded while powering her horn with the odd mixture of silver and gold light of her holy magic. In the back of her mind, she remembered Sectovaria, but decided to let Polybia assume she was dead.

Polybia's puppet seemed to detach from her motor control by adopting a completely unemotional standing posture. The dark magic swirling around it's horn died away. It took her a few moments to speak again, and this time her tone was much calmer. "No, Queen Rainbow Dash, it's a peace offering."

"Peace?" Twilight couldn't stop herself from raising an eyebrow at that one. "As tempting as that is, the Laws of the Summit are crystal clear. Any queen declared rogue must be hunted down and killed by the other queens. I would think anyone as well versed in the old dogma as you are would know that."

"Unless of course, you, the Prime Matriarchs, nullify my rogue status."

Rainbow Dash chuckled derisively to spite Polybia. "As if we'd ever do that. You're so hopped up on dark mojo you broke _The_ law. If I got busted in Bolt School for getting hammered, you can bet your tail I'm not going to listen to any excuses about dark magic."

"And what if I gave you Grogar to do with as you will? Without the need to fight for him." Polybia countered sternly as if it was a trump card. "That's the main reason why you and Equestria are here, after all." Polybia leered at Rainbow Dash. "Is hunting me down really worth the lives of your children? Or the mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters in the Equestrian fleet, what about them?"

Twilight's hackles rose with a fiery sneer marring her face. "Then they would have died protecting the world from Grogar and his influence. They would be welcomed into the Silver City or Elysian Fields as heroes. For someone who has fed on ponies for centuries, you act as if you know nothing about them."

Rainbow Dash shot Twilight an approving look while Polybia reclaimed motor control over the puppet and rubbed the frill on the back of it's neck, speaking in a haunted tone. "Quite the contrary, Queen Twilight Sparkle, I know them better than you do." Both Twilight and Rainbow scoffed dismissively, not that the act dissuaded Polybia from continuing. "Let me enlighten you about ponies, Queens Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash. As far as the world is concerned, they are a friendly, intelligent, loved-filled people, but only so long as their little perfectly ordered world remains intact. Once that world is shattered, two kinds of ponies emerge: the skittish cowards, and the aberrations.

"Those ponies that strangely lack that prey-like tendency to run and hide, but will instead fight the cause of that shattering with every fiber of their being. Those that will wade ears deep through a lava dog that threatened a comrade, uncaring about the lethal burns he received." The puppet made a show of looking behind Twilight and Rainbow, drawing their eyes as well to reveal the leading edges of the Equestrian Navy were close enough to be seen. "And now a legion of such ponies is on my very doorstep.

"Sure, I have enough drones and magic to obliterate Chrysalis, you, and potentially the ponies' fleet, even with Luna leading the charge. However, my mind is not so addled yet to be so foolish to think I could take on the rest of those aberrations your 'peaceful' allies harbor."

Twilight Sparkle mulled over the admission, while Rainbow took a few seconds to put the dots together. _Hey, she better not be calling_ me _an aberration!_

Twilight spoke up before Rainbow could rattle off a colorful barb. "Tell you what, Polybia," Twilight began sternly, "you stop marching on Chrysalis right now, and deliver Grogar to us here. That will give the princesses reason to pull the fleet back before things get even worse for you."

"If you win this war with Chrysalis," Twilight continued, only to have Rainbow Dash sharply cross a leg in front of Twilight, silencing her.

"No." She gave Twilight an ironclad glare that demanded agreement. "As much as Chrysalis is a grade A moldy salad tosser, I won't abandon her like this. No freak'n way!" Twilight didn't have it in her to argue, but Rainbow was wise enough to know that Grogar was still the bigger threat, and turned to address Polybia while lowering her hoof. "You give us Grogar, and we'll call off the Equestrian fleet, and make sure they don't call for vengeance should you somehow bring us down. Not that I see that happening."

Polybia took a step back and turned away to think. _Hmm. With what forces I still have, I should be able to eliminate Chrysalis in a matter of weeks. After that, it would be child's play to subdue that paltry airship of theirs and force a surrender without needing to kill them. Yes… That will do perfectly._ Hiding the massive grin behind the passive face of her puppet, Polybia dipped her head in respect. "I can accept that. I will require two weeks to deliver him to you here."

"Two weeks?" both other queens cried in unison. "Why would it take you that long?"

Polybia felt mildly disturbed by Twilight and Rainbow speaking in one voice, but shrugged it off. "Grogar has made numerous attempts to take control or escape, so I have placed multiple layers of wards and protections around him. It will take time to dismantle them safely and… prepare him for transport. I will not risk letting him break free."

This time, Rainbow Dash spoke alone. "Fine, sure. You stay away from Sticky Spit until then, and we'll hang around the mountain until you do. But know that we'll be watching, Poly."

"I would expect nothing less. I will leave this puppet with you should we need to speak further." Polybia didn't bother hiding her profound relief. "I-I, I thank you two."

Her queenly pride couldn't allow her to lose face any further, so she departed her puppet in a hurry. Upon seeing the puppet's eyes return to their normal solid blue, Twilight quickly cast a holding spell on it, just in case. Sargeant, get our 'guest' somewhere secure and away from anything sensitive. I'll need to bring this new development up with Luna.

Rainbow Dash waited for the drones to comply and drag off the compliant puppet before pulling her sister aside. You really think we can trust her with this?

Twilight's jaw was set in stone as she planned on what to do next, and how to broach the conversation with Luna. Not really. She may have acted sincere, but she's gone nuts. Buuut, as long as she pulls back from her march on Chrissy, I'll give her a chance. At the very least it will give the _Steamrunner_ enough time to get into position.

Rainbow was slow to nod in agreement. Sounds about right. We're in no position to chase her down with the planes right now anyway. She gave a brief snorting laugh. Ol Sticky Spit won't like it.

Twilight was silent for a moment as she drew her gaze upon one of the razed grain silos. She felt like she was being watched, but couldn't narrow the location down. However, she suspected she knew exactly who owned those eyes. "Maybe not. But she knows the ponies are mostly here for Grogar."

* * *

Perched upon the broken ruin of a grain silo, one of Chrysalis' spies had used some subtle magic to listen in on the entire conversation. Her jaw was set in a permanent scowl, watching as Twilight and Rainbow's forces took custody of Polybia's puppet. The rest moved to start cleansing the land. _You always did have a card to play, Polybia. Well this is one time you've played the wrong hand._

Chrysalis left the scout to remain hidden while her mind returned to her body. She was seated upon her ebony stone throne with her remaining sister, Jstrul, sitting on a large pillow nearby. A single drone was standing before her, parroting everything Chrysalis' scout had just heard. "Tell me this is just a ploy, sister," Jstrul half pleaded. "Do you really think Equestria would just abandon Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash?"

Chrysalis was silent upon her throne, taking a long drag of some tea to organize her thoughts. She placed the cup back onto a tray a servant drone was carrying. "Sister, what you just heard was guile from the one source you'd never think to look. We'll have to move quickly to intercept Grogar before the transfer."

Jstrul tsked and grabbed her seeing-eye drone to prop herself up. "Guile? They just threw away the ponies' support!" she growled bitterly. "Face it sister, with them gone, we don't have the numbers anymore to stand against Polybia, ancient goat demon or not! And that so called 'carrier' and a single troop transport ship could never tip the balance."

The chamber fell silent as Chrysalis weighed her options, bleak though they were. _I still can't believe she crushed Kreesus so quickly. The Mountain lasted for a year the last time anyone dared to lay siege against it. Aside from a non-crippled Stripped Gear, that place was the strongest fortress hive I've ever seen._

 _If only the fall were a ruse though. The drones that Kreesus had left in her second hive were already breaking down into a feral mess by the time I thought to check on it. So either she's really dead, or she's selling the ruse at terrible cost._

"Are you listening to me?" Jstrul barked as she hobbled towards her sister. Chrysalis gave her a warning glare, but Jstrul would not be deterred. "We should take advantage of the breathing room their little pact gave us and flee while we still can."

"Sister…" Chrysalis had a nearby drone gently caressed her sister's jaw with the patience of saint. Some small part of her though, wished she could perform the comforting act personally. "This is not a foolishness on Rainbow's part, as strange as it may sound, but a gift of time. Time I will not waste by abandoning the last hive we have left. If Twilight and Rainbow clearly want us to sabotage Polybia like Kreesus did with Stripped Gear, then I'm more than happy to oblige." _It's a shame that Polybia wasn't the one who sabotaged Stripped Gear, the irony would be just too exquisite._ Chrysalis gave a forlorn sigh at the lost opportunity.

Jstrul didn't want to let go of her suspicion on her sister's words alone. Too much was at stake. Not only for themselves, but for the love producing daughters they still possessed. "Let's say you're right, and you manage to break Grogar out of Polybia's grasp. How do you intend to control him?"

Jstrul stood a little straighter now that her sister was doing more than waiting and watching. Chrysalis eventually pulled away from her sister to lounge on her ebony throne. "Fear not, dear sister, I have my ways."

* * *

Hours later, the Equestrian fleet linked up with the _Long Shot_ along the northern face of the mountain ruins. With Luna aboard the _Steamrunner,_ it fell to the top two senior pony officers to represent the fleet: Commander Flash, and Admiral Steel Wing. The two of them and Cadista had been summoned aboard the carrier to be briefed on the deal Twilight and Rainbow had struck with Polybia. The room was actually the same place the pilots were typically briefed on operations, so the ponies were a bit tickled by the school desks and blackboard that still detailed the airsupport of Kreesus' hive. Not that they dared let it show.

Cadistia had been broodingly silent during the entire briefing while Admiral Steel, a pegasus stallion with a large burn scar on his face, voiced his sour opinion. "With respect, your highnesses, this sounds like an excuse for Polybia to buy time so that she can reorganize her forces to attack Chrysalis or us."

"That thought occurred to me as well," Rainbow Dash commented. "So I chatted with Little Miss Necromancer afterwards. She knows that if she moves her forces from their current positions the deal is off. Worst case, she gets a few dozen more drones to hatch, kinda minor all things considered."

Rainbow's mildly dismissive comment drew Cadista out of her silence. She gave the two ponies a dour look. "Gentlecolts, I have a changeling matter to bring up with the queens. Could you step out for a minute?"

Commander Flash studied Cadista's face for a moment, trying to glean the reason for the request. "If this is something to do with the battle to come, we should all be present."

Rainbow shared an inquisitive glance with Twilight before addressing the officers. "If it relates to the battle, guys, I'll share it with you afterwards. Is that fair, Granny?"

"If you feel the need to, that will be your prerogative." Cadista tilted her head at Rainbow.

 _At least they have the manners to not have a silent conversation with us in the same room._ Admiral Steel smoothed his uniform with a few swipes of his hooves and made for the door. "If you must have your privacy, then I won't stand in your way."

"Nor I," Commander Flash said at length and followed after him, but stopped at the door to cast a wary eye at Cadista. However he said nothing further and closed the metal door.

Satisfied they were alone, Twilight started erasing the blackboard to occupy herself. "What's wrong, mother?"

Cadista collected her thoughts before speaking in the most serious tone she was capable of. "I believe Polybia has wakened the Sa'rook Shol'va within herself." She fully expected the questioning looks from the royal sisters, and pressed on without missing a beat. "Twilight, are you familiar with termite queens?"

"Ah - somewhat. I researched them a little because they curiously mimic us a bit. Why?"

"Sa'rook Shol'va is the old name for a queen awakening more of our insectoid nature and allowing herself to develop a massive egg sack many times her original size. Thus allowing her to lay hundreds of eggs daily."

The sisters' eyes went wide as dinner plates with Rainbow sputtering a clumsy response. "Hhhundreds!? Geeez, I love laying eggs as much as the next queen, but that's just _nuts._ "

Rainbow's claim gave Twilight's brain time to contemplate. "That _would_ explain some things. But why are the other queens not doing the same thing? Four years of war should have taken a serious toll on all of them."

"Because it is viewed as a terrible dishonor to inflict upon yourself," Cadista stated firmly with a stamp of her hoof, just to make sure neither Twilight nor Rainbow Dash got any funny ideas. "Admittedly, I have only a vague memory of the practice, probably something my previous self left behind. For the past week, I've had dozens of my children comb the old tomes we managed to salvage from the destruction of my hive. The Sa'rook Shol'va is told to be a long and involved process to get started, but more importantly it is irreversible and is profoundly abhorrent to behold. You slowly become nothing more than a massive worm as your body is consumed by the unquenchable need to lay more and more eggs.

"Eventually, you lose yourself entirely, until there is nothing left of your mind save a barely intelligent egg factory."

Rainbow shuddered in disgust at the mere thought of it. _Ugh, no way I could ever give up being able to fly, or think for that matter._ A thought struck Rainbow out of her revolted musings. "Hey, wait. If you become a non-thinking worm, then how come Poly is still - eh - mostly intelligent?"

"That I can not say for certain," Cadista replied with no small amount of fear. "The journal my children found that information in is potentially as old as my past life. Polybia may have found a way to keep her mind from falling apart."

Twilight had to force the mental image of Aegis doing that to herself out of her mind before it got stuck there. "If you're right, that means Polybia was never at the Summit to begin with. Let alone ever fighting with her real body."

"And her crimes continue to mount," Cadista replied with a dark tone that hammered the consequences home for the sisters. "I fear offering Polybia amnesty will prove to bite us in the end."

"But we practically gave our word," Twilight shot back with more defensiveness than she meant to. "Yes Polybia being rogue is a major problem, but Grogar is the root of all of this. I _don't_ want to have to fight Polybia who would feel like she's been backed into a corner while intoxicated by necrotic magic."

The room went quiet as the trio mulled over their predicament. That was until Rainbow came up with an idea that felt like sour milk in her brain. "I hate to say this, but what about Chrysalis? You think she understood what we wanted?"

Twilight didn't even bother trying to hide the self-deprecating half-chuckle. "I think so, yes. I'm only worried that she might seize Grogar for herself."

Cadista was quick to recall what Twilight filled her in on an hour ago. "That's the trick, I'm afraid. Any move on our part prior to Chrysalis' own could be seen by Polybia as us reneging on our deal."

Rainbow Dash felt like hitting something, and the wooden back of the nearest chair was looking very punchable. "See, this is why I hate wheeling and dealing."

Twilight gave a long sigh and flopped down on one of the drone sized chairs. "...As much as Chrysalis loves to vex us, she hasn't really done anything to harm us ever since the wedding invasion."

"That we know of," Rainbow reminded her with clear bitterness. "But even so, Poly's already proven she's unstable, and you can't fix crazy like that."

"Then we wait," Cadista said with a grumbling sigh. "And see what kind of stunt Chrysalis pulls."

* * *

Deep within a dank dimly lit cavern, Kreesus slowly cracked her eyes open. The potent mixture of a powerful sleep spell and toxins started to abate. Her drowsy mind was slow to recognize the neck-deep thick sludge. The stench of rotten eggs and decay hit her next, drawing her rapidly awake.

Her first act was to try and climb out of the sludge, but found her legs were bound together by what felt like wax and her horn was slathered in wax as well, keeping her from even casting a light spell to see.

Even so, changelings had naturally strong night vision, and she was able to make out several drones standing along the edge of the pool with more latched onto the walls and stalactites above. Each of them started buzzing their wings upon seeing she was awake, clearing out the rotten smell in the room for a strangely pleasant, almost hypnotically calming smell akin to a flower garden fresh from a light spring rain.

Kreesus' thoughts started to haze over as she started falling asleep again until a realization snapped her out of it. _NO! This smell! Why do I remember it? Mother. Yes. Mother made me remember it as that unholy taboo!_

The name of the taboo escaped her, only the smell and unequal disgust far beyond what she thought she was capable of feeling came with it. She renewed her struggles, struggling in vain against her bindings and the thick sludge.

One of the drones stopped vibrating its wings as Polybia's eyes replaced its original solid blue. She looked down at Kreesus with mild intrigue. "Strange. You shouldn't be able to awaken at this phase."

"This is wrong, Polybia!" Kreesus spat, surprising Polybia that she didn't start at the 'what's happening' phase of the conversation. "Inflicting this on another queen is almost as equal a crime as breaking the sanctity of the Summit!"

Polybia's puppet furrowed its brow and leaned down to be more face to face. "Why does everyone keep saying that? Is it simply because it's happening to you? Do you even know what _it_ is?"

Kreesus ignored the question and spat a wad of salve in the puppet's right eye. "Then I'm not the first one. How many others have you done this too?"

Polybia casually wiped away the salve as if she was tired of the routine. "You'll be number six if that makes you feel special. Don't try getting word out via some drone. I made sure to sever you completely from any of them."

"Six!?" Kreesus' fury started to actually punch through Polybia's indifference. "You - you" Kreesus was so blinded by mounting indignation that should couldn't think of a suitably scathing retortsomething scathing. "I hope when you try to enter the Silver City, the First Mother herself will be ready to slam the gates in your face!"

"The First Mother?" Polybia cried with sudden amusement. She cackled madly, giving in to the madness for almost a minute before thrusting the puppet's face into Kreesus' snout. "My use of necro magic aside, the First Mother would practically be there to throw the gates open for me!"

Polybia let Kreesus have a moment to think before pulling away from the trapped queen. "See, for all of Queen Twilight's faults and lackluster view on the true First Mother, she does get one thing right: she pays attention to history." Polybia flourished by placing a hoof on her chest. "Granted I don't as much as I should, but I at least know the Sa'rook Shol'va was a great honor the First Mother employed on her allies."

"Have you truly lost the last shred of your sanity!?" Kreesus' voice cracked with boiling rage. "If it's such a great honor, then do it to yourself!"

Polybia thought about that for a few moments before vigorously shaking her head. "No, no, that's not how it works. It is only honorable to have it gifted to you, not to do it to yourself. Yes… that's right." She stood up with a troubled furrowed brow. "That has to be right. Of course it is…"

Polybia kept blankly repeating the same self-reassurances as the puppet dragged its hooves as it made its way out of the cavern. Kreesus screamed more damnations and incriminations at the withdrawing puppet, but if Polybia could hear her, she made no reaction. All that mattered in Polybia's mind was that she was clearly in the right. That she was still just in the eyes of the First Mother. She had to be. Clearly the others were mistaken, the facts had been lost to time. Yes, that must be the case.

It was no longer self-reassurance, but a simple statement of fact, as if it had always been that way.


	78. Chapter 78

For Whom the Bell Tolls

Polybia's biggest hive was by all accounts the most vulnerable, to the right tool. With the war paused for the time being, Polybia's drones filled the skies and blanketed the ground. Her hundreds of thousands of eyes and ears were peeled for the one person Polybia expected to make a move: Chrysalis.

All throughout the deep tunnels beneath the jungle, Polybia had hundreds of drones listening for the sounds of digging. Too bad for her, the internal security was all focused on Grogar as Polybia herself carefully undid the wards keeping his power more or less in check.

Nestled within the massive prison, and close to the lowest point in the hive, hundreds of pods containing the civilized world's worst criminals remained perpetually asleep in their pods. The room was dark, save for a scant few green glowing lichens and a drone or two keeping an eye on the rows upon rows of pods. The occupants of three of the newest set of pods began to stir. Within minutes, the light of magic lived for but a moment before dimming again. Yet the act of carving a section of the pod away was a success.

A unicorn mare, a scarred sphinx tom, and a crystal pony stallion dropped out of the pods. Green flames licked over them to reveal them to be Chrysalis' changelings. Using a sound dampening spell, she gave the three spies a few precious moments to clear their lungs of the goo. _Poor, poor, Polybia. You really should do more thorough inspections of your acquisitions._

When the trio of spies recovered enough strength, Chrysalis had one of their number snare the two caretakers in a very mild charm. Just strong enough to keep the two of them believing the three broken pods were normal, hardly worth informing Polybia about, yet soft enough to escape Polybia's attention.

The other two spies ate as much of the pod goo as they could without getting bloated. It was a vile, tongue coating, yet nutritious meal. Something the infiltrators would not likely have access to again. Lastly, they fed vigorously upon the love of several captives, just to top things off.

Once they had their fill, the two drones took on the tan colored guise of the common drone among Polybia's hive. _I'll have to time my distraction carefully. As addled as that harlot is, it won't do to make a mistake._

As the two spies made their way to the tunnels, the dull sound of constant hoof beats on stone and soil echoed through the cylindrical passageway. _Now, with Polybia so focused on Grogar and keeping the jungle from eating away at her swarm, this shouldn't be too difficult._

* * *

High above that very hive, the _Steamrunner_ lingered patiently in the night sky. The same could not be said for its crew. Upon the bridge, Captain Rorke managed to keep herself occupied by listening in on the hive mind and delegating mundane tasks of keeping the marines ready to deploy. Princess Luna however, was not so lucky. With no word on when or even if Chrysalis would strike, she couldn't even bring herself to enter the dreamscape for an hour, lest she miss the critical window of action.

Presently, the princess was stepping onto the bridge right as the night shift was taking over. Rorke was about to step off and retire to her captain's quarters, which was little more than a small room directly adjacent to the lower level of the two-deck bridge.

Unlike the _Deception_ and _Long Shot_ before it, the _Steamrunner_ had much more sophisticated fire control systems and a magic map that could display the marines' location for the non-queens. Unfortunately, that also made the bridge's lower level quite large, rivaling the carrier's conning tower in size.

It was at the lower entryway in which Luna entered the command room. She found the primary changeling ground general, Commander Placeholder quietly speaking with Captain Sky Flurry of the Wonderbolts. Sky Flurry had bags under his eyes; his normally keen gaze reddened from subsisting on coffee for too long. The changeling commander fared little better. Captain Sky Flurry was perusing his notes and the placement of Polybia's known forces on the map, while Placeholder was in the middle of leaving.

Both officers quickly bowed before Luna who was quick to wave off such formalities. "Bowing in the field is unnecessary, even if we are safe inside this ship." The officers gave polite acknowledgement, allowing Luna to continue uninterrupted. "Any word from your queens?" she directed at Placeholder.

Placeholder gave a sympathetic head shake. "Only to keep watching for any signs that Grogar might be on the loose, or if chaos in general breaks out."

Luna was no stranger to the old military adage of "hurry up and wait". That still didn't make the waiting part any less annoying. Not that she risked letting that show on her face. "Very well. Unless Chrysalis was somehow waiting for this exact opportunity, I believe we have a couple of days at the very least before said 'general chaos' occurs. Have the troops and gun crews rest while we can.

"Even if Polybia managed to somehow see us through the cloak, we can honestly say we're keeping watch."

"I will pass the word along, your highness," Placeholder replied with a respectful nod.

Commander Flash inwardly grumbled at what he felt he needed to ask. "Princess, I hesitate to broach this idea, but what about the Discord option?"

Despite her usual collected manner, Luna couldn't stop herself from staring at him for a moment out of stunned shock. Thankfully, she recovered quickly enough before embarrassment set in, only to take on a tone of pure mockery at the idea by giving a shuttering humorless laugh. "Let's get one thing clear. He is _not_ an option." Luna was mentally brought back to a lengthy discussion with Cadence and Celestia. "After that debacle with Terek, that serpentine menace is lucky he's not a statue again. Calling him in to do anything is just asking for the plan to fail. The last thing we need is another ancient being giving him a new reason to renege upon his supposed 'reformation'."

Placeholder inwardly chuckled at Luna's fuming, though he dared not show it. "I have to agree. Best to leave him placated in the capable hooves of Dame Fluttershy."

Commander Flash bowed in acknowledgement even as Luna kept muttering Discord's name as a curse. "Of course, I simply believe in exploring all the options. Even the strange ones."

* * *

Sneaking through Polybia's hive was not overly difficult, but the sheer size of it made the effort time consuming. After a day of keeping a low profile, Chrysalis had completed a workable map of the hive. The prison, where her spies had emerged from, was in an isolated chamber on the far northern side that had only one tunnel leading to and from it. Beyond that, the primary drone cluster for those not currently needed served as one of many travel hubs.

Chrysalis found almost everything else to be typical of a hive, for the technologically challenged broods at least. Nothing was centralized. Drone sleeping chambers, food stores, not even the hatchery was in a single location. One thing was clear however, there were by far too many eggs in all of the separate hatcheries for any one queen to produce.

The other thing she had noticed were dozens of drones were crafting long sweeping runes all throughout the tunnels. Oddly, each drone was painting the runes by hoof rather than telekinesis. _Must be the runes Little Mad Mare is planning to use to keep Grogar in check during the move._

With a sneer on her lips, Chrysalis carefully walked her puppet past one group of painters and dipped her hoof into the paint bucket. Acting as if the puppet was moving with the common track in the tunnel, she painted occasional errors into the arrays at what she surmised to be critical points.

 _That should put a wrinkle in things._

Chrysalis repeated this sabotage with all three spies, once she had finished covertly cleaning up the evidence of her method of entry. However, she was not here for sabotage, no, she was here to enact sweet _delicious_ revenge for the death of her sister. Ruining the wards was just a bonus. Her efforts eventually brought one of her spies to a rather strange discovery. Along one of the thoroughfare was a small branching tunnel barely large enough for a drone to fit through with a wall of green wax blocking the path several meters inside.

With only passing drones running on autopilot nearby, and none of them being guards, Chrysalis slipped her spy into the tunnel with ease. Once out of sight, she probed for alarm wards with her magic with a feather's touch to avoid notice. She found the expected alarm here and there, a few on the wax itself, along with an unexpected one embedded in the stone walls of the chamber beyond.

Yet above it all, there was a deep sensation of _wrongness_ held just beyond the waxy barrier. It was as if sticky oil started to cling to her mana, causing even a queen's mind to become sluggish and as cold as the frozen north. Chrysalis pulled her magic back as fast as the dark magic within allowed her. Once fully retracted, the sense of wrong evaporated. _How interesting… That's not the kind of ward Poly uses at all. Could it be something new to keep Grogar in check?_

Chrysalis took several moments to ponder on her discovery. Her eyes narrowed with concern. _She's learning, I'll give her that. I think I'll need to make a distraction before enacting this little jailbreak._

With a bit more probing of the alarm spells, Chrysalis noticed something else about the wards, yet it was elusive, refusing to allow her to realize the exact nature of the protective spell. _Could it be a forced teleportation trap? No, she's never shown any skill with that. Unless she stole such an enchanted item from Equestria. How does one so addled keep thinking strategically?_

Opting to leave the spy there, since none of the passing drones so much as glanced at the entry passage, Chrysalis turned her attention to the other two spies to find a usable diversion.

* * *

Meanwhile at Kreesus' ruined mountain hive, Twilight Sparkle hovered over the smoldering wreckage of one of her biplanes that had crashed into Fluffy. With her sister awaiting back on the carrier to deal with the tender supply vessel that was arriving, Twilight was left to oversee the cleansing of dark magic. Yet she was hardly one to be content on overwatch during times like this, and was using her magic to remove the wreckage from Fluffy as delicately as she could.

While necessary, the task was ultimately a dull and tedious one. The corruption of the land and mountain crops was caught early so there was little here that could become a threat to them. As dangerous as it was, the corruption upon the jungle below was up until recently, partially held in check by the other queens. None of them could spare the time or resources for a full cleansing of each battlefield, so a scorched earth tactic had been adopted in Polybia's wake. Now large stretches of the jungle were left as little more than blackened scars upon the land, rather than breeding grounds for necrotic-tainted abominations.

As for Twilight, she couldn't help but to be torn about Fluffy. On one side, the living airship was the very symbol of the traitor queen, and she _should_ feel nothing wrong for what had to be done. The leviathan was too heavily tainted to heal, and too alien for them to even try without the corruption spreading deep into its tissues. And yet she had spent many a night within the venerable creature, learning about the different hives, and was a marvelous place to learn more about alchemy. A place where she once had another queen as a friend and mentor.

Now though, Fluffy's life hung by a thread, and there was nothing she could do but hope her children could help it pull through.

Aiming to distract herself she looked down to one of the purple medics weaving a basic mending spell over a gash. The medic was a bit more petite than her sisters, and wore the equestrian style white uniform.

Any luck down there, Triage?

The medic nearly jumped out of her skin at being directly addressed. Triage's spell fizzled with a noticeable zap back on her horn. Ah - um - No, my queen. The gash in front of her widened to a full meter long, back where she started. It's like the flesh just doesn't want to knit together again.

What little hope Twilight had for Fluffy died on those words. _There's nothing else for it then. That's the first signs of somepony turning undead._ You might as will pull back, Triage. You're not gonna do anymore good with that.

A cold sweat ran down Twilight's face at the prospect of an airship sized zombie with her children still searching within Fluffy. Intel, please tell me you've at least seen a sign of Kreesus, dead or alive.

* * *

Down within the damp fetidly hot innards of Fluffy, Intel was leading a small search party of three. With its life ebbing away, Fluffy's interior was pitch black, save for the squad's flashlights. Not yet, Momma. But there's something weird going on down here.

"Look there it is again!" a voice called out to Intel's left. She first turned to Thunderfury who was in turn pointing at… what could only be called a sphincter, opening up while the one behind them and a third to the right closed.

"I'm telling you, it's gotta be Kreesus trying to direct us to her!" he half cheered. His surging good mood was not so much at the prospect of finding Kreesus alive, but in having an excuse to leave the damp slimy muck that was pooling in much of Fluffy's passageways. It didn't help that the muck was starting to ripen due to the spreading necrotic corruption. What made the situation even worse was the fact that many of the pools were deep enough to start soaking into their leg holes.

Ferrum remained outwardly silent about the whole affair, as he kept his sword at the ready. _I really hope this slime isn't flammable._ "I still say that traitor would have contacted us verbally at least if she were still alive."

Twilight Sparkle heard their grumblings through Intel's ears, and ultimately shared her revulsion of the goo. _I might have to redouble decontamination procedures when they get back._ I'll leave it up to your discretion, Intel.

A shivering wave of disgust rattled through Intel before she steeled her resolve. We'll keep going, my queen, She used her magic to snag a soiled cloth from around her neck and tried to find a clean corner to wipe the sweat off her brow. "Come on you two, quit whining and let's see just how much further this rabbit hole goes."

Sloshing through the flooded passageways, Intel and her two squadmates dragged themselves through a wide path. With Fluffy so weak, the inner walls were starting to sag, held up only by bone.

The curved passage went on for a dozen meters, with any branching path being closed off by Fluffy itself. Finally, they arrived in a room not much taller than the passageway itself. Some of the fleshy walls had lost their color while other bits were already rotting. Yet the centerpiece of the chamber was quickly illuminated by the trio's flashlights. With two thin sheathing slabs of muscle pulling away, the flashlights revealed a oblong grey object that easily dwarfed a minotaur.

Intel and the others, along with Twilight who was still watching through their eyes, were initially puzzled by the thing. "Is this what's so important?" Ferrum half groaned. "I thought we were being lead to Kreesus."

Maybe you were, Twilight replied as Thunderfury moved in to touch the thing. We don't know the extent of Kreesus' alchemical prowess. This might be a rejuvenation pod or something along similar lines to that.

"Or a giant egg," Thunderfury pointed out.

Twilight subconsciously tensed at the mental image of having to pass an egg of that size. I… I highly doubt it. As far as I know, no other hive has anypony but the queen laying eggs.

Intel circled the monstrous thing and found a collection of muscles between the 'egg' and a large sphincter on the wall that could easily accommodate it. She noticed the slime from the other passageways was being pumped out by some lethargic organs on the sticky floor. Movement on the wall brought her attention back up to the sphincter which was trying to open, but could only manage to get halfway open. Curiosity struck her, and Intel shined her flashlight through the new hole to see it go on for several meters into darkness. However, more of the slime and obvious tears in the fleshy walls told Intel all she needed to know.

"If I didn't know better, I'd say Fluffy wants us to get this thing out of here, but it needs our help."

"You mean Kreesus is telling us through Fluffy, right?" Thunderfury queried. "I mean, this thing's supposed to have the intelligence of a brick."

Ferrum propped himself up and did a probing tap on the egg. The shell, if that's what it even was, was thick enough to not sound hollow. What should we do, my queen?

Twilight was silent for a few moments, just long enough for the drones to notice. I think we should fulfill an old friend's last request. We'll take that thing out of there, then figure out what to do with it.

Intel gave the obvious exit canal for the 'egg' a wary look as it repeatedly tried and failed to open wide enough to allow its passage. "You think Kreesus might actually be in there?"

I don't know, honestly. If she is, then Kreesus must be terribly injured if she can no longer communicate verbally. If she were close to death, that would explain why Polybia retreated so swiftly.

Ferrum hefted his sword and took one long look at the egg canal. "Whelp, then it looks like we're going to have to get a bit creative."

* * *

If there was one thing Polybia had learned from Chrysalis' constant infiltration, it was the art of the wallflower. The tunnels and branching rooms outwardly looked the same. There were never any guards to give away a tempting target for her trio of spies, and no one location that the hive spanning anti-magic wards were centered on.

 _It looks like I might have to get a bit more reckless to find-_

"Mark my words, Polybia!" a familiar feminine voice cried out in unbridled rage, "if I don't kill you, Grogar will!"

Chrysalis' spy stopped walking and turned an ear towards an unassuming tunnel. Now that she looked at it, she noticed it was one of the few places that had no wards present. Or, at least, ones she could see with the naked eye. _Was that Kreesus? Why would Polybia have bothered to capture her?_

With only the passing drones to give Chrysalis no heed, she nevertheless crept slowly forward.

"Your mastery over self-alchemy is more impressive than I thought." Chrysalis immediately identified the voice as Polybia's. "I simply must make you an advisor once the process has advanced far enough."

"You want my advice!?" Kreesus spat venomously. "Go hang yourself, preferably over a nest of Thunderbats."

"Come now, Kreesus. Such crass behavior is unbecoming of a queen, especially one as honored as you."

By now, Chrysalis had crept her way in to see what was going on, only to be hit by a wall of stench the likes of which she had never smelt on this earth. She had to cut off her sense of smell before her puppet started to gag and give itself away.

Once under control again, she spied that Kreesus was submerged in a green glowing pool up to her chin. One of Polybia's puppets was knelt down in front of the pool with several wax bowls filled with more of the same liquid. _Must be testing them for some new torture technique. I should take notes._

"I can wait until your mind is more pliable." The puppet dipped another bowl into the pool before standing. It took three full bowls into its magic and prepared to leave. Had it not been for Polybia turning back towards Kreesus one last time, she might have spotted Chrysalis' spy scurrying back into the main thoroughfare. "Instead of wasting time fighting it, try to imagine how beautiful you will become in just a few short months."

Polybia departed the room with Kreesus giving a wordless cry of impotent rage. The puppet missed the spy entirely thanks to Chrysalis clinging to the ceiling. Chrysalis watched her go before slipping into Kreesus' prison. She had the foresight to weave a low power sonic dampening field around the room. As she expected, Kreesus immediately started screaming at the spy, assuming Polybia was back to torment her some more. Chrysalis was quick to drop her disguise, silencing Kreesus who at the same time realized her shouting had been a silent one.

With Kreesus calmed down, Chrysalis released the field. "Why hello there, Kreesus. Are you taking one of those… oh what do the ponies call it? A spa bath?"

"How did you get - nevermind." Kreesus struggled feebly in her restraints. "You have to get me out of this pool, now!"

"I don't have to do anything, my dear Kreesus." Chrysalis walked around the pool, and noticed there was a second exit with a much brighter light pouring out from it, along with the sound of hoof falls and buzzings wings. Assuming it was just another main tunnel, she didn't let that distract her from Kreesus. "I am here to rid ourselves of that dogmatic zealot. Removing you from your little pond would arouse suspicion far too early. I'm sure you can keep your head above water for another day or so."

"This is more than some petty torture," Kreesus whisper-shouted with a hiss. "That monster is trying to awaken my Sa'rook Shol'va!"

If anything, Chrysalis gazed down at her with mounting disinterest. "Should I care for whatever that is?" She turned away to inspect both exits to make sure Polybia wasn't returning.

"How do you not know what Sa'rook Shol'va is!?"

Chrysalis didn't respond right away, mostly out of a habit for posturing than anything else. That gave her time for her eyes to be drawn to the other exit where she began moving towards. "Are you honestly going to pull a Twilight Sparkle on me? I don't have time for your guessing games, so tell me now or you can just stay put until Polybia gets a wakeup call."

Even in her position, Kreesus noticed where Chrysalis' puppet was headed. "You want to know what's in that room? _That_ is Sa'rook Shol'va!"

Curiosity finally overcame caution, drawing Chrysalis towards the other room. "Quite the dramatic one aren't you? But who am I to judge about drama," she said with short chuckle to spite Kreesus with humor.

When Kreesus said nothing, hoping the lack of distractions would prod Chrysalis to leave. The tactic only served to amuse Chrysalis further. "Tell you what, my -" She made a show of snorting disdainfully. "My pungent ally. I'll do this much for you." Taking a second look at the bone dampening ring on Kreesus' horn, Chrysalis undid the paltry wards keeping it in place, causing the bone to go brittle, crumbling into dust that fell into the pool. "There, now don't say I've never done anything for you." Chrysalis sneered at Kreesus who begrudgingly thanked her and got to work removing her restraints. "By the time I 'go loud' you should be able to free yourself. Try to not get captured again."

With Kreesus firmly in her debt, Chrysalis returned her attention to the second exit. Slinking forward, she poked her head out to see she was actually situated high along the ceiling of a vast deep chamber.

It was well lit, allowing her an almost bird's eye view of five elephant sized worm things roughly twenty five meters below. There was a choreography of drones moving to and fro between the five large worm-like things she couldn't quite make out right away. Most of the drones were transporting either food, waste, or astonishing to Chrysalis, eggs. That alone was enough to ring alarm bells. It was like a machine, every other moment at least one egg was laid only for it to be carted off immediately.

She also noticed several drones seeming to be resting upon the worms themselves in an almost trance-like state. Yet it wasn't until she made out a queen's face on one of them that true horror gripped Chrysalis' heart. "Vel'chu." The word dredged up an age old horror Chrysalis scarcely believed existed anymore. "T-those are Vel'chu!" _This is vile. How could she fall so far?_

She was moments from turning back towards Kreesus when a terrible thought occurred to her. _Polybia's eliminated six queens now, including Kreesus. Could she have-?!_

Fear surged through her as Chrysalis looked at each Vel'chu in turn until she saw the only green one in the mix. Through the constantly passing drones, Chrysalis saw Yeelindrus' head at the front. Her entire body up to her neck had been consumed by the changes wrought upon her. Only two withering forelegs were all that remained of her body. Yeelindrus was awake, but docile, seemingly content to eat and drink with a vacant expression.

 _No. She wouldn't. She wouldn't_ dare _to that to her!_ Forgetting Kreesus entirely, Chrysalis flew down to her sister's head, weaving a quick charm over the three drones stuffing her face with royal jelly. With the charm in place, she kicked the trio away and cupped her sister's face with her forelegs. "Yee, Yee, speak to me, please!" Chrysalis tried gently slapping her sister's cheek, and was rewarded by Yeelindrus simply trying, and failing, to push her away with weak legs to try and get back at the food. The drones however were stuck on a mental loop, spooning forth a swab of jelly into empty air repeatedly waiting for it to be eaten. "Yeelindrus!"

Chrysalis' panic alerted Jstrul, who had had walked into her sister's throne room with some food. With a barely acknowledged request, Chrysalis had a waiting drone dictate what was happening in excruciating detail, right down to the fate of their sister.

"She can't hear you," said a voice as haughty and superior as even the worst Canterlot noble. Chrysalis whirled around to see Polybia controlling five caretaker drones and two guards. "She saw the light not too long ago, and fully embraced the honor of being one of the Sa'rook Shol'va."

Chrysalis and Jstrul were utterly dumbstruck by rage. Their sister, _her_ sister was not even granted the painful death Chrysalis thought she had received. No, she had been turned into an abomination, something far worse. Chrysalis shook violently, both her real body and that of her puppets. Her magic rippled up and down her horn as her anger boiled the air around her. Polybia continued speaking as if she didn't notice. Jstrul lost all sense of decorum and screamed so loud she burned her throat.

"I knew you'd find a way in, how could you not?" Polybia huffed almost as she were the one who should be indigent. "After all, that's all you _can_ do. You're barely adequate on the battlefield, so here you are, a failure once more."

It was only now that Polybia deigned to acknowledge the promise of murder in Chrysalis' face. "Honestly you should be thanking me for what I've helped _Little_ Yee Yee become-"

Polybia's puppet suddenly found a spike of mana impaling its neck, courtesy of Chrysalis. Polybia took over the caretaker next to the dead one, and continued speaking even as the old puppet was keeling over, completely uncaring about it nor the spy's smoking horn. "But I'm not blind to how the rest of you seem to be a bit… Repulsed-"

That caretaker became wreathed in flame as Chrysalis burned it to ash within seconds. Polybia's eyes appeared on a third caretaker. "This is rather unlike you, Chrysalis. No taunting words? No quips? I'm rather disappointed. Perhaps Jstrul might be able to come up with a coherent word or two."

Something loud cracked inside of Chrysalis' spy. "I won't let my sister live like this. Better she die here than-"

"Than live as my "slave"," Polybia interrupted with a snort of dismissal. "If anything she was a guest of honor." As if to mock her, Polybia shrugged uncaringly. "Go ahead and kill them all if you must. Your sister and the others have served their purpose. I suppose you're saving me the trouble of shuffling them off to their places of honor in the Silver City." Parts of Chrysalis' spy was starting to balloon out as it forced the volatile concoction within to build to critical mass. "I already have more than enough drones and eggs in reserve to crush both you and your sister, and scurry Twilight's little ship back home, forcing her to revoke my rogue status."

The thorax on the spy was bulging out in all directions, straining the chitin closer and closer to the breaking point. Yet Chrysalis' hateful sneer shifted to one of cold retribution. "If there's anything I'm going to regret, **Polybia** it's that I won't be the one to rip your soul into so many mangled pieces that not even Tartarus will have anything to burn for all eternity."

"Glad to see you've accepted your inevitable defeat," Polybia stated factually.

It was getting difficult for the spy to speak as its lungs were getting crushed by the expanding reaction. "Oh no. My regret is that I probably won't get to see Grogar do that for me." Polybia's smug expression didn't waver. "After all, I'm sure he has _much_ more experience with punishing the damned."

A shadow of concern crossed Polybia's features scant seconds before the spy finally burst. Once the putrid orange fluid was exposed to air, the entire chamber erupted in an inferno. Yeelindrus was consumed by the explosion in an instant. The other queens burned away within moments, barely any time to feel the scorching pain. All of the drones and eggs in the chamber were all caught in the flames, and were gone in seconds.

The shockwave blasted its way through the dozen exit tunnels, roasting everything for only a scant few meters. The initial blast was just enough to rock Kreesus' prison with orange fire licking at the edges of the room, with a rush of searing air along with it. By now however, she had broken her shackles and barely dove for the dirt as the wash of heat roared in.

Kreesus' mane was singed to the roots, but her scales protected her from the worst of the burns. Once the shockwaves had passed, and she brushed off some dust that had been shaken loose from the ceiling, Kreesus took stock of herself. She patted herself down with her hooves, and used her internal alchemy to check for any changes the pool might have wrought.

Desperation surged through her frantic search for any sign of it, but she didn't get far before drones rushed into the room to fight the fires. Kreesus quickly noticed these drones were not puppets and was quick to leverage her psionic power to sever them from Polybia and bend them to her will.

"Never thought I'd have to restart a hive with someone else's drones." _But first I have to get out of here before Polybia can figure out what just happened._ Throwing on a disguise of a drone, a ruse made feeble by her much larger size, Kreesus enacted a rather hasty plan of escape. A plan that mostly revolved around the drones themselves carrying her around. Resisting the changes and the pool itself had sapped her of so much muscle strength that her brief burst of adrenaline from the fire was already petering out.

She slumped against the rocky ground, unable to get her hooves under her. Thankfully, her magic was still strong. With a drone pulling her onto its back, she directed her new royal guard onward. _Ugh, chitin is so uncivilized._

* * *

Practically on the other side of the hive, the spy in front of what she believed to be Grogar's prison had been joined by the third infiltrator. The pair had followed Chrysalis' instructions on lining the inner walls with a barrier spell. The pair had barely finished when Chrysalis all but shoved her consciousness into the first spy, leaving the other to power the barrier. She glared at the prison wall with all her fury and charged her horn. Pulling deeply on the spy's mana reserves, she ignored the alarm spells and fired a drilling torrent of magic. Nothing ran through Chrysalis' mind save the raw hatred of being forced to kill her own sister. She bit her real lips, heedlessly shredding them with her teeth. In her private chamber, her magic ran rampant, cracking her prized ebony throne. Sharing Chrysalis' **demand** for vengeance, Jstrul paced the throne room, absolutely furious she didn't have a spy in the area, forcing her to seek retribution vicariously through her elder sister.

For the spy itself. As expected, noisy screeching alarms started blasting out of the prison, forcing Chrysalis to dim her ability to hear from the spy. The expected teleporter trap however, didn't spring, allowing Chrysalis to focus more magic on pushing through the wall of wax.

She made it through in half a minute and leapt inside the lightless chamber beyond. Even for a changelings' night vision, the room was impossibly dark, forcing Chrysalis to light it herself. Yet the room remained much darker than her light spell should have made it.

What could only be called a source of literal darkness pulled her eyes towards a single object wrapped in tarnished silver chains. It was a steel necklace that would hang low on a queen with bells the size of half a hoof attached along every part except where the necklace would rest on the back of the neck. In the back of her mind, she realized this was the source of wrongness in the room. "Bells!?" Chrysalis roared in blind fury. She cast her gaze around the rest of the cramped room to find no Grogar, no other exit, no nothing.

Jstrul stopped her pacing to cast her sister an angry glower. "Bells? Didn't Queen Twilight's little paper on Grogar say something about bells?"

Chrysalis' cunning mind started churning again as she quickly recalled the report. "...Yes, yes it did! Good catch, sister." Polybia's guards were slowed in reaching the reliquary thanks to Chrysalis' final infiltrator's barrier, she had time to study the chains. They were blessed by holy magic from the Silver City, a fact that forced bitter laughter out of the sisters.

"I wonder if those chains would burn her on contact now," Jstrul hissed. "But chains like that are weak to a proper hit."

Taking her sister's advice, Chrysalis had the spy turn about and bucked the lock keeping the chain in place. Scant moments later, the barrier to the reliquary was shattered by the combined weight of Polybia's drones outside.

Chrysalis quickly yanked off the chains around the bells. With the restraining silver no longer in place, the bells pulsed with power and started to warp and fold in on itself. Seeing the distortion for a form of teleportation, Chrysalis' last spy physically grabbed the bells and curled in over them and was dragged into the miniature portal along with them.

The bells and the spy materialized in front of the looming form of Grogar in a room barely forty meters below and thirty meters to the south of the breeding chamber. He was bound in wax with runed strips of silver inlaid paper and suspended off the ground by tethers to the walls and ceiling. A dozen changeling guards with silver arms and armor surrounded the demonic goat and were caught off guard by the appearance of the bells hovering a foot off the ground, and the completely mangled remains of a single black chitin drone. Grogar's eyes went wide at the sudden appearance of his bells and a corpse he knew belonged to Chrysalis' brood, but mentally recovered before Polybia could react. His eyes pulsed with red magic, causing a single bell to toll. The sound was gut jarringly deep, impossibly deep for such a small bell. The souls of the guards were pulled out of their bodies, appearing as pitifully small motes of silver light and were drained into the bells.

"Well then, I suppose negotiations are about to resume." With another pulse from his red eyes, the bells rang again, the sound shattered his waxy cocoon like a heavy boot through thin ice. He rolled out of the the alcove and took to his hooves. The bells gently flew over to drape themselves over his neck. "Now then, where are you?"

Under normal circumstances, he would have to hunt for Polybia the hard way, cutting his way through the entire hive one room at a time. However, Polybia was marked by his magic. With his demonic sight, she glowed like the sun among the empty blackness of space. "Ahh, there you are."

With a resonating ring of his bells, the earth itself was cracked and ruined as he forced the rock of his prison apart. The new hole was forty meters long, and aimed directly towards Polybia.


	79. Chapter 79

A Deal With the Devil

Grogar emerged into one of the countless tunnels that ran throughout Polybia's hive at the edge of his new tear in the earth. The luminescent fungus used for lighting these dark passageways cast heavy shadows across the scattered rubble and a few broken bodies in all directions.

For the moment, he was alone in the tunnel, though the sound of hundreds of heavy hooves echoed throughout both ends of his current passageway. His newfound freedom was not as exhilarating as one might think. The past few weeks had seen him remain in that tightly bound prison without any food.

Though his undead body felt no fatigue in the traditional sense, his bodily energy was by no means at its peak. Grogar leaned heavily on the side of a boulder, trying to marshal his power out of the bells. _So Polybia only sought to contain the bells rather than drain them. A wise precaution… at the time._

The oncoming swarm started to rattle the loose stones on the floor, causing a few to bounce down the hole he had created. _There's no point in wasting energy to run._

With Polybia still glowing like the sun to his eyes, Grogar saw that the northern end of the tunnel was a more or less direct route towards her for the time being, and started marching forward. That is until he took note of the runes and wards painted on the walls. To anyone else, they would have been nothing more than a passing curiosity, but not to him. His eyes narrowed while a humorless smirk cleaved his muzzle. "It appears my efforts have born fruit."

Scanning the complex diagram of runes, sigils, and markings, Grogar used the blood from a nearby crushed drone to make some alterations. He didn't get very far when he saw a squad of silver armored drones round a corner and close in to confront him with gleaming spears at the ready. "I'd ask you to come quietly Grogar," Polybia chided behind her puppets, "but I don't need you alive anymore."

Without any further preamble, Polybia's drones charged in the attack. Grogar's thin humorless grin remained as he finished applying one last addition to the wall-wards, and poured all the power he could spare into it.

With lightning speed, black magic surged along the lines of the wards that coated the majority of the hive's tunnels from the deepest bowels right up to three of the entryways to the outside. The cacophony of thousands of leg sized spikes crashing all throughout the hive rolled through the stone like ripping fabric it was so fast. All of the magic Polybia had poured into the wards was now being directed to cutting down thousands of drones, from warriors to workers, and even dozens of eggs that were still in transit.

Kreesus herself barely escaped certain death from the countless arcane spikes by having her stolen drones throw her into the hatchery right before they were cut down to the last. Polybia only had the briefest moment of shock cross her puppets' faces when the wave of magic washed over them. A blackish purple spike impaled the puppet's skull, with more of them killing the rest of the puppets behind him. Not only that, but numerous locations along the wards exploded in toxic clouds of black magic.

Grogar's limbs threatened to fail him at such a release of energy, but he would rectify that soon. The spikes from the wards lasted only an instant, just long enough to work. The closest warrior to Grogar had been only a scant few feet away when it died, its weapon clattering down the hole Grogar had carved earlier.

 _Amazing how similar a ward against necrotic magic is to a spike wall trap. Those explosions shouldn't have happened though…_ Grogar took a moment to admire his handiwork, wrought through Polybia herself. The incorrect rune placements, slightly askew sigils, and his personal favorite, a sort of 'backdoor' trigger that only he knew how to both see and activate. _She's so focused on how my magic impaired her judgement, that she can't see the subtlety of it all._

The act, coupled with his forced starvation over the past few weeks, gnawed at him like a ravenous beast. The scent of so much freed blood called out to his demonic nature, drawing his gaze to the pile of corpses. His mouth watered at the sight of it. "A pity I don't have time to cook."

* * *

Far above the hive, the _Steamrunner_ lingered among the clouds. The steel cruiser's lower deck gun turrets tracked random passing drones to pass the time. Luna idly watched the pair of fire control gunners, allowing herself a moment of distraction by the marvelous idea of a centrally directed fire control system thanks to an ingenious use of mirrors, lenses, and gearing, over the individually hoof-aimed and fired cannons of mainstay Equestrian ships.

With no word from Twilight or Rainbow Dash, and nothing of note occurring in the hive below, some of the tension of the crew had started to degrade into boredom. A fact that not even Luna could escape. Though not through lack of trying. Be it through an unhealthy amount of coffee, short power naps, and even the occasional jaunt in the dreamscape, the threat of Grogar always lurked at the back of her mind, keeping her grounded in the here and now.

Such was her curse.

And there she might have languished for days upon weeks, drifting in that nebulous period of time were it not for one of the command consoles starting to flash red with a high pitched alarm bell starting to ring. Luna shot to her hooves while the nearest changeling operator threw himself into the chair in front of the console.

He was quick to slap a lever down to silence the ringing, and started scrutinizing the wall encompassing readouts spreading from eye level to the ceiling. Luna was at his side shortly thereafter, and noticed dozens of the usually idle needles in the gauges were pushing wildly in the wrong direction. The operator pressed a series of buttons and a different lever, causing all of the gauges' needles to return to their original location.

 _I should have asked what these were for._ Luna's silence was cut short by the operator's worried face morphing between panic and dumbstruck confusion. "What's going on, Gearbox?"

The purple drone squeaked with spiking worry at just now noticing that Luna was practically right on top of him. "T-the - ah - spell detectors, your highness. T-the things we use to make sure no pony's trying to sneakily cast spells against us just registered a massive wave of dark energy from below. Apparently the hit was brief or we'd still be picking up a reading."

"How massive are we talking about?" Luna pressed, her face inches from Gearbox's own.

"I-if the r-readings were accurate…" He did the math in his head, "enough to flatten a village and then some."

"Report this to Twilight immediately," she barked with enough iron to jumpstart Gearbox. "And get Captain Placeholder to ready the troops!"

* * *

Grogar finished consuming his grisly meal with an alacrity that boarded on the edge of madness. At least for a mortal. He proceeded to use a fiery spell to cleanse the filth off of him, blackening the ground around him in the process. _Now that that's been taken care of._ Fully expecting Polybia to be hightailing it out of the place, Grogar cast his gaze back to her last known location, only to be dismayed that she was exactly where he left her. _Strange. I didn't think my magic had given her delusions of grandeur to the point where she'd stay where I can reach her._

 _A trap no doubt._

Grogar empowered his one remaining horn, concentrating his renewed vigor into a spear of pulsating dark magic in front of him, and aimed directly at Polybia. This time the very rock in front of the charging spear started to deform and pull away as if the spear was offensive to the very earth. Growling with demonic fury, Grogar's right foreleg took on a blackish purple sheen. With one smooth motion speaking of centuries of practice, he grabbed the hilt of the spear. The magic in his foreleg coated the mystical weapon, causing it to thrum with power. "Let's see if you're playing games with me."

With a yelling heave, Grogar threw the spear straight at the wall. The rock and earth vaporized in an instant, with the spear blasting all the way through to the surface, and sailing well in sight of the _Steamrunner's_ crew. The new gaping hole was seven feet wide, and just barely passed by Polybia and her throne, giving Grogar a brief moment to look upon her before she scurried out of sight. _Good, you survived. I wouldn't want to end this too quickly._

Not even waiting for the surrounding stone to stop hissing from the intense heat, Grogar started performing leaping bounds to make his way up the new, and decidedly more direct, path to his former captor.

He cleared the first few meters upwards without trouble. Yet as he landed inside what remained of a storehouse, a dozen drones, all bearing Polybia's eyes, started flinging spells and charged him with blade-like limbs. Grogar was prepared for resistance, and erected a purplish black shield, warding him from the worst of the magic. Without so much as a word towards Polybia, he rang his bells, warping the air itself with their magic. His casual, almost uncaring expression morphed between surprise and concern when the drones' souls were not ripped from their bodies.

The momentary surprise cost him his other horn as the closest bladed drone easily carved through his energy shield. With renewed anger, his eyes burned like hot coals as he slammed his left forehoof into the offending drone, and used telekinesis to ram his severed horn into the drone's chest.

Grogar didn't get a moment's respite as the spell firing drones now assailed him with a barrage of mana bolts that sapped him of power with every strike. Bringing his energy barrier back up, Grogar telekinetically retrieved his horn, and then threw his severed horn like a throwing axe at the next melee drone now that he was protected again. "Do you honestly think you will best me this time, Polybia?" he asked the next melee drone with a finality of expected victory. "You should take this time to flee, while you can."

The third melee drone feinted a charge, and instead pulled back at the last second and swatted Grogar's flying horn with a heavy parry of its bladed forelegs. "My salvation to this rogue curse lies in you, _demon,_ " she spat venomously. "Dead or alive, you're coming with me."

As she spoke, a cascade of more warrior drones crawled into the storeroom, pelting Grogar with an increasing fuselage of magic while more and more melee drones threatened to cut away at his shields with laughable ease. "You overestimate yourself, old goat." Grogar was forced back several meters and down a little into the hole he had torn through the hive.

Grogar found a ledge behind him, and jumped over to buy himself a few precious seconds as the drones methodically pursued him. With his back to the wall, he cast a wave of dark magic out like a balloon passing over everyone in the room. Polybia quickly weaved a shield spell for each drone present, causing the spell to seemingly pass right by. When Polybia detected no harm was done, she dropped the shields to glare at Grogar with contempt. "You _are_ powerful, Grogar, but I will not let you have a moment to unleash that power again."

Much to Polybia's paranoia, Grogar responded by dropping his shield and giving a slow mirthless gravelly chuckle. "Oh but Polybia, you already have."

Before Polybia could react, the two drones Grogar had killed snapped into action, slicing the next two closest drones straight to the heart. By the time Polybia realized what was happening, the fresh undead withdrew their bladed limbs to attack the next closest victims. The two they had just murdered didn't even start falling to the floor before they too started attacking their former siblings with both blade and spell.

Polybia's control over the room broke down even further when Grogar capitalized on the initial confusion to rush the nearest drone and bite down on its jugular, and tore the flesh away to effect a quick kill.

Polybia scoffed and had the drones closest to the undead hold the rest back while the spellslingers readied to cut them down with ease. Yet before the first spell was fired, every last one of the hundreds of drones killed by the spikes throughout the hive rose up and began killing anyone in their path.

Seven crawled up into the storeroom from the hole Grogar had made earlier, and assaulted those pressing down on Grogar with tooth and blade. More poured out from the other entrances, severing any reinforcements and cutting a swath through Polybia's warriors. So many more came rushing in that the bodies were starting to clog the room.

With no immediate threat pressuring him, Grogar began weaving a new spell by ringing his bells in a haunting melody. All the living drones were stunned where they stood, completely immobilized by the music, the undead however, were not.

With no resistance against them, the undead methodically killed each drone they came across in the most efficient manner to keep the body more or less intact. For barely a moment after each killing blow, the slain dead heeded Grogar's dirge of the restless grave. Within minutes, all thirty eight drones in the storeroom were under Grogar's command, along with the hundreds scattered throughout the hive.

* * *

Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash were flying at speed towards the bow of the _Long Shot's_ flightdeck, ready to unleash a verbal beatdown on Polybia's envoy. The biting wind of the mountain threatened to drown them out every so often, but neither queen was willing to let Polybia have a look inside of the carrier.

The skies around them were turning dark from the stormclouds several teams of pegasi were forming to help wash away the unholy taint the battle had left behind. Nearly half of the fleet's crew and marines had to partake in the herculean effort to bless enough storm clouds with holy power. In its dying hours, the rain gave Fluffy some measure of comfort as it waited for the end.

In addition to keeping Polybia away from sensitive information, the edge of the flight deck provided a panoramic view of the corrupted land, giving both queens a constant reminder of the danger Polybia, and by extension, Grogar represented.

As soon as Rainbow Dash got within arm's length, she shoved her muzzle right into the face of Polybia's puppet with murder in her eyes. Twilight loomed over the drone with equal indignation. "You worthless dishonorable amalgamation of chunky worm-riddled pus!" Rainbow growled with spittle flying, and a drop or two of salve. "You said you could handle moving Grogar! So why is it your hive is lighting up like a necromancer's fireworks show!?"

"What are you?" Polybia had to take a moment to pull her thoughts together. "H-how do you know anything of what's going on in my hive?" Polybia shot back, trying to gain ground.

Twilight moved in to be adjacent to her sister in bearing down on the puppet. "Did you honestly think we would be stupid enough to not keep tabs on your progress?" the sisters asked spitefully in unison. " _How_ we know is irrelevant!"

Realizing she wasn't going to be able to lie about it, Polybia switched gears. "I've kept him contained for close to half a decade. If you want to blame someone for him breaking containment, it was Chrysalis. She's the one at fault here!"

Twilight and Rainbow shared a glance with Rainbow flashing far more irritation. "We can deal with Chrysalis later," Rainbow stated sharply.

"Right now, I am not going to let your pride allow him a chance to disappear into the jungles." Twilight backed off a bit, and in passing, nudged her sister to do the same.

Polybia shook off the unsettling nature of two queens speaking in perfect unison, and growled right back at them. "I _will_ handle this! Our agreement still stands, Grand Matriarchs. Allowing you to do my job for me would render it void." Polybia did everything in her power to keep a growing edge of terror from creeping into her voice. _At this rate, that damned goat will cost me most of the drones in the hive, and any egg reserves he comes across._

The very real prospect of losing to a combined might of Chrysalis, the _Long Shot,_ and this new mystery security leak, Polybia was not about to let the deal slip through her figurative fingers. "I still have two weeks to deliver him."

Rainbow scoffed with a flourish of her tail at the notion. A mental nudge from Twilight and a few silent words made Rainbow Dash's train of thought switch tracks. "You've two options, Poly Pocket, so you listen and you listen good." Rainbow punctuated her statement by jabbing the puppet with a hoof.

Twilight spoke without missing a beat. "You can either die by Grogar's hoof and have your soul be his personal plaything, or you can let us go in there, and take him ourselves."

Polybia smacked Rainbow's hoof away, growling through her teeth. "Only to be killed by you and your allies? Not a chance!" She looked Rainbow dead in the eye, occasionally shifting to cast a withering glare at Twilight. "I can't stop you from breaking your word on interfering, but _you_ will always know that you're word will never be worth the time it'd take to listen to it."

Polybia barked one last time before either queen could rebuke her. "Now, I have a goat to catch, you'll hear of my success by day's end."

Twilight's gaze went unfocused as she mulled over her options. Rainbow Dash on the other hand kicked the air out of frustration. "How can anyone been so stubborn _and_ stupid!?"

"I bet you could have answered that yourself a couple of decades ago," Twilight commented with some dry humor. Rainbow glowered at her unwanted teasing, not that it was necessary for Twilight to remain on track. "Stubbornness or not. We can't let Grogar escape."

"Right," Rainbow was sluggish to let the scowl fall, so it instead shifted towards nobody in particular. "I'll get the _Steamrunner's_ troops to deploy to the surface of the hive. All Poly has to do is get him above ground so we can take it from there."

Twilight nodded approvingly. "Good idea. I'll have Rorke create a portal trap on the ship so he can't slip away."

Rainbow stood relatively still as she sent off a slew of orders across the hive mind. "Will that work on demon portals?"

Twilight gave a curt nod. "That demonologist's price was rather agreeable to that bit of knowledge. Grogar's not going anywhere."

* * *

Controlling undead was not like running a hive mind. There was no real communication between the necromancer and individual undead, no complete loyalty that pushed into the realm of divine worship. Instead it was more of a passive awareness passed down to the master, and a domination of will. The latter of which was generally easy given the simple minds and weak wills of the typical undead.

So it was, that Grogar plowed through the hive with ease, for each felled drone only added to his growing army. At least that was the idea. Grogar was roughly halfway up his path towards the throne room when the flanks of his army stopped heeding his commands.

For the first few minutes of climbing, he dismissed it as Polybia ambushing his new troops, as expected. Only... Polybia had not moved from her original location. Before he could ponder on the oddity, his scattered undead forces were assaulted en masse all throughout the tunnels. An entire collection of undead drones vanished from his control in one fell swoop, while others winked out of his consciousness in rapid succession.

Not that he cared for the losses, only in how it was happening. _I don't sense any real presence of holy magic, and Polybia would have to be in close proximity to forcibly take control of my thralls…_

 _Is she actually capable of stealing them through puppets?_ The prospect sent a kernel of doubt in his assumed victory. _I haven't lived this long by being arrogant._

Grogar's path led him straight into a football field sized hatchery that was strangely quiet. Aside from the jagged hole in the floor, from which Grogar and his rotting entourage were emerging from, and the gaping hole in the ceiling that was spilling forth a sliver of sunlight, the hatchery was still. Half of the wall to wall alcoves were empty, others near the hole had been burst open, half-formed drones laid on the floor dead or dying.

Yet there was no sound of the living scurrying away, no noise of eggs being spirited away, not one hoofstep or wingbeat to be heard. "Are you so uncaring of your brood that you would think to ambush me here?" he announced loudly with a touch of magic to make sure it carried throughout the hatchery.

He waited as long as he was able for a sign. Grogar couldn't make out anything as his undead started piling up rocks and wax to allow their master to continue up to the ceiling hole. Given the rapid nature of their turn to undeath, the vast majority of the drones' wings were flaking away into dust, leaving climbing the only option he could think of.

As for himself, Grogar's demonic eyes swept the hatchery for threats. While Polybia's location was painfully obvious, the rest of the hive and its denizens were by no means free of his mark. And therein lied the problem, with everything marked, it was impossible to identify individual threats.

He was about to start empowering a wide sweeping spell when he spotted something out of place. In a pile of broken and leaking maturation pods was a pocket of air devoid of his magic. _if she thinks she can strike me with my back turned again, I will have to educate her on such folly._

Fearing he'd be too vulnerable casting a larger spell, Grogar opted to lash out with a quick ice spell that sent a blizzard of sharp hail upon the pile of broken pods. The frozen daggers sunk into the pile, producing the shattering sound of breaking chitin rather than embedding themselves in wax.

With a calculating slight frown, Grogar watched as three drones dropped their disguises and slumped to the floor in death. A much larger figure desperately heaved itself out of the pile, and away from Grogar.

The necromancer lifted a single eyebrow at apparently finding a different queen than the one he was hunting. He spotted one of the jagged icicles had buried itself deep into her left thigh, keeping her from doing little more than stumble forward and give muffled cries of pain.

With a curt jerk of his head, two undead departed the rest and grabbed the struggling queen, heedless of her struggles to escape. "Well well, the famous Red Queen," Grogar grumbled with his gravely voice. "To hear Polybia boast, you should be her docile slave by now."

No queen was gifted with powerful physical strength, which wasn't helped at all by Kreesus' current muscle weakness. Nevertheless, she constantly tested her two jailers with jerking motions to try and free herself, no matter what little good it would do. "Just get it over with, _necromancer_! I'd rather not have two prolonged deaths in a single week."

He ignored her final request and skirted around her before yanking the icicle out her thigh with a single mighty pull of telekinesis. "Your fate will be of your own making, Red Queen."

Kreesus hissed in a mixture of pain and relief at the ice's removal, only to cringe in disgust as she watched Grogar lick the ice clean of her blood. Grogar tasted the sins upon her blood with a hum of curiosity. "Profound betrayal marked with mutual reconciliation, more or less. I can't remember the last time I tasted that." _Even stranger that her culture almost mandated her actions._

When Kreesus said nothing, waiting for the end, Grogar had her jailers release her. Not expecting that, Kreesus face planted the ground with the undead drones shambling off to guard an entrance Grogar spotted while sampling Kreesus' sins. "You are free to leave, assuming you don't get in my way."

Kreesus rubbed her pained snout. "J-just like that!?" Kreesus inwardly chastised herself to looking a gifthorse in the mouth, yet she hesitated to flee. As much of a threat he was, Grogar was currently less so than the waves of hostile drones and undead outside the hatchery. The sound of fighting was already echoing from the multiple entrances along the entire north face.

Grogar ignored her, and instead focused on trying to glean some reason as to why nearly all of his soldiers outside of the immediately area were already down to less than a tenth of their original numbers. _These queens are solitary creatures as far as intelligence is concerned, so why does it feel like I'm surrounded by multiple necromancers?_

 _It seems I will have to reinforce the minds of those I still control to keep them in line._ Taking his severed horn into his right foreleg, Grogar channeled his power through it and into the various zombified drones around him. _These things are already little more than flesh golems, but I always keep an ace in the hole._

Outwardly, Grogar didn't look like he was concentrating all that much, simply holding his horn as waves of dark magic flowed outward and into the undead.

After letting her hammering heart calm down a notch, Kreesus tried to make herself as small as possible and out of Grogar's sight. _Don't know, nor do I care why he's not killing me, I just have to get out here._

Her first thought were the exits, however Grogar was already sending undead to guard them, or was pulling more of his scattered forces in. _Okay, so that's not an option._ Knowing that Grogar was bound to leave soon with the rocks piling up in short order, the idea of staying here for Polybia's swarm to come up behind him was not appealing either. _Without an escort to protect me, I'd never be able to commandeer a drone if Polybia is directly puppeting it. ...Which only leaves one choice doesn't it?_

Steeling herself, Kreesus stepped towards Grogar who was testing the new ramp's stability with a few undead going on ahead of him. "If you aren't going to kill me, can I at least follow you outside? I don't exactly have an escort anymore." She glanced at the pile of dead drones where she had been hiding.

"... Well aren't you the brave one," Grogar said at length while turning to stare at her with uncaring eyes. "Or perhaps foolish if Polybia's precedence is common among you royals. As I said, don't get-" He paused as an idea crept into his head, making him reevaluate the royal changeling standing shakily before him. "Perhaps you can be of use to me after all."

 _I should have just played dead._ Kreesus took a step back as several undead began to circle her.

"How about we broker a deal, Red Queen. I will ensure you survive the day, and you provide me a new body. A royal changeling body to be precise." Kreesus' eyes dialated to the point where Grogar was amused by the idea of them popping out of their sockets. "We can work out the details later." Kreesus' pride kept her from backpedaling any further, but her conscience screamed to not make any deal.

"I think I'll take my chances alone, thank you." Kreesus turned to leave, only for the undead to block her escape.

Grogar took a step forward, stomping a hoof loudly enough to grab her attention. "The last queen I made this request towards ended up capturing me and turned me into a font of power." Kreesus trembled at the sight of the amassing undead forming behind Grogar. "Clearly if you are not willing to cooperate, then I must assume you will stand in my way."

"I - I," Kreesus stammered with her backed into a corner. "I can't. I don't have a hive anymore, Polybia destroyed it."

" _You're_ still alive though, and from what I hear, you can give rise to a new hive all by yourself." Grogar moved in to lord over Kreesus, using his natural demonic aura to intimidate her. "How about I sweeten the deal. You get me my new body, and I will protect you from the jungle until you can support yourself."

That brought Kreesus up short, allowing her heart to stop trying to hammer its way out of her chest. She fixed him with a quizzical look. "You're desperate for this, aren't you? Why?"

Grogar's attention briefly shifted to one of the south entrances where the sound of detonating spells shook the ground, causing dust and loose stones to start falling from the ceiling. "We can speak of my reasons at a later time." With a flash of his eyes and a single high pitched chime of his bells, an open scroll burst into being wreathed in hellfire. "By signing this contract, you and I will come to an agreement on the means by which you will give me this new body in exchange for my protection. Nice and simple." One particular explosion sent pebbles and dust roaring out of one the southern exits. "I suggest you come to a decision quickly."

A hollow ring of fire materialized on the contract in the shape of a hoof with the word 'signature' emblazoned above it.

All it took was the angry buzzing of drones closing in on the hatchery and the silent threat of murder from Grogar to make Kreesus' decision for her. "Not much of a choice is there? Very well," she said while trying to strike up some dignity. "A proper queen always keeps her word." _Besides, it's just an agreement to come to an agreement, I can work this in my favor if Queen Twilight Sparkle or Rainbow Dash just so happens to kill Grogar before we have a chance._

Her escape plan already formulating, Kreesus pressed her hoof on the signature circle. Upon removing the hoof, a seal formed over the spot and the whole document burst into flames.

"The contract is sealed," Grogar stated with a heavy sense of finality. "Now stay close and keep your head down."

Kreesus couldn't shake the feeling some minor thing had been left attached to the bottom of her hoof, but an inspection revealed nothing. _It must be my imagination._ Quick to avoid personal danger, Kreesus obeyed and made her way to the now completed rockpile up to the ceiling.

As Grogar was climbing the first steps, the guards on the southern entrance growled a challenge at a foe in the tunnel beyond and charged in. A moment later, a mighty thwack of bone on breaking chitin heralded one of the undead being sent flying back into the hatchery with the other undead being silenced a moment later.

 _I won't get far if my back is exposed._ With that in mind, Grogar opted to stand his ground and had his remaining spare undead form a defensive ring in front of him.

A massive bipedal form ducked its way into the hatchery. Kreesus immediately identified it as a minotaur, but only a mockery of one. The minotaur's bull horns were gone, replaced by a crooked changeling horn instead. The bull's pupil-less eyes were solid blue and much of its massive frame had patches of chitin and swaths of missing fur. Finally, its muscle bound arms had holes starting to form all over both of them.

The minotaur shouldered a massive warhammer made of bone and chitin that was caked in ichor and bits of meat. The minotaur made no immediate threatening move, only to step forward enough for a growing number of undead and living drones to file in behind him. "The great and powerful Grogar," the minotaur grumbled with disdain. "I've been wanting to kill you ever since my queen brought you in." He brought his warhammer into both hands and dug into the dirt with a hoof. "I can't tell you how happy I am to finally punish you for what you've done to her."

"A quasi!?" Kreesus half asked/shouted. "Is Polybia so desperate she'd let you actually fight?"

The quasi-minotaur snorted derisively while not breaking his gaze on Grogar. "Is the answer not self-evident enough for you?"

Kreesus took a brief moment to actually _think_ about the situation with Grogar. _Yeah… okay, fair point._ Not that she'd dare admit that aloud.

Grogar sensed a great deal of necromantic magic swirling within the minotaur, yet oddly enough, none of it was bound to Grogar. _He must be the cause of my dwindling army. He'd make a fine servant._ "If you wait the other necromancer should be here any second."

As if he'd been waiting for that cue, the eastern most entrance exploded in a cloud of dark magic and a storm of dust and flying ichor from the broken pods. Kreesus had enough magical strength to shield herself in holy magic before the blast wave hit her while Gorgar stood there and endured it like an admiral.

A second pressure wave cleared the dust for the most part, revealing a griffon flanked by drones, both alive and undead. At least that's what Kreesus and Grogar assumed it to be at first. A second look revealed that the newcomer only had the head and flared wings of a griffin while everything else about him from his legs and body looked no different than a drone. "I hope I'm not too late."

"Not at all, Talon," the minotaur snarked. "You get to see me take credit for his head," minotaur grinned while gesturing his warhammer towards Grogar.

Grogar ignored their boasting and casually brushed some dust off his chest. "Since I know you can hear me, Polybia," he calmly yelled at the minotaur. "I'd like you to meet some old friends of ours."

The proclamation gave the quasi pause as Grogar focused his power inward while his bells started ringing a song so haunting that it gave everyone, Kreesus, the quasi, and Polybia visions of what each of their personal hells looked like. Suddenly, all the bells chimed in unison as silvery spirits poured out of Grogar's mouth. Several dozen split off and took the shape of various species ranging from ponies to sphinxes and every race who had a known civilization.

"You didn't honestly think I consumed those prisoners entirely did you?" Grogar looked up to the dozens of spirits above him. "The ambient dark magic saturating this hive of yours has given them renewed strength, as it has for me as well." He rang a single bell which forced all the ghosts to focus on him and him alone. "Slaughter my enemies this day, and you shall have your freedom. But you leave Polybia to me!"

The ghosts started cackling at the proposal, a haunting humorless mirth that spoke of madness that suppressed a sane mind screaming for the embrace of death. Both quasi took a step back at the soul-chilling sound as the ghosts seemed to fade in and out of sight. "Weeeee ooo _bey._ "


	80. Chapter 80

The Noose Tightens

There was a strange detached moment of calm in the ruined hatchery right after Grogar's wailing spirits cackled with unnerving glee. The quasi minotaur and griffin instinctively tightened their grip on their warhammer and twin blades respectively. Polybia sweated with mounting terror from behind what scant few living puppets she had left in the area. Although she still had enough wits to search for and prepare a few spells for combating spirits.

Her mounting panic wasn't helped by Grogar's impassive, almost uncaring expression. "If you have even a shred of free will left, I suggest you save yourself. Polybia is the only soul I demand… presently at least."

Commander Talon banged his blades together in a long-forgotten salute. "I would throw my very soul into your worst hells for my queen. Honor demands no less."

"Honor." Grogar rolled the word around in his mind, allowing the warriors around him a bit more time to contemplate their fate. "What a strange thing to hear from a being that is controlled so deeply by another." Grogar stealthily used the time to apply his own enchantment on the eager spirits that bobbed and weaved around him. "If I recall, Commander Talon your culture sees such lack of self-determination to be the gravest dishonor ever conceived."

"You think we were forced into this life?" Split Horn scoffed scornfully. "I was but a mewling runt when my queen found me. I was no general, no brave warrior, but a failure who was disowned by his own family."

"As was I," the Talon barked in shared admiration. "We belong to her and the Silver City!"

Even in her precarious position, Kreesus could not help but belt off a dismissive huff. "A quasi in the Silver City? Oh what lies you've spun in their heads, Polybia. I'd wager those are false memories too."

 _That's stalled them long enough._ With a flash of magic from his eyes, Grogar placed a sonic barrier around Kreesus, signalling the spirits to begin an ear shattering banshee wail. The howling was so loud, so piercing, that even the observers aboard the _Steamrunner_ felt some unnerving ringing in their ears.

At the epicenter of it all, Grogar stood unmoved, as if he was wholly unaffected. _You can always count on the hubris of others._

The unholy wail heralded the spirits surging forward into the off-balanced quasi. Polybia fired off a slew of mana bolts from the various living drones and even the quasi' own horns. The spells shredded most of the howling ghosts, but she wasn't quick enough to stop four of them from sinking into her champions' bodies.

Both quasi spasmed and crumpled, buying Grogar enough time to force his will upon the local undead now that their proxy masters were incapacitated. "The game was fun, Polybia, almost a pity you are still such a novice."

Without a local necromancer to keep control, all of the undead in the vicinity fell under Grogar's dominating will. Even though Polybia was quick to both realize this and act to cut down some of the undead with both spell and blade, Grogar was no slouch. His undead turned on the living with equal ferocity, but far more in number.

Before more than a dozen drones could be killed in and around the hatchery, Polybia pulled back to regroup, leaving Grogar to focus on the two quasi. "Tell me, Queen Kreesus, why do you disregard these two?"

Kreesus was hesitant to join Grogar as he walked over to the two quasi writhing on the floor as the spirits performed their terrible work. She shadowed him to keep Grogar between her and the shuddering victims. "Quasi are a necessary evil. A queen can't possibly personally know every facet of running a hive in modern times, so we… borrow or get volunteers to lend expertise that we lack. Normally farmers or the disgraced general if we're lucky enough. Gives our swarms more unpredictability. Yet having them fight directly like this is both wasteful and undermines your singular voice in the hive mind."

Grogar gave the explanation a bit of thought, long enough to come to a stop in front of Split Horn. "Such narrow mindedness. I've seen countless upstart necromancers fall into the same trap." Kreesus scowled behind him, but ultimately didn't want to test Grogar's patience, and remained silent. Grogar slapped the minotaur to wake him up. "Split Horn. Whom do you serve?"

The voice that left Split Horn was initially not his own, but a collection of the ghosts that possessed him. "I am yours to command, my queen."

If Grogar was affected by the title, he didn't show it. "Good, you will personally guard Queen Kreesus with your life."

Split Horn gave a sharp nod. "It will be done."

Kreesus on the other hand, was not so unphased by the title. "Isn't it a bit early to be called a queen?" _Assuming you even get the chance at rebirth._

Grogar said nothing in reply right away. Instead he waited until the spirits left the minotaur's body, much smaller and mostly transparent. They circled his head, whispering things Kreesus couldn't make out. Eventually, Grogar nodded. "I consider your service concluded. Pass on to whatever afterlife awaits you."

The moment those words left his lips, a tear in reality appeared in midair in front of Grogar and Kreesus. Hands of black oil burst out and latched onto each of the spirits who started to wail in fear and panic. The hands dragged the spirits into the tear that sealed itself up once the last ghost had been claimed.

Kreesus backpedaled away from the scene, and clutched a hoof against her racing heart. "W-what was that!?"

"The Reapers. They tend to take on the appearance of whatever afterlife awaits a roaming spirit." Grogar turned to fix Kreesus with a cold stare. "They had already damned themselves. Pay them no mind." He started moving over to the griffin, intent on repeating the event with Talon. "As for your earlier question, apparently there's a deep-rooted death geas placed on these - quasi - I believe you called them. They have to serve her or die. The spirits couldn't get rid of it, so they simply introduced a cognitive switch where they see Polybia when they look at me, and the real Polybia will appear as some unknown queen. With the spirits severing the psychic bond, they're as good as mine."

 _Only a geas? Polybia has become far too sloppy with quasi. More of Grogar's influence perhaps?_ Staying quiet for a moment, Kreesus waited it out until Grogar repeated the process with Talon, bringing both quasi into his service.

It was only when Grogar had gathered a dozen or so undead, along with the two quasi, for his march further up the ram-made tunnel that Kreesus spoke up with some measure of dignity. She wasn't sure if he had a title so forwent trying to guess one. "Grogar, if at all possible, could you try to capture some living drones? It would make rebuilding my hive easier, along with getting you that new body that much sooner."

"I will make no promises," Grogar stated flatly before giving Kreesus a studious look behind smoldering red eyes. "Polyba may look like she's falling back, but I expect a trap, and I-" Grogar paused and slowly turned his gaze to the nearest quasi. "Talon, why hasn't the local queen fled her throne room?"

Talon stared blankly forward as his mind tried to reconcile what just happened, but the spirits' magic was filling in enough blanks to put him at ease. Slowly, he addressed Grogar, who he saw and believed to be his queen. "I do not know. She didn't feel the need to share that information when we were spying on her. Perhaps it is pride or hubris that roots her hoof."

Grogar cast his gaze towards Split Horn who delivered much the same answer. Which eventually pulled his attention back towards Kreesus. "As I said, a trap. Now stay safe, it'd be in your best interest to keep a stray necrotic poison from rendering you barren."

* * *

Luna stood on the deck of the cloaked _Steamrunner_ resplendent in her armor. It was silver plated steel etched with enough holy runes to be a shrine in of itself. The same could be said of the two pony honor guard standing beside her, though maybe not quite so intricate.

By now, the sun was just over the horizon, leaving Luna anxious about the timing for her to raise the moon. Luna's gaze slipping between the deceptively quiet hive below and the sun slipping further below the horizon. Yet above it all, she hated the waiting when her quarry was right below her. _I will not let that demon run free because of some stupidly rigid honor code._

Her mind made up, Luna turned to address the single liaison drone that was kept with her aides. The young changeling was barely seven months into adulthood, and had been beaming with optimism to serve, only to end up a train wreck of nerves after being placed in liaison duty with _The_ Princess of the Night. "Corporal, tell my soldiers to execute Paperclip, and have Rolled Scroll inform my sister that she'll have to be the one to raise the moon tonight."

Luna's honor guard were not the ever-stoic palace guards, so they were much more willing to show their of support for the command. The changeling mare however, gulped worriedly. "B-begging your pardon, Princess Luna, but we're under orders to wait for word."

Luna stepped in close, muzzle to muzzle. " _You_ are under those orders. Not me. Now relay those messages immediately."

The corporal inched backwards and snapped a hasty bow. "Yes, princess, right away."

"Oh, and no need to inform your queens until after we leave," Luna added quickly. "Wouldn't want a diplomatic incident to sour things between us." _Not that it would, but the corporal doesn't need to know that._ Luna stood a little straighter as purpose and haste filled her every vein and nerve. "Captains!" Her honor guard stiffened at attention. "Get ready to move, we've got a necromancer to catch."

* * *

Down below in the main barracks of the _Steamrunner,_ Regiment Commander Sea Breeze of the PCE penal regiment presided over her ill disciplined mob. She was a pale green unicorn with a curly forest green mane. The eighty strong group had an assortment of weapons with no real consistency, ranging from daggers to bows to rune-encrusted great axes. Their armor was just as bad, save for one bit of uniformity. Each of them had a death-switch enchantment that would bless their corpse upon death to deny Grogar another body to add to his army.

Presently, the band of felons were watching two of their number sparring with daggers. Sea Breeze watched on, and had no desire to stop them, even if someone ended up dead. The nearby changeling MPs were unwilling to stop two PCE trying to kill each other.

The crowd was hooting and jeering the two combatants on as the earth stallion and pegasus mare took swings at each other. Both already sported several cuts, but they were too shallow to cause either one of them to stop.

"Come on, slice him!" one pony jeered.

"Cut her wing off!" roared another.

The duelists sliced away at each other, the mare getting a nick on her cheek while the stallion had a new scar on his snout. Sea Breeze remained quiet through the fight, though she silently cheered the stallion on. The rapid heavy booted hooffalls from further astern drew her eyes towards a pair of Night Guard moving towards them with haste. She gave a loud whistle at the rest of the former PCE, centered on the two brawlers. "Knock it off, we got company!"

The penal regiment broke the fight up and shuffled back to their respective bunks by the time the two bat pony guards arrived. The leader of the two, a black stallion bedecked in his full armor, addressed Sea Breeze with a harsh and gruff tone. "Line them up, I'm here to edit your geas."

Sea Breeze turned to her troops' general direction. "You heard'em lads get your asses ready to move!" She turned back to the bat pony. "That's why we're here right? The queens finally got off their moral high ground and are letting us loose?"

"All you need to know," the bat pony replied with a harsh voice, "is that you're finally going to get your wish for sanctioned changeling killing."

A loud cheer erupted from those PCE who overheard the news and either spread it further down the line or nearly jumped out of their skin trying to get their weapons together. Then, one by one, each of them were met by one of the Luna Guards wielding a Moonstone recently blessed by Luna to give them the magical equivalent of the power of attorney. Sea Breeze waited until all of her soldiers had been seen by the guards before coming up to the theseral stallion. "So you're really letting us off the leash? Certain death at the tip of the spear, I wager."

The captain waved the Moonstone in front of Sea Breeze, allowing the stone to whisper in Luna's own words, rewriting the geas. As for the guard himself, he grunted irritably at her. "You knew full well this was likely a one-way trip for you."

Sea Breeze inhaled deeply as she felt the geas slacken in her mind. She glanced at the nearest changelings, who were watching the ponies with mixed levels of confusion. The block on her mind that kept her from so much as thinking about weaving a spell at one of the changelings in the barracks now had a few moments' delay. A delay that Sea Breeze caught whiff of, but not the actual cause. A wicked toothy grin cleaved her muzzle. "So we're to fight soon?"

"You're to fight now," the bat pony stated bluntly. "Have your ground-pounders loaded in the shuttles with pegasus and thestral support. You get to run amok all you want, but try to focus your efforts on capturing Grogar alive."

Sea Breeze's initial good cheer at being taken off the leash was completely blunted by the order. "The princess plans on experimenting on him, I take it?"

The reason wasn't classified knowledge, and the guard ultimately assumed it would ensure Sea Breeze's cooperation to tell her. "Hardly. A necromancer of that skill undoubtedly has what the princess calls a phylactery. If we destroy his body first, he'll just reform somewhere else, and we might never catch him."

Satisfied with that answer, Sea Breeze grinned with an evil glint in her eye. "Makes sense. Shall we go play?"

* * *

Shortly after the PCEs' geas were modified and towards the bow of the _Steamrunner,_ the land-bound members of the PCE penal brigade were in the middle of boarding the shuttles. The well-lit hangar dominated the top side of the bow, and stretched close to the keel, making the use of heavy deck guns this far forward impossible.

Currently, Luna was standing on one of the flanking catwalks overlooking the three bus-sized shuttles with two of the changeling pilots. Both of which were being puppeted by their respective mothers. "Luna," Twilight started while glancing at the PCE marching into the shuttles, "I'm obligated to tell you to stop." All three of them could tell by her tone, that Twilight had no intention on actually doing anything about this little theft. "So… stop stealing our shuttles, I mean it," she said with not one drop of seriousness.

Rainbow Dash smoothly finished Twilight's thought. "And that we're honor-bound to not intervene until Grogar is either delivered to us, or he manages to escape Poly Pocket's hive."

Luna gave both of them a sly roguish look. "Well, I will make note of your protests. Now hypothetically, where would a shipwright place the controls to open the bay doors?"

"Hypothetically?" Twilight pointed at a small overwatch house at the back of the hangar. "They probably would place it in there."

"Seventh lever from the left," Rainbow Dash added with a bemused smile, "should have a red knob."

"I thank you for those hypothetical answers," Luna said graciously with an appreciative nod and smile. Yet before she could take off, Twilight held a hoof out for her to wait. A pensive frown crossed her puppet's face, while a self-deprecating scowl marred Rainbow's own.

"All spy games aside, you know this is the limit of what we can allow before breaking our word. We won't be able to send reinforcements or even use the deck guns unless we have evidence Polybia can no longer uphold her end of the deal."

Luna huffed in amusement and cast her gaze up to the ceiling in remembrance of days long forgotten. "I know full well how hoof-tieing honor and politics can be. For all my sister loves to believe otherwise, politics is simply war of a different nature." Luna cast a knowing smirk. "It pays to have friends who can act when you cannot." Her voice grew cold, her face stony. "You got us here and put this blood war on hold by sticking your neck out. It's time I did the same."

"It feels weird saying this to you of all ponies," Rainbow Dash jittered with a heavily worried grimace. "But be careful down there. If even half the horror stories about-"

Luna waved off any further talk. "Trust me, I will. But I must make haste. I will see you soon." Luna barely waited for the two queens to acknowledge that fact before flying over the hangar watchhouse. The instant the bay doors started opening, the winged members of the PCE jumped down with abandon, leaving the shuttles just about unguarded.

Twilight and Rainbow Dash watched the shuttles take off, loaded down with members of the PCE with wonderbolts acting as pilots. Rainbow Dash looked down towards the PCE vanguard. Twilight waved at the Lunar Guard as they followed after the PCE. "Good luck storming the hive!"

"Think they'll survive?" Rainbow Dash asked while pointing at the PCE.

"It'd take a miracle," Twilight replied with a mix of hope and glumness.

* * *

Things were actually going rather smoothly for Grogar now. With Split Horn and Talon spearheading the march up the hole towards Polybia. The pair of quasi easily dispatched several ambushes with laughable ease due to Polybia being extremely sloppy in their execution.

The latest of which had several suicide drones disguised as rocks, waiting for Grogar to walk past before detonating in magefire. However, Talon had been the one to create that tactic and saw the signs the moment they walked past the ambush tunnel, and advised Grogar dispatch them from a safe distance with a few choice spells.

Presently, the group was walking past that very same failed ambush with Kreesus kicking a rock over to get a better look at one of the exploded drones. "Just how much did Polybia - er - your former master rely on you two for battle?"

Talon was scanning the tunnel ahead. With the throne room now within spitting distance, he was more careful than ever. Kreesus' comment caused him to waver, as if something wasn't quite right. Grogar caught wind of the weakening charm, and thrust his hoof forward, pouring magic into the griffin to strengthen his hold on him. Talon shook his head as the reinforced charm took hold. "She directed overall combat, as fitting for a queen, but Split Horn over there came up with tactical planning while I focused on broader, strategic warfare."

Troubled thoughts crossed Kreesus' already worried mind. _Polybia must be more broken than I thought if she threw two generals at Grogar._ Part of her wished she had done the same with her quasi during the siege, if only to buy more time for a proper escape.

Split Horn pulled back from the edge of the tunnel and knelt before Grogar. "The queen is pulling her drones back. She's exposed the last stretch to the throne room."

"Perhaps she wishes to bargain," Kreesus ventured. "I mean, it's painfully obvious that it's a trap, but it's still possible."

Grogar mentally commanded a group of eight zombified drones to march straight into the throne room while giving orders for the rest of his army to encircle the chamber via the surrounding tunnels, along with clogging the one he made earlier. "I have not come this far to be denied. We will spring her trap, then… Then I will get what I came for."

Kreesus couldn't help but to shudder at the barest hint of a grin on the ram's face. She purposely faced away from the necromancer, and waited until both he and his army were on the move before she approached the throne room.

The long hole Grogar had blasted meant that the necromancer was climbing out of the floor and into a large dimly lit chamber. Talon and Split Horn flanked him, along with the eight zombies fanned out in front. The chamber was little more than polished rock with some iconography of the original First Mother painted everywhere. Polybia sat upon a massive four meter tall throne that was shaped like an egg-chair with more images of the First Mother. However, what dominated the room was the huge soccer goal-sized organic mass hanging from the ceiling that had a dozen tendrils feeding into Polybia's spine and the back of her head. A few living drones gently tended to the mass, both keeping it clean and feeding it with a diminished stock of greens nearby. Lastly, Polybia's eyes were clouded and blind, her chitin was pockmarked and cracking. Some of her chitin was missing all together, revealing pale white flesh that was covered in black sores.

While the two quasi were greatly disturbed by the pinkish pulsating mass hanging on the ceiling, so much so that they nearly dropped their weapons out of revulsion and mild horror. Grogar was completely unfazed. Far worse things existed in Tartarus. Kreesus shared the quasi' sentiment, but was far more vocal about it after poking her head out of the hole.

"By the First Mother! What have you done to yourself!?"

Polybia's absent gaze drifted towards Kreesus' direction. "Ahh, good. Kreesus, stay there while I dispatch my guest." Kreesus was too paralyzed by Polybia's appearance to do otherwise. "Now, Grogar, I'll give you this one chance to return to your prison."

Grogar sized her up, glancing around the organic mass Polybia was bound to. After a few moments, his first answer was interrupted by the sense that the undead he had sent into the upper tunnels were being cut down in rapid succession. What was more, there was the distant taste of holy magic at work, purging a large swath of his festering magic from the upper hive, but was impossible to tell more at such a distance. "I think we both know what my answer would be."

Without further warning, Grogar's eyes brightened with an unholy red as he latched onto Polybia's soul, an act made far easier thanks to her being saturated in his magic. Yet before he could rip it from her body, Polybia lashed out with an invisible psionic lash so powerful it carved a long gash into the floor towards Grogar. The necromancer was slow to react, thanks to not noticing the attack until it was carving a groove into the floor. He jumped to the side, but still took a glancing blow.

The glancing hit was enough to completely shave off a full inch of flesh off Grogar's right side side, carving into his ribs and thigh. Brackish black liquid oozed out more like tar than actual blood. As ever, Grogar's face remained impassive as he studied her in a new light.

A distraction, both in his minions going silent, and heavy use of holy magic from closer above pulled his attention away for a bare moment. That was all Polybia needed to strike again, this time with two lashes that rippled the air above Grogar, with another going low, completely separating him from all four hooves.

Grogar fell on the ground in a heap, leaving Polybia with an easy target to send a smaller lash, striking his face and blinding him. "Go, now!" he ordered the undead and quasi.

Split Horn and Talon surged forward by his command, with the eight undead racing ahead of them. Polybia first acted to latch onto the minds of her former generals in an attempt to revert their loyalty and hold them in place.

As for the zombies, Polybia formed a ribbon of caustic magic and let the undead walk right into it, cutting themselves to pieces and scattering along the floor. With the undead rendered a non-issue, and Grogar blinded, she focused on her former generals.

"Whatever he did to you, know that I will take you back into the fold, one way or another." Polybia's voice resonated in both the physical world and echoed in everyone's mind. She leveraged all of her amplified power into discovering how it happened in the first place, after all, she didn't want to damage them.

She found it quickly enough, bringing a dark grin to her ashen face. "A simple perception swap? Elegant in it's simplicity, but easily correctable." She gave Grogar a glance, just to be sure, only to find his eyes were back to normal. _What?_

Those very eyes flashed brilliantly crimson, heralding a torrent of dark magic. Polybia retaliated with an angled arcane barrier. The dark magic hit the barrier dead on, but much of it's force was deflected, being sent towards the left of Polybia, burning a massive hole into the ceiling between them. Boulders and dust caved in, forcing Polybia to strengthen the ceiling above her.

The cave in was narrow enough that Grogar and Kreesus were in no immediate threat, allowing him to weave a knitting spell to get his hooves reattached. _A pity I can't do that with my horns._

The cave-in also distracted Polybia enough to release her hold on the quasi, which gave them time to retreat towards their new master and help him back on his hooves. "My queen," Split Horn said with horrified worry, "I have never seen another royal with that much psionic power. We can't win here. We must flee and rebuild the swarm, or at least lay siege from outside of her throne room."

In contemplating retreat, Grogar reached out to his undead army, only to find not one single zombie existed above them. "Something tells me, it won't have to be _us_ that lay seige."

"You can't best me _here_ demon!" Polybia chided as she summoned more of her augmented mental powers to shove the dust and debris aside so she had a clear view of the necromancer.

The moment the dust settled, two earth ponies and three pegasi dropped down with a thump. Kreesus, who had already only been sticking her head out to watch, quickly ducked back out of sight. Grogar had been expecting something was headed their way, and used the dust to mask his presence, casting a spell for him and the two quasi to appear as large rocks. So it was that when the quintet of ponies took stock of their new surroundings, the only person they saw was a stunned Polybia perched upon her throne. One of the pegasi jabbed a bladed hoof at the queen. "Lookie there, fellas! We got the ugliest bug queen that could ever exist!"

One of the earth ponies took one look at Polybia, and grabbed a signal horn around his neck. "Kill her for the princesses!"

As the four other ponies charged in, the leader blew three long deep notes on his horn. The call broke Polybia out of her shock, prompting her to mold new ribbons of psionic power. She cut down the one pegasus who had a crossbow with one ribbon, and cleaved the charging earth ponies straight down the center. Polybia immediately tried to raise them as undead, but moments after the ponies died, their light armor exploded in holy magic. Not large enough to threaten Polybia, but enough that the corpses were completely untouchable by necrotic magic.

Failing to secure new warriors, she grasped the minds of the last two pegasi and used brute force to dominate their minds, quickly burning through their unprepared minds to serve her. Her attention finally returned to the last ponies as he sounded a second tri-note call, heralding the arrival of ten more ponies from above. Each of them were bloodied either with normal blood, or the coagulated mess that flowed through the undead.

"Looks like we got ourselves the motherload, boys!" cried one of the new arrivals. "A hundred bits to whoever takes her head!"

Several ponies fired off crossbow bolts faster than Polybia could swat them out of the air. Two struck the massive organic thing behind her, making Polybia give off an ear flattening shriek of pain. Summoning up as much psionic power as she could spare, Polybia erected a reflective barrier. Every arrow and mana bolt bounced back as if it were rubber, with the charging ponies suffering the same thing when they got too close.

The effort however, gave Polybia only enough strength for a single caustic ribbon, but she couldn't render it invisible anymore.

Kreesus used the fight to sneak over to Grogar's rocky disguise. "Grogar!" she hissed over the fighting, "you can't defeat that kind of psionic power with just magic."

Grogar watched Polybia and waited for her focus to fully shift to the mounting number of ponies. Once his moment came, he dragged himself and the two quasi over to the hole so he had space to think. "I don't understand. You queens' psionic power is supposed to be tied up into maintaining a hive mind, not direct combat."

"Did you get those lies from your old jailer?" Kreesus chided, getting a dark glower from Grogar in return. She decided to lighten her tone, just to be safe. " _Traditionally_ we avoid using psionics for combat because outside of the hivemind, we normally don't have this kind of power. It doesn't help that we stole the magic disciplines from the unicorns, and we never train for psionic warfare. But pound for pound, psionics will always pierce straight through magic."

"I take it none of you have ever used something like that amplifier Polybia's attached to?" Grogar asked almost rhetorically. He watched as several more ponies were cut down, yet they were constantly replaced by more fanatics. All them were eager to claim the queen's head.

Kreesus shuddered at the abhorrent thought. "Never. Our mobility is sacred. If I could relive the siege of my hive, I still wouldn't have used an amplifier like that. Not even to win a war."

Grogar grunted uncaringly of her reasonings, and gestured with a hoof at the PCE. "Who ever these ponies are, they're a complication I could do without." He reached out with his magic, trying to test the waters on raising the dead, only for the blessed corpses to rebuff even the slightest touch. "And they came prepared to fight necromancy." _If only I had a week and the resources of my stronghold, I could circumvent that kind of protection. Not that it'd be worth it at that point._ He addressed the quasi and jabbed a hoof at one of the nearby tunnels that looked like it circled the throne room. "We need to get behind her to destroy that psi amplifier. It shouldn't be a problem to take her soul and escape these ponies after that."

Before the quasi could acknowledge and obey the order, Kreesus' horn lit up and pulled the quasi back. "We can't do that! Polybia's swarm is still out there. If you kill her now, they'll go feral and scatter throughout the jungle."

"I fail to see how that is a problem for us," Grogar replied coldly. "You have no hive anymore, so you can relocate far from here without issue."

"B-but the jungle is my home."

"Then get a new one." Grogar's gaze grew so frosty it put a chill in Kreesus' spine. "I don't know where those ponies came from, but I am not going to risk staying in the jungles where they are already looking for me."

Kreesus was not to be cowed so easily and stood her ground. "For _you,_ yes, but those must be the ponies that Twilight Sparkle brought into the campaign. Can you not simply hide away from them? If you are so determined to have your revenge on that harlot, then let the ponies kill her, and drag her soul to you from afar.

"It's not like I can betray you when I've already signed your contract." _Just to come to an agreement, nothing more._

Grogar knew he didn't have time to think about it long. A glance at the battle showed that the ponies had wised up to Polybia's defense and were spreading out and using spells and earth pony might to break the walls around the throne. It would only be a matter of time before the psionic enhancer would fall from the ceiling, and potentially be destroyed in the process. "I must have the soul of a queen for my plans. Hers would be best, but I can still do with yours."

Grogar's statement froze Kreesus' blood as the demonic necromancer summoned the contract in a burst of brimstone. Only now, below her signature, was a large blank spot that started filling with words as Grogar spoke. "By agreeing to this amendment, you will assist in claiming the soul of the rogue queen Polybia when she dies this day. Failure to do so will forfeit your own."

"W-what do I get in return?"

Grogar faked a smirk. "That I will leave your soul unmarked and I'll even throw in a bonus to show you how to keep it purified of necrotic or demonic taint, should you ever need such skill in the future." His eyes glowed as a new signature circle appeared in a flash of flame. "Just so you know, the stipulation of us coming into agreement on my new body doesn't require you to remain intact. So, do we have a bargin?"

"I am really starting to hate your little contracts." Kreesus glanced in Polybia's direction, seeing now that a few heavily armored bat ponies had joined in.

"Hate them all you like," Grogar rebutted sternly while pushing the contract forward. "I have been toyed with long enough, and I will not be denied any longer. Don't force me to do something you'll regret."

Kreesus and the others ducked as a spell shock wave passed over them from the fighting. The presence of so many ponies emboldened her to a height she'd probably regret later. Kreesus slapped away the contract, only for her hoof to pass through the ethereal document. She took it in stride and glared at Grogar. "You need to stop with this damn contract malarky. If you are so hell bent on getting her soul for whatever revenge you have planned, then fine by me. After what she did to the other queens, she deserves every iota of pain you'll give her.

"But you're just going to have to operate on a level of trust, and just tell me what I have to do to get that soul for you."

Thorn placed one of his swords somewhat near Kreesus' throat as a warning while his master replied flatly. "I have no reason to trust anyone outside of a contract. You either sign, or I look for a more readily available queen soul." Grogar waved a sign into the air with a hoof, and gently tugged on Kreesus' soul. Not a lot, just enough to demonstrate her situation. Even so, the light pull caused pins and needles to tingle all over her body. "As I've said, I can still force you to create my new body in either case. But I would rather keep our relationship… cordial."

"Cordial _indeed_ ," Kreesus snapped heatedly as she slapped her hoof against the signature circle.

"I'm glad we have an understanding." Again, Grogar faked a smile, and detached one of the bells from his necklace. "When they inevitably kill Polybia, be sure this bell is within ten meters of her at the moment of death. This will also keep her from escaping into one of those ressurection pools."

Kreesus snatched the bell up with her magic, and instantly regretted it. The bell was freezing cold in her magic, enough so that it chilled her breath. "A word of warning," he said as Kreesus stood up. "As her soul is being dragged into the bell, it will be visible for all to see, so I suggest you get in close to minimize that, or at least sell a good lie. Don't worry about getting the bell back to me, I will handle that."

 _You know, Grogar, at some point you are going to be weak in your new body. Keep this up marionette game and you won't even have time to open new eyes before I slit your throat._ Keeping the thought to herself, Kreesus studied the battle unfolding while Grogar slipped back down into the depths of the hive. _Just need to find an opening to go in there. Grogar's incessant need for revenge aside, I can't just let the ponies kill her with that swarm still out there._

* * *

The armored newcomers tangoed with Polybia's calm strikes. Any time a unicorn tried to fire off a non-directed spell to circumvent the repulsion barrier, Polybia was quick to freeze their mind; dropping them dead or into a coma on the spot. As for the rest of the ponies, Polybia was pacing herself trying to cut them down with a ribbon or two. She had collapsed the tunnels surrounding the throne, leaving the hole in the ceiling as the only avenue of attack.

 _Just need to stall them until my swarm returns,_ Polybia mused more to reassure herself than anything else. _Just stall. I've got enough food for a week. Should be more than enough no matter what they throw at me._

Polybia empowered her psionic ribbon and lanced it right at a bat pony hiding behind a boulder. She completely ignored the dozen crossbow bolts and failed charges, focusing on a single target at a time. The boulder was cleaved in two, but the pony had ducked at the last instant, only to leave himself flat footed and unable to flee quickly.

With a trivial flick, the ribbon danced to whip the pony and end his life. At the final moment, something new cut the invisible psionic ribbon right at the leading edge, causing much of the ribbon to disperse. The attack on her ribbon left her perplexed. _How? They do not possess the power to stop my attack-_

A new dark figure slammed down on the floor, cratering the ground. Intangible hair blowing on ethereal wind, and gleaming silver armor that started shining brightly in the presence of so much dark magic, and a psionic presence that disturbed Polybia to her core had arrived. Princess Luna scanned the corpses of over a dozen ponies littered around the throne room and up to Polybia's revolting form. "I half expected Grogar to be the cause of so much death in so confined a place.

"You have much to answer for, Polybia." Luna turned her gaze towards the surviving ponies. "Watch my back in case Grogar attacks."

Polybia huffed dismissively as the ponies made room for Luna's expected fight. "Princess Luna. I should have expected Twilight Sparkle would have made sure she'd have a back door to our agreement. I only acted in self-defense," Polybia challenged with more spite than she intended as she swept a hoof over the dead. "As for what crimes I've committed, none of them were directed at Equestria."

"Oh but you have," Luna rebuked bitterly. "Rogue Queen Polybia, I hereby accuse you of tainting massive stretches of wilderness with necrotic taint with no means or intent on correcting it before scarring the land. It would take generations to purify the jungles of what you've done. That alone is grounds enough to execute you where you stand."

Polybia's ire exploded in rage with her slamming her hooves down on her throne, cracking the stone. "Don't project your unwanted morality on the queendoms! This is a war between _us!_ Apparently your kind seems to have forgotten how destructive war can be."

Luna's horn glowed with blinding silver light while the rest of the room was cast in darkness as sunlight stopped spilling forth from the hole in the ceiling. "That destruction is exactly why we've come to stop it here and now."

"An admirable, noble goal from your point of view I'm sure," Polybia sneered while marshalling her psionic power for an attack. "But not even the power of an alicorn can touch me here. Your magic is worthless against my mind!"

Polybia hesitated her strike when a shaft of pure moonlight struck down the hole and encompassed Luna. The princess' eyes glowed with restrained power and she cast that gaze upon her foe. "I may not have the raw magical prowess of my sister, or the finesse of Twilight Sparkle, but so many people seem to forget that I am the Dreamer."

With the fury of the moon behind her, an inky dark shroud wrapped around Luna, causing her to fade a little from reality. Jumping into a low hover, strings of the same inky magic formed from her six limbs and horn. The strings flew forward until they were outside the moonbeam and ripped a blindingly bright white hole into the dream realm. From there, the Tantabus, a dark amorphous being roughly in the shape of an alicorn and made to look like a starry night, emerged into the material plane. Polybia recoiled at the manifestation of raw psionics given physical form. Luna's strings attached themselves to the corresponding points on the Tantabus' body. Luna's flapping wings caused those two strings to shimmer invitingly.

Luna's voice took on a reverb that chilled the hearts of both queens and humbled the PCE. "Are ribbons the best you can muster? Even with all your age, you are but a child in a battle such as this, Polybia. I'll give you this one chance to surrender with some…" Luna wrinkled her nose in disgust at the organic brain thing Polybia had attached herself to. "Dignity."

Polybia eyed the weaving puppet strings like a hawk, a mad hatter grin cleaving her muzzle. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to decline the offer. But I must say, very impressive, Luna the Dreamer. You might even defeat me, I admit, but think of this before you do." Using her magic, Polybia created a hologram of her remaining swarm, still numbering over half a million, that was flying straight towards the hive. "Should you strike me down, all of the drones there will be under the control of the quasi necromancers. I made those quasi capable of being independent of me so that they could still inflict damage to my enemies should Grogar ever take me.

"And now I just gave them a new set of orders. Should you kill or sever my connection to them, all of them will instead head straight for Equestria. They'll spread the necrotic taint all over your country if you don't leave." Polybia couldn't see any reaction out of Luna from beneath her cloak, but she assumed the alicorn's hesitation as a good sign. "So I suggest you and your little band return to whatever ship delivered you here and not return."

Through knowledge given from Twilight, Luna knew that mindless drones went feral, but she knew nothing about quasi. _See, Tia? This is what you get when you always tell me to offer a chance for surrender first._ Shoving her irritation towards Celestia aside, Luna mulled over how to balance matters in her favor.

"I don't have all day, Princess, I have a necromancer to capture," Polybia chided.

It was at that moment when a voice sprang into Luna's mind with a psionic signature she recognized, but it had an oily aftertaste of muffled magic she couldn't pinpoint. _Princess Luna, I am Queen Kreesus, I was taken by Polybia, but the chaos Grogar caused has allowed me to escape. I am taking cover inside of the holes behind you._ A more accurate word would have been hiding, but even Kreesus still had her dignity.

As for Luna, she cooly stopped herself from reacting to the voice. _I thought you could only talk within the hive mind._

As if sensing the question, Kreesus explained herself. _Please do not waste your time trying to talk back. I can only talk to you briefly and I can't hear anything you say. But, if you can incapacitate Polybia, I can take over her swarm long enough to tell it to destroy itself. I just need you to give me an opening to get in close._

In her hiding place, Kreesus slumped to the ground, winded badly and gulping air at a long breathless pace. "I think she heard me," she told Grogar between breaths as a migraine was catching up to her. _Projecting like that without a hive mind connection was a bad idea if it didn't work._

Grogar pulled his amplifying black magic out of Kreesus' body, taking care to make sure he was completely thorough in its extraction. "This had better work, for your sake."

Luna grinned inwardly at the hidden ally, and decided to seize the opportunity. "You're bluffing, fallen queen! No pony can hold a whole country hostage under my watch." Without giving Polybia a chance to rebuke, the Tanabus surged forward on the attack.


	81. Chapter 81

The Trapdoor Falls Away

The Tantabus surged towards Polybia, expanding out into a blanketing shroud. Polybia dispelled her psionic ribbon in favor of empowering her barrier. She caught the Tantabus fully, and tried to enclose the Tantabus inside a ball. The instant Polybia's counter attack severed the last puppet string, the living manifestation of dreams stopped resisting being crushed. Polybia's confusion was dismissed several seconds later when a jagged white tear in reality opened near Luna's moonbeam with the Tantabus stepping out once again.

Polybia conjured up three ribbons, and primed herself for Luna to strike out again. Luna didn't keep her waiting. She matched Polybia's defense by splitting the Tantabus into three smaller versions, each with two puppet strings attached. _Fool. You think you can best a changeling in a battle of numbers!?_

Luna tried scattering the Tantabus puppets in all directions, trying to slip one inside Polybia's guard. The assault along the floor was cut short after Luna attempted to block an incoming ribbon, and the small Tantabus intercepted it, only for the tip of the ribbon to dance past ad cut the puppet lines. That Tantabus dissipated into thin air. At the same time, Polybia directed two more ribbons at the flanking Tantabus. However, Luna didn't have the ability to split her focus as a queen did, and couldn't react in time to save those puppet strings.

The last Tantabus sailed above them all. Polybia smirked in satisfaction as all four ribbons converged on the creature, shredding the final Tantabus like so much cloth. Polybia drew her attention back to Luna right as the moonbeam flashed. Again, a tear opened to allow the Tantabus to walk through with strings attached. Only now, Luna was more cautious, and had the Tantabus prowl in front of her, baiting Polybia to make the first move.

In this moment of respite, Polybia realized Luna had yet to say a word since the fight started. Chancing a brief glance at the collection of other ponies still present, Polybia noticed they were too busy guarding the exits, and Kreesus who apparently had surrendered herself to the ponies. _How kind of them to save me the effort of trying to find her. Maybe I should leave those ponies alive to hunt down Grogar after all. I can use Luna as leverage against the Sisters._

Movement from the Tantabus and Luna pulled Polybia back to the present. The holy radiance of the moonbeam quintupled in its brilliance as if a doorway into the heart of the Silver City itself had been thrown open. The holiness of such light scarred what was left of Polybia's deadened eyes watching the impossible: the moonbeam was moving towards her.

Luna landed on the ground while remaining dead center of the beam. The Tantabus however, remained in the air, seeming to desire to ward its master. Luna took a step forward, and the beam moved with her. The corrupted earth of the hive between Luna and the moon above split apart to make way.

Polybia lashed out with her ribbons. The Tantabus kicked two away and cast a psionic bolt that severed a third, but the fourth one struck true, cleaving Luna in half from her left shoulder to her right thigh. Polybia hissed in surprise victory upon seeing open air between the two severed halves. "A shame holy magic is even worse than arcane at protecting one from psionics, Princess."

Luna's two halves didn't fall to the ground, nor did the moonbeam falter in the slightest, making Polybia hesitate in turning her attention towards the ponies in the distance. Yet the Tantabus seemed to die however, instead of dissipating, the creature keeled forward and hit the ground so hard it burst into a large shallow pool of star dust that started to drain away from Luna.

With that threat gone, Polybia refocused on Luna. Strangely, no blood was spilled, and instead, Luna became incorporeal and wisp-like. Soon her body reformed entirely into a floating sphere of the night sky. Polybia readied a second attack, and waited as Luna reformed back into her normal pony self.

The instant she was whole again, Luna found herself surrounded by all four ribbons. She only had a split second for the shock to register on her face before two ribbons bound her legs, the third wrapped around her torso to bind her wings, and the fourth grasped her horn. Then a torrent of pain rocketed through every nerve of Luna's body, causing her to scream behind clenched teeth. Her moonbeam flickered wildly before dimming to a mere fraction.

The ponies that remained in the throne room, mostly Lunar Guard, were quick to realize the danger their princess was in and charged to aid her. Polybia pulled Luna away from the guard and sent a quick repulsion spell to break their charge. "Back off, ponies, or your princess will die here and now!"

While the PCE stopped dead in their tracks, the Lunar Guard kept going with blades drawn. It was only when Polybia squeezed Luna enough to get her to cry out that the guards finally halted. "There. Now, one of you, go back to that ship and tell-" Polybia's demands cut short when she felt a vengeful presence directly behind her throne.

She pulled herself away, and risked dividing her power further to make a fifth ribbon, but there was nothing. Only her drones and the organic amplifier. Using the eyes of those drones to verify that no one or no-thing was hiding there, she returned her attention towards Luna who had passed out. The alicorn's psionic shroud faded, leaving only her damaged armor, and unconscious form remaining. _Seems like whatever distraction she planned activated too late._

"So much for the venerable Dreamer." She turned to address the reluctant ponies. "What are you waiting for? Go, now!"

* * *

In the waking world, Luna easily pulled herself out of the unbecoming position Polybia's ribbons had placed her in and dismissed the moonbeam, allowing the lighting to return to its dark shadows. Her armor was ruined by the cut, but it would have to do for now. She looked up to see the Tantabus had reformed behind Polyia with eight tendrils latched onto the queen's head and spine while a dozen more were connected to the drones tending to the massive brain.

Luna's Guard Captain rushed forward and gave her an inspection once over, an act made easier by the bat pony's naturally strong night vision. "Princess Luna, are you alright?"

A few bones popped and cracked as Luna resumed a fully corporeal form again. "It takes a bit more than that to do me any lasting harm, Captain Silver. I'll be fine." Captain Silver barked orders at the rest of them to resume guarding the exits. Luna took the moment to finish recomposing herself before adding, "and have Kreesus brought before me."

"As you wish, your highness." Silver bowed curtly before moving off to do as commanded personally.

 _That took more out of me than I wanted. I can only hope I can somehow extract some information about Grogar out of Polybia before she realizes what happened to her._

Luna sighed out some of the stress as the PCE brought out the extinguished torches they had originally brought with them. By the time Kreesus had been brought forward, the torches cast the throne room into usable light. The scaly queen had burn marks from spellfire, and quite a few lacerations with one particularly bloody one running across her neck and a second on her chest. She was also sporting a black eye and a limping rear leg. Lastly, and probably the most noticeable to Luna, was the murderous spiteful glare she was giving everyone around her, particularly the two PCE guards that prodded her forward with their spears. "Princess Luna, I must protest this horribly disrespectful treatment of what I thought to be an ally. I am aware of your group of terrorists not being the most friendly to my kind, but this!" she waved a hoof at her wounds while focusing on her neck and chest cuts. "This is absurd."

"Then you should count yourself lucky they showed such restraint," Luna commented testily towards the two PCE, including Sea Breeze, who only looked chastised because it was expected of them. "I wasn't expecting to run into you, though. The geas on the non-guard only keeps them from willfully attacking those of Twilight's bloodline."

Luna turned fully away from Polybia to study Kreesus and her injuries with a critical eye. "Sea Breeze, get a medic over here pronto." After the snappy response and the two PCE members departing and being replaced by three members of the Lunar Guard, the dark alicorn fixed kreesus with a pensive look. "Rather convenient that you show up like this. From what I understand, Polybia was already fighting someone when the horn sounded, and I can think of only one other person she'd be engaged with."

Kreesus freaked a little and backpedaled only to bump against a testy guard. "I know it sounds convenient, but I am who I say I am. You can test me with holy magic if you insist."

"I do." A dash of paranoia skirted Luna's mind. _I haven't met a demon yet that could stand within the Light of the Moon and survive, even if they are possessing a mortal… But I shouldn't use its full power in any event or I'd banish him back to his phylactery._ "Guards, prepare yourself should this prove a ruse."

Kreesus stood firm, not wanting to give the guard any satisfaction in seeing her squirm. Luna tapped into her powers and cracked open the door to the Silver City, bathing everyone around her. Kreesus' eyes seemed to come alive with new vibrancy, her scales shone from beneath the dirt, and she breathed easier. However, there was a singular dark point hidden in Kreesus' hair that rebuffed the light. That alone set Luna on edge, but she decided to play it smooth. "So. Do you happen to know where Grogar ran off to?"

Kreesus glanced back from where she came, but couldn't see much outside of the bright moonlight. "Probably hiding as a rock somewhere in here." She turned back to Luna who flashed momentary surprise. "I hate to admit it in front of present company, but I had to exploit him to keep Polybia from capturing me again."

Feeling secure in her holy light, Luna jerked a nod at the guards. "Leave us." The two guards knew her true meaning and simply turned about face while Luna cast a small zone of privacy. She gave Kreesus a hard glare while subtly intensifying the power of the moonbeam. "One does not simply exploit a being as ancient and powerful as Grogar. What deal did you strike with him?"

Kreesus was acutely aware of her precarious position, and had no loyalty towards Grogar in any event. She cast her eyes down with nagging fear eating away at her. "Grogar wants me to give him a new body in exchange for his protection." She reached into her hair with a hoof and dragged out the bell. The object was completely encased in a shell of dark magic, shielding it from Luna's holy magic. "And he wants Polybia's soul taken by this upon her death. If I don't deliver both, he will take mine in its stead."

Out of everything, Luna half expected Grogar's desire for Polybia's soul. _Undoubtedly for some measure of vengeance, I'm sure._ "A new body? Did he say what for?"

"Not directly," Kreesus admitted, thankful that Luna wasn't decrying her out of hand. "Technically I've only agreed to come to an arrangement for said body. We weren't exactly in a good place to hammer out a well written contract after all."

Luna considered the facts she knew. _Interesting. Keeping Kreesus close will ensure that Grogar will be forced to show himself. Just what game is he playing at though?_ "He is sworn to protect you?" Kreesus nodded. "Interesting… I'll deal with that in a bit." Luna canceled the privacy spell and the moonbeam. "Come. The sooner we get rid of Polybia's swarm, the sooner we can focus on Grogar."

Kreesus returned the bell to her mane and joined Luna in flying up towards Polybia. The fallen queen looked even more diseased up close. Her chitin was crumbling to dust around several patches of blackened necrotic skin. Her milky white eyes stared blankly ahead as though she was focused on distant control. She sat in stark contrast to the fleshy yet still healthy colored brain that was fused to her head and spine. Up close, the Tantabus appeared to be a creature of haunting nightmare to Kreesus, like a parasite that was feeding upon Polybia. It was a fate that pulled upon a deep seated primal fear in Kreesus, that of not only becoming a hideous parody of herself, but assuredly being rendered barren. _Grogar's influence must be great indeed if she's not willing to commit suicide because of that._

"The Tantabus is good," Luna began as she appraised the waking dream Polybia was trapped in. "But I am not going to risk Polybia becoming wise to what happened. Do what you need to do, and quickly. We'll discuss the matter with Polybia's soul afterwards."

Kreesus gave Luna a slack jawed stunned expression before shaking herself to focus. "Very well." While hovering in place, Kreesus placed her forehooves on either side of Polybia's skull. The feel of the flaking chitin sent a shiver of revulsion through her spine. Then she started easing her control over Polybia's hive mind, slowly supplanting her as its master. A task made easy since she no longer had any drones of her own to divide her focus anymore.

"Will this take long?" Luna inquired while glancing nervously at Polybia twitching her face. "She might sever the connection entirely if she figures out what's happening."

"I don't know," Kreesus snapped testily at being distracted. "I've never actually done this before. It's not exactly common to capture a queen with a still intact hive."

 _That's encouraging._ Luna decided to leave Kreesus to her work for the moment and noticed Sea Breeze had showed up with more than her fair share of injuries and coated with ichor and blood. She also had a bad limp on her left front leg. She and the Guard Captain finished speaking with each other, allowing him to break off to meet with Luna.

"Your Majesty, reports say our penal brigade has finished combing the upper tunnels, and are sweeping their way down. Most of the drones were already dead upon arrival, much to Sea Breeze's irritation."

Luna huffed and glanced at the badly wounded mare. "Seems she underestimated what few she _did_ find. Have her and any other casualties taken back to the _Steamrunner_ for treatment. Felons or not, they're still my subjects."

"As you wish, princess." Captain Silver was about to fly off when Luna tugged him back with a bit of magic. "And tell the rest of the Guard and a squad of Wonderbolts to deploy in the tunnels immediately surrounding the throne room." Luna spied a look at Kreesus who was entirely engrossed on Polybia if the sweat on her brow was any indication. "I have a feeling I can draw Grogar out of hiding. Oh, and before I forget, tell Twilight and Rainbow that Polybia is incapacitated, that should annul their deal."

"I'll let them know immediately, your highness."

Luna watched the guard leave for a moment before returning her attention to the Tantabus and Kreesus. Given that Kreesus had yet to voice any complaints about the Tantabus, Luna assumed she could keep it in place. "Any progress?"

"...There I suppl-" Kreesus' eyes went wide with horror and she scrabbled away from Polybia and fell out of the air. She started jumping at sounds Luna couldn't hear, tossing her head back and forth. "What? How? This - This is wrong. She's totally mad!"

Luna flew down to give Kreesus some comfort, but stopped short after remembering that queens didn't like to be touched, well, the ones without fur anyway. "What happened!?"

"The voices! So many voices all at once!" Every fiber of Kreesus' being wanted to sever the hive mind then and there. Her speech started to waver and dip and rise in pitch as she struggled to resist that hard-wired instinct to sever or at least forcibly silence the voices of the quasi. "It -it feels like hundreds, no _thousands_ of quasi! How can she live like this!?"

If there was one thing Luna secretly enjoyed, it was knocking sense into people. So it was with no small amount of pleasure that Luna thwacked Kreesus upside the head with a wing. "Get ahold of yourself!"

Kreesus blinked and held the side of her muzzle that had been bruised. _How dare she slap me!_ Biting her dignity, Kreesus used the pain as a focus center. "The voices are too strong, Princess, and far too numerous. I don't think they'd obey me if I told them to kill each other."

Luna rubbed her chin as she thought over the issue. Kreesus was too busy trying to ignore the tidal wave of noise over the hive mind. Without Polybia's amplifier and experience to understand them, the best Kreesus could do was drown it out until all that was left was nothing but static like an out of tune radio.

"Is there anything you _can_ do?" Luna asked after drawing a blank on a new plan and was about ready to go with her original idea.

Kreesus bit down a scathing retort, if only so she could sever the link with so many intelligent mind just a few seconds quicker. "I could - I think I can at least tell them where to attack at least. Change what Polybia's final target should be if she is killed. Anything else might cause them to become suspicious." In truth, Kreesus was grasping at straws trying to justify her importance, and was unsure if it would work at all.

"That's something at least…" Luna didn't need to think for long, for there were only two forces that could stand a chance at defeating such a force with minimal collateral damage. "See if you can split the swarm in two. Chrysalis said her defenses could withstand a hundred thousand last I heard, so send that many to her. Spin a lie if you have to."

"And what of the rest of them?" Kreesus asked rhetorically. She knew what Luna was going to say, but felt the words had to escape the alicorn's lips first.

"...Send them against the fleet still holding around your mountain hive." Luna answered with a haunted grimace. "They'll be the ones who can end this."

Nodding slowly, Kreesus started to formulate how exactly she was going to order hundreds of thousands of intelligent minds. Her current saving grace as to why she wasn't getting overloaded with so many connections was that she was keeping a very hooves off approach to command at the moment. _Trying to puppet anything right now could kill me, and I am_ not _plugging myself into that amplifier._ She looked up at the massive brain and shivered at the sight of it. _It'll just have to be a general announcement. Maybe say this amplifier brain is killing me so they don't question it._

The very idea of anyone in her hive mind questioning her disturbed Kreesus to her core, which wasn't helped by the noise. Unlike the Link between Twilight and family, there was no love, no light hearted joy, none of the familiarity that bonded that hive mind together. Here there was only fanatical devotion to one queen, along with hatred and anger spurred on by the lies Polybia had told her quasi to make them even more vindictive in combat. All of it made the Link miserably painful to her. So much so that she didn't even notice Grogar's bell fall out of her mane and jiggled and bounced on the ground.

Luna, who had been communing with the Tantabus, heard the bell drop and roll over to rest against the throne. Though it was no longer masked by its shield against her holy moonlight, Luna knew what it was. Outwardly, the bell looked old and rusted, like it had been left to the elements for ages. What perhaps unnerved her most was that she could see no reflected light from the slits in the bell, just plain darkness.

Luna's horn brightened with silver light with intent to destroy the unholy object. Yet before any spell could fly, a deep voice akin to crunching gravel danced from ear to ear. "Now, now, let's not do anything rash."

The hairs of the back of Luna's neck raised up, and she whirled around to wing-slap Grogar away, only to find no one there. She cast her gaze around looking for the source. With Polybia still locked within the Tantabus' dream and Kreesus becoming increasingly comatose to the outside world, Luna had no illusions as to who was speaking to her.

"Show yourself, Grogar!" Luna pulled away from the throne to give her space to fight. Her horn burned with holy fire.

"I am not here to fight you, Princess Luna, daughter of Lūn and Sweva the Dreamer." Luna's eyes bulged at the mention of her origin. "I am here for the same thing they were given."

Luna was caught flat-footed by the barely noticeable sorrow in his otherwise neutral tone. "Which is…?"

"To have a new life." Luna followed Grogar's voice and found the hornless demon standing not ten meters away from her towards the center of the chamber. "To wash myself of my current existence."

"You expect me to believe that?" Luna retorted as she fell into a loose combat stance. She lit her horn in holy silver, but Grogar remained impassive. She searched his eyes for truth, but the solid red glow made reading him nigh impossible.

"What I _expect_ is an individual of your… aged wisdom to hear me out before trying to cast me back down to Tartarus," Grogar stated dryly. "Things would go much smoother that way for both of us."

Out of the corner of her eye, Luna saw Captain Silver pressing himself against one of the exits. He nodded to her, signaling he was waiting for her signal. With her position of power more secure, Luna felt a touch more accommodating. "The old stories say you are a pony who gave up their soul to become a powerful demon and now you lord over a section of Tartarus. Why would someone like you give that up?"

Grogar felt nothing, but managed to fake a snort of contempt. "Rule? No one rules in Tartarus. There is no real civilization, no laws outside of contracts. It is a realm completely devoted to the survival of the fittest. I 'rule' simply by the fact that no one dares move against me anymore."

"Is it not still a life you chose willingly?" Luna countered, not really buying it. _I at least have to buy time for Kreesus to give Polybia's swarm new orders before things get messy._

"Partially," Grogar admitted freely. "I lived in a time, in a culture whose people's faith was one that had no afterlife. We existed and then we died, our mind and spirit decayed to be recycled like our bodies. A complete loss of self. I chose demonhood to escape that fate. Only to my everlasting disgust, I was turned not into a pride demon as I had expected, but a succubus instead. I became a slave to unslakable lust until I was summoned by chance into a necromancer's service. To my fortune, he was wanting to create a demon-lich hybrid. I won't bore you with anymore of my life story, save for the fact that while undeath has freed me from the shackles of my succubus nature, I feel little. No joy, no satisfaction, only hate, anger. Having a second life as a royal changeling would rectify that particular irritant."

The holy glow on Luna's horn disappeared, but her suspicion remained strong. Her piercing gaze still couldn't get a read on him. "If you wanted a normal life again so badly, why not just possess a mortal? I'm sure someone of your age and power could pass unnoticed."

 _I doubt the Dreamer is so ignorant as to actually believe that._ Grogar knew from the start this would be a hard sell. "That could never work. The moment I inhabit a living body, I would revert back to a nymphomaniac. I would rather face oblivion than return to that existence." It was tiny, but some small part of Luna started to think he was being genuine. "That is why I need Polybia's soul; to purge myself of demonic essence."

"I'd be lying if I said I was not intrigued," Luna stated carefully. "But why a royal changeling?"

"Hedging my bets," Grogar replied with a slight head tilt. "Not only do queens live a very long time, but they also possess rebirthing techniques. My old mortality was the chief reason I willingly became a demon."

Part of Luna couldn't help but to agree with him on that point. She was aware she was not so humble that she would gladly accept reincarnation into a comparatively short lived pony either. _But there's no way I can trust a demon. He'd betray us the instant he thinks he can get a better deal from some other- Wait. A deal, eh?_ Luna fixed Grogar with a calculating stare. "You demons are bound by whatever contract you sign, is that fair to say?"

The idea of a contract had only partially crossed Grogar's mind, yet he was surprised Luna voiced it first. He nodded. "Unlike mortals, we can not willingly break a contract."

"If that is your true reason for all of this, then sign a contract over it. You agree to give up all your power and purge yourself of demonic influence, and in return, we don't destroy the egg you'd put the fragments of your soul into. Deal?" Luna added, fully expecting a trick.

"I would prefer a fully defined 'we', and some other bits and pieces, but I find the general idea of that contract agreeable." Grogar waved a hoof, causing a blank piece of parchment to materialize in a flash of hellfire. "I'll write up a nice and proper contract, and you can spend all the time you like to read it."

Before Luna could respond, several purple and blue changelings dropped in from above, and surrounded Grogar. "Hope we're not late to the party," The leading purple changeling called out with a mix of fear and bravado at seeing Grogar. Half their number readied flamethrowers while Grogar carefully moved into a combat stance while watching Luna for her next act.

 _If we struck now, I'd wager Grogar would simply destroy his own body to flee back to his phylactery. He'd probably get his new body out of our sight, leaving us with nothing. But…_ Luna used her magic to push the barrel of the flamethrowers up and off target. "Hold your fire!" As one, the changelings first gave each other, and then Luna incredulous looks of disbelief. "We have a chance to end this with less bloodshed."

Captain Silver and his squad remained behind cover just to be sure, while the platoon leader of the changelings lowered his rifle. "He's surrendering?"

"In a matter of speaking," Luna replied cryptically. The arrival of the changelings prompted Luna to grin at her good fortune. "You," she pointed at a random blue changeling, send a message to Ambassador Rolled Scroll to have my best lawyers ready to read and amend a contract."

When the drones lowered their weapons, Grogar ignored them and started to pen the contract. This one would not be a hasty and simple agreement, but one to ensure his chosen future. It was only after he wrote the first line that he remembered something important. "Princess Luna. I still require Polybia's soul in particular. Shall I slay her or you?"

Luna glanced at the rotting queen upon her throne. The Tantabus still trapping her inside a dream world where everything was coming up Polybia. While Luna was aware of her crimes, the thought of allowing a demon to toy with her soul was too much. She gave Grogar a stony glare. "Polybia is to be tried by the laws of the queendoms. Not you."

 _Mortals never fail to be squeamish. Hmm, some Immortals too I suppose._ Grogar put the parchment down to level an uncaring look at Luna. "It is by those very laws that Polybia has already damned herself, or have you forgotten she was declared rouge by the other queens?

"She is going to Tartarus to become a demon's plaything no matter what happens now. You can choose to waste her soul on that, or you can let me take what is mine and put her to use in the ritual to excise my demonic nature."

A troubled grimace marred Luna's face. Even the changelings pointedly removed themselves from ear shot and Captain Silver inwardly already forgave Luna. "I should mention, Princess," Grogar added just to add in more weight to his argument, "that if you act to stop me, I would instead take Kreesus' soul in place of Polybia's. As per our contract."

Dark thoughts troubled Luna over the issue, and she saw no good answer now that Kreesus was at risk. With the scaly queen still completely distracted by directing the massive swarm towards the fleet, she was unaware that Luna held her fate in her hooves.

"Captains!" she barked loudly. "Get everypony back to the ship, we're done here." Luna stared at Grogar with mild hostility as the troops vacated the primencies. Once it was down to the two queens, one demon, and a dirty feeling Princess, Luna exhaled. "Fine. Take her."


	82. Chapter 82

Things To Come

A few hours later, Luna, Grogar, Kreesus, and the surviving ponies had boarded the _Steamrunner,_ with the ship steaming to the northwest. Presently, Luna was sitting in her quarters, watching the early night sky pass her by via a small porthole barely larger than her head.

She was using one of the royal cabins, which still barely granted her more than two body lengths of room to stretch, yet she did not mind the cramped feeling. With the ship running hard, the omnipresent rumble of the engines thrummed through her hooves while the chopping sound of heavy propeller blades completed the ambient din of the heavy Octavia engines.

There was a gentle knock on the closed steel hatch to which Luna yelled, "enter!"

The door let out a metallic groan as it yawned open to reveal Captain Silver. He bowed briefly before speaking. "Your majesty, the ship is moving at full steam to link back up with the fleet, but I doubt we'll get there before the main host of Polybia's swarm hits them."

Luna wasn't all that surprised by the news. Polybia's hive had been quite a distance away, more so than the swarm was to Kreesus' mountain stronghold. "We did our part at least," she said after a few moments of thought. "What about Kreesus and Grogar?"

"We'd like to hear that as well," two familiar voices in perfect unison called out before Silver could answer. Luna looked beyond Silver to find a purple and sky blue drone with their queens' eyes. "When we heard Grogar was onboard, we expected a corpse."

Luna took a long deep breath to center herself while Silver stepped to the side to allow the puppets to step forward and properly join the conversation. "I thought you'd have gotten your answer from one of your children."

This time it was Rainbow Dash alone who responded. "We got the gist of what happened, yeah, about him allegedly hating his life."

"We wanted to hear your take on it," Twilight said while trying to keep the judgement out of her tone. "Do you believe him, or is he trying to set some kind of trap?"

"That would depend entirely on the contract he is writing up," Luna replied with mirrored concern. "I have four of my best paladins watching him closely. But given that your brood hasn't sounded an alarm, I'd imagine he's still in his cell penning that contract of his.

"He's giving up his power, although I am going to have him wait until a team of lawyers back in Canterlot can inspect it word for word."

"As good a plan as any," Rainbow Dash offered, making her support for Luna known. "You want us to relay anything to Canterlot about Grogar?"

"I've given it some thought," Luna began as she rolled her stiff shoulders. "We say nothing for now. If Grogar is being honest and goes through with the ritual to purge himself, then we can say he's dead and the threat was averted. If we tell the public that Grogar's no longer a threat, but then he betrays us, we'll have an even bigger crisis on our hooves than if we keep them in the dark a bit longer. I for one, would like to avoid getting that particular egg on my face."

Rainbow snorted, "you mean aside from the egg we'd get for letting him escape in the first place."

 _I wonder if these changelings even eat eggs,_ Silver mused randomly after feeling left out of the conversation. _Would that be like minotaurs eating veal?_

"Quite right," Luna sighed heavily. "So how goes your preparation for the coming storm?"

"Preparation she asked," Rainbow Dash snorted with amusement. "We're fighting the swarm as we speak."

Silver and Luna furrowed their brows while Luna blinked at the blue puppet. "I don't understand. Kreesus said the swarm was at least a day and a half's march from the fleet."

"We surmised the same thing from our scouts," Twilight replied with more tact than her sister, shooting Rainbow an admonishing glance in the process. "But credit where credit is due, the _Long Shot_ and our gunship carrier _Breadbasket_ have quite the capacity for force projection."

* * *

High above the jungle, flitting between the heavy cloud cover was the full complement of twenty five fighters and twelve bombers of the _Long Shot._ They were little more than earlier and larger models of the fighters that had little in terms of maneuverability, but had been over engineered enough to have the engine power and structural integrity to carry ten bombs. And by bomb, they meant explosive naval shells with wooden fins hot glued to the outside. After all, it's not like the _Steamrunner_ was using them at the moment. Nevertheless, the jury-rigging worked in trial runs. Most of the time at least.

The new moon above had cast everything in near darkness, but upon hearing of the attack, Luna adjusted the moon's position to make it full and bright. Viper Squadron Leader Rusty Spring snatched a few coffee beans, losing a few due to the wind of the open canopy and shoved them in his mouth to stay awake and alert. With the new light of the moon, he glanced around at the squadrons arrayed behind him. Each were in a mirrored tight wedge formations of five biplanes each. It was a popular tactic among pegasi but one that always sat wrong with him when it came to the war machines.

Hey, boss, it looks like a living carpet down there! Greasy Piston called out to him as her fighter gently climbed up through the cloud layer. But I saw several massive ant drones easily the size of aunty's ego. Looks like they're carrying a rut ton of food and stuff.

I don't think anything's that big, Greasy, Rusty shot back with a bemused head shake. Leave the ants to the gunships. We're just here to cause a ruckus and do a whatever damage we can.

Greasy Piston and several other scouts relayed their findings to Rainbow Dash whose primary eyes and ears puppet was standing in the cloaked _Breadbasket_ while the four gunships were detaching from the mothership and were even now, getting into position to support the strikecraft.

The picture that the scouts painted for Rainbow Dash was a confusing one. The large swarm had actually set up camp. That is to say, the drones were breaking up the trees for firewood and digging small little burrows for one person each. Via the scout's spyglasses, she saw it was the quasi directing the efforts. _Those poor bastards,_ Rainbow mused with a mix of pity and no small amount of spite towards Polybia for what she did to the throng of ponies, griffins, minotaurs, and just about every other sapient species Rainbow knew about had been converted into quasi of various stages of transformation.

The one thing that confused Rainbow most of all though, was that the scores of undead, both drone and raised animals alike, seemed to be gathering together in large clusters and were inactive. _They look like they'd just be standing in formation, except the blue glow in their eyes is missing._

Rainbow Dash was forced to admit that her knowledge of necromancy was limited, and sadly so was Twilight's. A student of magic she may be, but necromancy had never been a desirable focus of hers. _Well, maybe even undead get tired or their energies get depleted._

 _I would think it was a trap if Kreesus hadn't been adamant that the swarm would be on low alert for early fighting._

One by one, the squadron leaders reported they were ready to strike, leaving Rainbow Dash to give the order. _Well, no matter if it's a trap or not, better to spring it now than to let them do it near the fleet._ With a feral grin, Rainbow dramatically swiped the air with her puppet's hoof. Operation Doom Boom is a go!

As one, the bombers started releasing their payloads in a long straight run. Greasy Piston had a feral grin as she watched the scores of three hundred pound bombs rain down. Not all of them detonated, but enough did to satisfy her. Greasy dipped the nose of her fighter below the cloud layer to watch the coming destruction.

The dark silhouettes of the rows upon rows of bombs all but disappeared in the gloom, but the whistling noise of their fall was unmistakable to the pilots. The same could not be said for the swarm on the ground, for the whistling bombs sounded like nothing that any of the quasi had ever heard before. No native danger of the jungle made such a noise, so many of them only readied themselves in a combat stance or simply stared up in confusion, tracking the noise as it plummeted. Their queen had been adamant that the enemy ships were still too far away before she cut contact, and the more strategic minded quasi' scouts had reported the same. So none of them expected what happened.

The wind scattered the bombs into a wide area, forming a shallow carpet. The small tide of bombs hit the ground with explosive fury, ripping up trees and all the loose soil alike. Entire columns of undead were blasted apart thanks to them never diving for cover. The earth shook as quasi were scattered in disarray with several being cut down by shrapnel. The living drones were in a complete panic, barely kept from scattering into the wild by the quasi who had loose control over them. Some drones simply stood there, incapable of action without orders, others were jarred into clumping together for protection. The more military minded quasi were the only ones to think to dive for cover soon after the bombs struck, and giving orders for others to do the same. The rest prayed to their dead queen to save them.

Ultimately, the bombs did little damage to the sheer enormity of the swarm, but the shock value was the real prize.

Rusty Spring saw the chaos of the panicked quasi illuminated by the scores of small fires. There were already signs of cohesion starting to return, worker drones were beginning to put out the fires, and necromancers were already beginning to resurrect the dead. Larger more specialized drones were taking up defensive positions, but none of it was in any workable shape by the time the altimeter on Rusty's dashboard told him his aircraft was nearly within firing range. The fighters had been descending quietly by cutting power to their noisy forward propellers while dimming the output of the Octavia engines. Those engines were only loud when enough power was given to maintain or raise altitude. The effect had concealed their approach entirely thanks to the chaos caused from the light bombing run.

Alright fillies and colts, pick your targets and let's give them some pepper!

In near unison, the fighters slammed on the prop engines to give them forward speed, and stopped lowing power to the Octavia engines to stabilize their altitude. The sudden roar of dozens of engines gave the swarm only enough time to turn their heads before the twenty five fighters fired off a salvo of ten flak rounds each at the biggest clusters of hostiles the pilots could see between the light of the fires and scattered rays of moonlight. Even as dozens of necromancers and the living alike were being cut down, several of the anti-air drones that Polybia had fielded in the ruins of Stripped Gear were starting to fire back. Thin green lances of caustic magic chased after the swarming aircraft as they climbed up to give time for their flak cannons to rearm before diving down again for a strafing run. However, the majority of shots when wide since none of the drones had the mental capability of leading the target.

Greasy Piston hooted and hollered as she came down on one such anti-air drone and emptied her guns on the one story tall drones, ripping its carapace to shreds and leaving it in a heap. "That'll learn ya!"

By now, the trio of gunships had peaked below the cloud layer and were adding more thunderous punishment towards the massive ant-like drones. With the anti-air drones so focused on the nimble fighters, the gunships went unmolested, raining constant fire on any concentration of force they could identify.

Rusty Spring found a juicy target of his own. A group of necromancers were creating flying monstrosities out of the ruined corpses the fighters and bombers had made. Rusty fired into the center of the rituals, ripping many of the necromancers to pieces, but many of them weathered the attack with seeming trivial ease. Rusty's jaw went slack as he saw one minotaur necromancer's arm cut off at the elbow, yet he remained standing with his remaining arm pouring magic into a new flier. _No blood. They already have liches!?_ My queen! he all but yelled at Rainbow Dash, Some of the quasi are liches.

Rainbow Dash watched the battle through the eyes of every pilot and gunner with only the gunship commanders giving her a more strategic view. The liches were a new wrinkle on the battlefield. She watched one aircraft start choking on fire with the pilot bailing out and making a mad sprint to try and reach the gunships. The anti-air fire was becoming more coordinated as the shock was replaced with determined and stiff resistance. It was also through her pilots that she saw their ammunition was depleting and fast. All craft, return to the carrier. We've done enough for now.

With the gunships giving cover and cutting down more anti-air drones, the fighters scattered to the four winds, finding it easier and safer to flee the combat zone before gaining altitude. The gunships withdrew after they drew enough attention and fire away from the fighters.

Between briefly chasing after the fighters and pulling their attention to the gunships, the lone downed pilot went unnoticed in her desperate climb to the clouds, and from there to the _Breadbasket._

The swarm gave token fire at the retreating aircraft, but largely stayed in camp. The move proved smart as dozens of predators, insect swarms, and even a tatzlwurm converged on the scene, intent on feasting on the fresh bodies.

The denizens of the jungle were all too happy to reap their own bloody swath of the exposed army. Many more undead and living alike were cut down or dragged away to be eaten before the quasi once again brought order to the swarm. By then, the squadrons and gunships were long gone, barely perceivable black specks in the distant gloom.

* * *

The rising sun was just starting to peak over the horizon as the squadrons neared the _Long Shot._ Rainbow Dash and Twilight Sparkle stood on the balcony of the _Long Shot's_ conning tower. The carrier was idling at the center of the Equestrian fleet that was stationed adjacent to the ruins of Kreesus' hive. The steel carrier stood in stark contrast to the balloon-using wooden airships of the Equestrians.

Even through the Link, both queens could sense the pilots' fatigue after such a long flight. Most of them were being propped up by coffee beans and some minor puppeting here and there. Twilight Sparkle and her sister stood on the balcony outside the bridge looking down upon the flight deck. Even as the first planes came to a shaky landing, crews were on the move to pull them down into the hanger so other craft could land.

"They did pretty well for themselves don't you think?" Twilight offered with pride for her children as plain as day. "We've never done such a long sortie before."

"Not with strike craft no," Rainbow Dash admitted with a long sigh. "Just wish these things had better staying power. We had a perfect surprise attack and we lost a biplane after barely five minutes."

"The pilot survived at least," Twilight replied with a faint smile. "But don't I think the real prize here was the damage we inflicted."

Rainbow Dash shot Twilight an amused eye and snort. "Fair enough. Since Poly Pocket is out of the picture, the swarm's practically just a mob at this point. I don't think the quasi, poor bastards, are cut out to control dumb drones properly."

"A mob that's still dangerous," Twilight amended with a haunted frown. She kept her gaze upon the pilots below. The strain on both bug and machine had been evident as many pilots had to be carried off by the flight deck crew. "I can only hope our pilots have enough time to rest before the swarm arrives."

There was an unsaid sentiment that passed between them. A pain felt by many of history's greatest commanders. It hit Rainbow especially hard now that the pilots had returned safely and she couldn't hold it off. These planes can be… really effective, fine I'll give them that. But I just wish they weren't so flimsy. Ambush or not, we got stupid lucky none of the kids died this time.

"We'll get better over time, Sis," Twilight reassured Rainbow while laying a hoof on her withers. "How about when we get back, I'll review the entire flight deck operations procedures." Twilight glanced down and cringed at how many of the crew-drones were in a state of barely organized chaos. Medical drones racing to newly landed aircraft had to duck and weave around taxi drones pulling the aircraft into the hangars. Engineers were getting in the way of others while both groups tried to do their jobs, causing some minor shouting of agitation.

"Apparently we have a lot of work to do on just general operations." _Yet another item on the long list of things to do,_ Twilight thought gleefully as she already planned out her next checklist with stars in her eyes. She couldn't stop herself from giving off a squeal of delight.

"Oh no you don't," Rainbow countered, "that's my job." She was at first taken aback by Twilight's eyes tearing up and a stuck out pouting lip, and turned away so she couldn't be moved by it. Yet she couldn't escape since Twilight poured her wordless plea over the hive mind to the point where it felt like a tidal wave. "Ugh, okay, fine. You can proofread if you want."

Twilight bounced on her hooves and clapped with a gleeful smile. "You won't regret it!"

The conversation fell silent when they noticed Chrysalis' comatose puppet, which had been sitting inactive on one edge of the flight deck, suddenly spring to life and looked around before locking eyes with Rainbow Dash. There was a seething rage that burned behind the puppet's reptilian eyes. "I think someone pissed in Sticky Spit's coffee this morning."

The black chitin clad puppet bolted for the queens, causing Intel and Thunderfury who had been lounging nearby to snap to action. Thunderfury's shields interposed themselves between the puppet and his queens so fast Chrysalis smacked into them, giving Intel enough time to wrap a foreleg around the puppet's throat while pressing the barrel of her pistol against the puppet's temple.

Chrysalis ignored the drones and glared at the two mildly startled queens from behind the shields. "Tell me that damned abomination is dead! Did you make her suffer?!"

"I assume you mean Polybia," Twilight replied flatly while gesturing for the queens' guard to let the puppet go. Thunderfury was slow to comply, suspicion weighing heavily upon him, yet he relented and returned to his perch. Intel was quicker on the uptake, holstering her pistol and letting the puppet go. She too flew back to be on top of the control tower, but kept an eye on the puppet

"Don't play games with me!" Chrysalis spat with bits of sticky salve flying in her rage. She completely ignored the two drones' actions. "Is she dead or not?!"

"Yeah, you could call it that," Rainbow grunted with displeasure at the former queen's fate, earned or not.

The puppet perched itself on the far end of the balcony as a minor show of respect, but it was mostly so the guards would not interfere again. "How was it done? I want details!" Her rage cooled only enough to keep from losing control. While the royal sisters remained outwardly calm, they were a bit disturbed by how much hate Chrysalis was openly broadcasting.

"... Grogar has her," Twilight said at length with a bitter taste in her mouth. "In order to get him to surrender peacefully, we let him take Polybia's soul."

The puppet's demeanor shifted almost instantly. Gone was the raw hatred with a malevolent spiteful grin marring its face. "Is that sooo? I must know what he plans to do with it. I assume she will be his plaything for all eternity for all she inflicted upon him." Her evil grin widened from ear to ear. "I bet someone of his… talents can be quite creative."

"I don't think he'll be keeping her soul for long," Rainbow volunteered with a suspicious tone. The grin faltered on the puppet's face, slowly being replaced by shock while the two sisters exchanged a few words before Rainbow addressed her once more. "No point in hiding it from you, since you'd just find out later anyway." _Not to mention telling you might keep you from doing something stupid._ "Grogar is going to dump all of his demon mojo into her soul, turning Polybia into a nympho succubus, and then throwing her down into Tartarus."

"So she'll be denied the Silver City for all eternity?" Chrysalis turned away, only looking at the aircraft below by chance. "I suppose that is an acceptable fate, if barely for her crimes."

Twilight hummed in contemplation. "I know Polybia is directly responsible for your younger sister's death, but-"

"Did Kreesus say nothing of her time there?!" Chrysalis interrupted harshly. The puppet jumped into the air with renewed anger in its eyes."She can't possibly be trying to shield Polybia's memory!"

"She hasn't said much of _anything_ ," Rainbow Dash barked back, growing irritated with Chrysalis' attitude.

"Kreesus looked and sounded like she was greatly disturbed by what she experienced," Twilight added with heavy concern, trying to sound defensive for Kreesus. "But she wouldn't speak of it, and I wasn't exactly keen on pressing the matter."

Given what she knew, Chrysalis was willing to make an exception to her 'show no weakness' judgmentalism, and let it slide. Rainbow Dash however, was getting irritated by Chrysalis' snapping at them with every breath. "So what big bad did Polly Pocket do this time?"

Chrysalis initially wanted to keep her mouth shut to protect the memory of her sister, as weak as it was in Twilight and Rainbow's eyes. However, that was not the only idea in her head. _If I tell them, they might let me get some direct measure of vengeance or at least mock Polybia one last time._ "Vel'chu." Chrysalis saw no sign of recognition in the other queens' eyes. She couldn't help but to both understand and still be further angered by the ignorance. "Polybia committed the one act as vile and dishonorable as violating the sanctity of the Summit. She… She," Chrysalis cursed herself for this display of weakness.

"She… perverted not only my sister, but several other queens into becoming Vel'chu. A state where a queen's body is completely taken over by her egg sack, bloating to the size of one of those smaller airships of yours."

That put an immediate halt to Rainbow's good mood, disturbing the sisters' so deeply that Twilight took a step back while Rainbow did her best to only look horrified. "Vel'chu? That sounds disturbingly like that Sa'rook Shol'va Granny was talking about doesn't it?" Rainbow directed at her sister.

"That it does," Twilight shuddered. Hearing such a fate was possible was bad enough, but the very idea that it had happened to multiple queens caused her bile to rise.

"Sa'rook Shol'va… That was what Kreesus called it," Chrysalis growled harshly.

Twilight did her best to keep a sympathetic diplomatic tone. "For what it's worth, you have our deepest sympathy for what happened to Yeelindrus. It would seem Polybia has more than earned her fate after all."

Now that the others understood her rage, Chrysalis was content enough that she could get her wish of one last meeting with Polybia. But first she had to win them over to the idea. "I - I must thank you then. Given her crimes," Chrysalis added with no small amount of ire, "I demand to see what's left of Polybia before she is cast down to Tartarus. I want her to know who it was that sealed her fate by freeing Grogar in the first place."

Twilight only needed to share a brief word with Rainbow to come to an agreement. "Grogar said his ritual will need to take place in two weeks at midnight. Provided he can do it in the first place, we'll get him to let you speak to her, but to _speak_ only. Your sister Jstrul can come too if she agrees to the same terms."

"On one condition," Rainbow added heatedly. "You, Kreesus and every other queen, assuming there _are_ any others beyond the four of us, have to stop this civil war. I think between all of you and Polybia, you've killed enough queens for a lifetime or two." _Better to let her think Sectovaria is dead for the time being._

Any other time, Chrysalis would have toyed with some bargaining, but today… today she was out of sorts enough to forget how to wheel and deal any further. Instead her brain power was focused on formulating some choice words as to what she would say to Polybia. "By my honor as queen, my sister and I will only speak with that disgrace of a changeling."

* * *

One might think that changeling airships would not have a serious brig. Maybe a holding cell for drunk shore-leave sailors to sober up in, but generally crime was gravely deterred by the very idea of earning the queens' wrath. And you'd be right, but only because non-changelings citizens had yet to be truly considered for crew-membership during ship design.

So it was that Grogar was sitting in the corner of a sober tank with a makeshift lock consisting of a length of chain and a foot locker padlock. No less than four pony paladins stood with their weapons at the ready for the slightest wrong move from the hornless undead ram. Every slight jingle from the bells on his neck set the paladins on edge as he set about the painfully careful task of carving runes on each of the bells with the tip of a severed horn. He didn't mind the jailers. They were expected when dealing with others, demons or not.

Logically, he knew he should feel absolutely giddy at his plans finally about to bear fruit. Vindication at besting Polybia in the end, and probably no small amount of pleasure at inflicting upon a damned soul, the same curse he had been marred with all those uncounted ages ago. And yet he felt nothing but satisfied rage. The dead flesh that allowed his continued existence did nothing more than that… could do no more than that. _It will soon be over. I will be free, and you Polybia, you will shoulder my curse. Who knows, perhaps you'll enjoy it after a few decades like so many other new succubi._

The bell he was carving was none other than Polybia's prison. Her once silver soul had long since gained multiple stripes of an angry red. A permanent mark of the demonic taint she had taken on over the past years. Grogar could see the soul flailing madly within its prison, seeking for some crack to escape, but the magic of the bell might as well be a mountain standing against a gentle breeze. "So, Polybia, did you see this as your fate when you crossed me?"

Grogar could hear the former queen scream wordless rage against her cage, her mind already slipping without the necrosis checking the demonic influence on her mind. Some part of Grogar wanted to smirk at his captive, but he had no emotion to tie the act to. Only what the emotional response should have been. For an age, that had been acceptable, but lately…

With no real source of banter from Polybia, Grogar resumed his work on carving the runes. _In the end, I suppose it doesn't really matter anymore if these unlikely allies follow through with the contract or not. I have the keystone to my resurrection,_ he mused darkly as he eyed his handiwork. The runes burned like hot coals and were hot to the touch. _If not now, then I can always find a new way to enter an unborn queen. For their sake, let's hope it doesn't have to come to that._


	83. Chapter 83

One Last Gasp

The evening was coming to an end as the sun was just barely over the horizon. Rusty Spring chewed on a few coffee beans trying to chase away the fatigue of last night's endurance flight as he and his squadron idled on the deck of the _Long Shot._ He lazily traced a hoof along one of the holes in his blue furry leg to pass the time.

The gentle yet pervasive hum of a dozen aircraft waiting for take off at a moment's notice drowned out all other sound, not that it bothered him all that much, though he wasn't as enthralled by it like younger drones such as Greasy Piston.

Said purple mare was in the fighter adjacent to his own, and had her back legs propped up on the side of the open cockpit with her eyes closed as she relished the drone of so many engines. Part of him couldn't help but to be a tad jealous of her breed. Like so many other pilots she was far more resistant to hearing loss and was genetically predisposed to find the guttural noise of the propeller engines exciting one minute and utterly relaxing the next. As for Rusty though, he had a persistent ringing in his ears that the last medical checkup had informed him was the beginnings of long term hearing loss, the first nail in the coffin of his combat piloting career. _Might just take up that instructor position momma offered after we finally get out of this miserable jungle._

His musings were interrupted by a mental ping that drew his attention to the left of his biplane and towards a sister. She had several covered bowls of food in her magic which were twice the size of a hoof. Here you go, team leader, a carrot filled pillberry soup just the way you like it.

A smile crossed his face as he took the offered soup bowl and spoon into his magic while sitting up to eat. Thanks. Any word from the queens?

The serving drone couldn't spare the time to hover face to face with Rusty, but she could still chat even as she flew away. You'd know more than I would, wouldn't you?

Rusty took the cover off the soup and spat his coffee seeds into it, and blew on the thin soup to cool it off. Never know how the grapevine will travel, but it was worth a shot. Thanks anyway.

Rusty drank quietly as he witnessed Greasy Piston get jarred out of her nap by the waitress. With no word from his queen-mother Rainbow Dash, he took a moment to drain the bowl, trying to ignore the bland flavor.

He was halfway through his soup when Rainbow Dash's voice boomed over the Link for the pilots. The swarm's incoming, all pilots action stations!

Cursing the timing, Rusty choked down the rest of the soup, knowing he still had at least a bit longer to eat. Alright Viper Squad, you know the plan. We stay back and screen the fleet.

The engines of gathered fighters roared to life while the waitress frantically zipped back and forth trying to collect the bowls as the pilots tossed them out of the aircraft. Rusty Spring braced himself mentally, _three, two, one…_

Woo hoo! Let's kick these guys to the curb! Greasy Piston hollered as her biplane was the first to grumble into the air and speed away.

Rusty grumbled at her, but knew she wouldn't go too crazy and refrained from reprimanding her. Viper Squad, let's move out!

Aside from Greasy Piston, Rusty led the rest of the squad up and over the side of the carrier. The _Long Shot_ had concealed itself inside a pegasus-made cloud, so upon breaking through, Rusty spotted the fleet just north of the mountain hive. It had arrayed itself into a flat wall facing the oncoming swarm.

The swarm itself looked like an indistinct black cloud that had a thick carpet that trampled the jungle as it moved. Unlike the time Rusty had seen the swarm move with elegance and cohesion during the siege, now it moved far more erratically, but details were next to impossible to make out.

Rusty Spring caught up to Greasy Piston who allowed herself to slip back into formation. With the fighters on the move, Rainbow Dash watched it all through the pilots' eyes along with three bombers who were regulated to bird's eye overwatch above the incoming action. Wasp group, cover the left flank, Hawk group, I need you on the right. Vipers, you get the center. May the Light of the Silver City guide our aim.

* * *

Standing upon the troop deck of the _Celestia's Light,_ flagship of the fleet, Intel, Thunderfury, and Ferrum checked their weapons alongside a full contingent of unicorns. At the same time Rainbow Dash scrambled the fighters, the intercom thundered, rattling as the male officer barked the order, "hostiles sighted, all hooves to their stations!"

Heavy pulleys and ropes groaned as earth ponies turned the cranks that lowered several twenty foot wide and one pony tall sections of wall which then flipped out to serve as platforms that the unicorns stepped out onto. Intel and her two squadmates joined them on one such platform, finding themselves one platform back from the front most section. The front had a larger plank with a trio of large cannon crewed by four earth ponies each. She appraised the cannons quite poorly compared to the designs of the Phoenix Roost navy. _Momma should have relented and sold the plans of our naval guns to them, but too late for that now._

Intel watched the ponies work to prepare themselves while Ferrum and Counterspell checked over the extra flamethrower tanks she had latched to her back. The ponies moved with more purpose and professionalism than she expected. Their gear was uniformly secure and each one radiated confidence in their place and the battle to come.

With the changeling Queens' Guard and marines thinly scattered throughout the fleet, this was the first time any of the ponies around Intel had ever seen the changelings in full kit let alone their flamethrowers. A unicorn stallion with officer emblems on his chain armor paced the length of the unicorn squad, speaking in an upbeat authoritarian voice. "Rejoice in the victory Princess Luna has delivered us. By her hoof, the unifying mind and will controlling our enemy is dead!"

The unicorns snap-stepped in salute while banging the butt of their staves on the floor. "Glory to the Sun and Moon!" they yelled, causing the other squads within earshot to echo the call up and down the length of the flagship.

The officer nodded curtly. "Today we're not fighting a battle, but pest control. The brain of this beast may be dead, but the throng arrayed against us still writhes. We here today get a special treat. A rare chance in history that will likely never be seen again in our lifetimes. The spellwork will be exhausting, but…" the officer stopped pacing right in the middle of the formation. "Oh so worth it."

"Huzzah!" the ponies cried as one.

The four Queens' Guard had watched the display with mounting respect. The four had seen and participated in such pep talks before, so they weren't moved all that much. With the talk over, Intel spoke up. "I have to say, I'm too used to seeing Royal Guards. They don't seem as… animated as you lot."

The squad of unicorns made a series of condescending gestures and remarks about the Guard while the officer seemed to speak for the group. "No offense to the…" he cleared his throat, " _honorable_ RG, but we didn't join the Equestrian navy to be glorified police officers and living statues."

Ferrum laughed and sheathed his sword. "Glad I'm not the only one who thinks that." He stuck his hoof out to shake, "Ferrum Altair, close quarters expert for First Squad QG."

The officer readily shook his hoof. "Second Lieutenant Brimstone of the Royal Navy. Did I hear you correctly about being First Squad? We've heard a lot about you back on the Line."

"You have?" Intel asked genuinely. "Squad Leader Intel 'La 'Gence, by the way."

Brimstone was momentarily confused. _I thought Captain Intel was a stallion._ "Oh yes. Wouldn't have believed a damn word of what you found above the Line if I hadn't witnessed all the plant ponies and bat ponies coming back with you." Brimstone's chuckling cut short after spotting Intel's flamethrower. The stories surrounding the changelings' signature weapon were gruesome and exaggerated beyond measure by the rumor mill working its magic for years. "I don't suppose you'll remember that we're on a _wooden_ ship if the enemy somehow manages to close the distance."

Any response Intel might have had was halted by the sound of cannon fire and the propeller engines churning in reverse. Intel watched the fleet's first volley of artillery seem to all but evaporate into the sheer mass of the swarm. "Let's save this conversation for later, shall we?"

Brimstone cleared his throat and nodded. "You're right of course." He turned towards his soldiers. "Get ready for the call, stallions!"

Being the one with only a sword and pistol, Ferrum decided to be less forward focused at the moment and eyed his squad. He found Thunderfury wearing a stupid grin and bouncing on his hooves like a little filly. What's got you so worked up?

Thunderfury squashed Ferrum in a crushing hug. We're **famous!** Isn't that not the coolest thing ever!? We should totally start bragging about that next time we're on leave outside the hive!

Ferrum smirked at the idea. Sounds like a good plan to me. All the mares, maybe some guys, and plenty of free drinks.

For her part, Intel ignored her cohorts and focused on the cannon. She followed one cannon ball in particular, Intel witnessed the giant projectile impale two drones and one quasi griffin before losing sight of it. The living wall of death surrounding the fallen quasi halted in mid air, forcing those behind them to fly around, but most smacked right into the now panicking drones, causing a snowballing effect of creating a hole in the swarm.

Intel made a mental note of that and prepared herself for the rest of the now pockmarked swarm's arrival. The next line to open fire was the trio of gunships stationed at the top of the formation with their single long range flak cannons. Intel wasn't too uplifted by the puffs of smoke and increasing number of dead hostiles as there were always more to fill the gaps. She did however, notice another chunk of the swarm go feral as the controlling quasi was slain, further disrupting the charge.

"Platoon, stand ready for Bose Pattern!" Brimstone barked above the roar of the engines and growing buzz of the swarm. A small team of pegasi and earth ponies from behind Intel ran forward and presented a simple copper staff with a pointed gem on top to each unicorn. Counterspell couldn't help but to scoff at it them while keeping his far more intricate and personalized staff leaning against his shoulder. Intel, promise me if I ever use a standard issue staff, that you'll tell me I should just go and quit the Guard.

Intel rolled her eyes at him, all the while keeping an eye on the unicorns that were charging a spell with the staves starting to glow white hot. Something tells me you might change your mind in a second.

The quartet of drones saw the three nearest ships in the formation also had rows of white magic form along their hull. Brimstone barked an order, "all magi, advance to Bose stage two!"

While they couldn't see it on their own ship, the Intel's squad saw the rows of white light being pulled towards the pointed bow of each ship where a single unicorn with a single golden staff focused all the energy into a massive elephant sized ball of refined power.

Each of these master sorcerers unleashed the built up magic on their own accord, heaving the spells forward even as the cannon and gunships continued chattering. Intel and even Counterspell watched on in impressed surprise as the arcane spheres burned a path through the rapidly encroaching enemy. The swarm was sluggish to move out of the way, suffering from the lack of central command and control.

After penetrating deep into the swarm, the spells exploded in a flash of colors mirroring that of the unicorns that aided in casting it. Thousands of drones, living and undead alike, were incinerated with many more on the ground perishing as the dead rained down upon them. The shock of over three dozen prismatic explosions did what Intel thought she'd never see in a changeling swarm: it gave pause.

When a queen would have been heedless of the losses or at least able to come up with a counter-strategy, the living quasi could not. The living portion of the swarm, almost to the last, halted in their tracks. Only the undead and their lich masters kept marching forward, but most of their number were ground-bound. Worse still, the distance between the two forces was simply too great, leaving the ponies plenty of time to act uninterrupted.

Thunderfury whistled in amazement at the destruction while Ferrum was barely able to keep his jaw off the floor. Now that's one spicy meatball! Thunderfury cheered approvingly and pumped a hoof at the spectacle. Speaking of which, I could really go for some right now.

Counterspell noticed that there was audible hissing coming from the magi, in particular, their staves which were bending and deformed by the sheer amount of heat the casting produced. The ponies discarded the ruined staves by throwing them overboard. It was an act that seemed almost too much for the unicorns who, almost to a mare, collapsed on the platforms with ragged breath.

"Move!" barked a mare from behind the Queens' Guard, who barely pulled themselves into a tight cluster to allow a team of earth ponies to pick up the mana drained unicorns while a fresh second squad of unicorns took their place. Why do I get the feeling we're only here to watch? Ferrum remarked to his squad, eliciting a nod out of Counterspell.

We're a backup plan, Intel countered evenly. You saw those unicorns, the ponies can't keep this up for very long.

Intel tightened her magical grip on the flamethrower. The throng of drones wavered, but only for a few moments until the quasi leaders recovered. They won't need to. This battle was over before it even started.

Ferrum wasn't so convinced as he witnessed the swarm once again on the move. Thunderfury shared the sentiment, and was only momentarily distracted by the unicorns renewing the spellwork, the ships glowing with lines of power once again. You sure, boss?

"Just watch," Intel half-commanded as the new spell slowly reached crescendo. This time, the massive bose orbs had a shell of white light that barely contained a core of fluctuating black mass, twisting and turning in on itself in a uniform fashion.

Counterspell stared wide eyed at the spherical death that grew in front of every single one of the twenty pony airships. He instinctively took a step back from the bow of _Celestia's Light_ with terror in his eyes. T-that's gravity magic! They're crazy for using this much of it!

The hairs on the back of the squad's collective necks raised on end as they felt gravity's pull was no longer just straight down, but now ever so slightly towards the bow of the ship. With a stomach flipping lurch, the bose spheres were launched towards the swarm with half of the spells aimed at the enemy on the ground.

As expected, the majority of the thinned swarm was wise enough to veer out of the path of the spheres all the way down to the ground, only this time, as the sphere's passed, there was no explosion. Far from the stabilization efforts of the master magi that unleashed them, the white shell of the bose spheres weakened and cracked until the gravity spell won out. Upon the shells breaking down, the spheres pulled everything towards it with forty times normal gravity.

Drone, undead, rock, or tree, nothing was spared as matter was pulled into the singularities. Some undead were ripped apart as conflicting gravity wells competed for prey. The fliers were almost completely ripped from the skies, while others on the ground tried desperately to hold on as the singularities passed overhead. Those who failed to hang on were pulled in and crushed under the their own weight and that of all the bodies, rock, and trees that came with them.

Wind kicked up around the fleet, rocking the ships. The earth beneath the singularities cracked and groaned under the strain. The entire swarm, even the undead, was forced to halt, lest they be swept up into the sky and crushed.

Thunderfury felt a chill run up his spine at the devastation. Even the fleet was forced to turn about and push full throttle away from the singularities. The very wood around the changelings creaked and groaned under the gravimetric strain, with distance being the only thing saving the fleet from a crushed fate. Ponies have had this power all along?! Just what in blazes made the other races think they even stood a chance?

Counterspell had to shake himself out of the stupor, and latched onto Thunderfury's question to get his train of thought moving again. This is a rare event, TF. It won't happen again.

Ferrum looked at Counterspell with disbelief, only to find Intel was more stern than stunned by the devastation that could remold the very terrain. Well, yeah. This is probably why Equestria hasn't been to war in ages.

I wouldn't be so sure, Intel interjected with a knowing tone. Even as he wrapped his legs around one of the supports, he watched the spells in awe. The minotaurs are masters of nullifying magic. Siege spells like this would never touch them, or worse explode in the ponies' faces. Griffins haven't fielded a traditional army since antiquity, and yet have always given Celestia pause as a legitimate threat if they were given cause for war… Well, according to mother anyway.

The ponies can only get away with this today because those quasi are only barely able to think for themselves after Polybia's death. They're moving the swarm like a big blob with absolutely zero tactical maneuvering without Polybia to guide them. This, Intel said while waving at the singularities ravaging the last vestiges of the swarm, is just a slaughter.

Is that a problem? Counterspell argued, ignoring the sour looks he was getting. Strange that the liches would just let themselves be torn apart like this.

The squad moved out of the way for the earth ponies to pull the exhausted magi off the platforms around the same time the gravity spells were winding down. By the time the platforms were clear, and no reinforcements forthcoming, the changelings noted that the clumps of rock at the center of each singularity were plummeting back to the Earth, kicking up huge clouds of dust in the process. The fleet stopped it's slow reverse thrust to stand idle. Teams of pegasi were pouring out of the ships via the platforms and were starting to make their way to the huge dust clouds. The fighter squadrons were sent ahead of them, leaving the airships' cannon to fall silent.

With dust obscuring everything, Intel had a moment to ponder Counterspell's last words. She looked at him with confusion. Why would the liches be any different? They were all quasi to begin with.

Counterspell shrugged and lazily watched the formations of pegasi carefully approach the devastated stretch of jungle. Since neither queen commanded them to join the attack, he was content to let his guard down. Well it's just something Granny Caddy was talking about a few months ago. She was saying that the quasi's intelligence was directly tied to their link to the queen. If there's no queen most end up dead or close to brainless after a week or so. But that weakness is tied directly to their biology. So that shouldn't affect an undead lich… right?

Intel's blood ran cold, with her stare at him going momentarily blank. Counterspell started to sweat at the fear in her eyes. "I _reeeally_ don't like it when you make that face."

* * *

Rusty Spring and his squadron were taking it slow into the hanging cloud of dust that was still whirling around in the aftermath of the gravity spells. Animalistic cries of pain echoed loudly enough to be heard over his engines, but it was impossible to pin any exact location down. The pegasi gave each fighter and their propellers a wide berth as some of them acted to clear the dust away. Keep your eyes peeled, Vipers, and switch to solid slug munitions. I don't want any flak hitting allies.

He received a round of acknowledgements, and decided to dip just barely below the cloud layer. Yet his search for targets got interrupted by Rainbow Dash all but yelling in his mind. Attention, all pilots! Keep a sharp eye out for the undead. Be ready to introduce the- Anything Rainbow Dash said after that was drowned out by ear splitting psionic screams. Nearly all of the pegasi managed to stay airborne thanks to their discipline and holy-enchanted leather armor. Pain lanced through Rusty Spring for only a few moments before it all but vanished as Rainbow Dash diluted that pain throughout the entire hive mind, with Twilight doing the same for her children.

He barely had a moment to thank her when the ghostly pale yellow head of a yak emerged from the airframe in front of him. The specter's mouth was open far wider than a living yak could ever do, with ten rows of needle teeth lining the gums, and solid black eyes piercing through to his soul. B-Banshees!

Rusty pulled the control stick to the left and jammed the throttle. The yak took a swipe at him, catching Rusty in the foreleg, causing the entire limb to go limp and numb. Terror struck the pilot as he saw the banshee's hoof yank out a part of his soul before distance forced its grip to slip. His jaw trembled at the silvery ethereal foreleg of his soul dangle outside of his body. It took a long moment, but he finally summoned enough wits to try and control it. _If that's my soul, then maybe I can force move it._

Through an act only possible because that piece of soul was still attached to the rest of him, Rusty Spring ignored descending into the cloud of dust as the silvery segment of his soul sank back into his leg, restoring feeling and control over it.

Having a moment to gather his wits, Rusty pulled above the cloud layer to find the pegasi had been thinned, either by falling out of the air from the strain of the psionic screaming still resounding through the air, or the banshees ripping their souls out from any chink in their blessed armor. Rusty didn't need to hear the order his queen was yelling in his head to know what to do.

 _Leave it to Aunty Twilight to think of a ghost counter._ Rusty pushed the throttle of his propeller engine as high as it would go while pulling a lever next to the Octavia controls. Three tubes full of the blue glowing fuel drained out and was replaced by a thin golden fluid. The pressure gauges sank into the red, and all of the lift provided by the Octavia engine cut out all at once, leaving only the propeller and the wings to keep the aircraft aloft.

The Octavia engine coughed and sputtered, with the tail of the fighter dipping every so often as Rusty fought to keep control. The normally invisible Octavia field became thinly visible as a golden bubble thirty feet out. Rusty spotted a squad of pegasi trying to fend off a trio of banshees almost directly in his path. "Here goes nothing!"

Fighting the controls of an aircraft that was begging to plummet out of the sky, Rusty roared past the pegasi with his altered Octavia field passing through them. The banshees were either punted off of the ponies, or were completely incinerated by the holy magic.

Rusty couldn't risk looking over his shoulder to see if the pegasi were recovering. The droning buzz of a falling biplane was all the warning Rusty had to a fighter dropping out of the sky right in his path. He banked hard to the right, only catching a glimpse of the soul drained pilot hanging limply in the cockpit.

He spotted a large concentration of pegasi easily a hundred strong who were barely resisting the paralyzing effects of the banshees' wail, and were fighting the specters off with wing and bladed hoof alike. "I hope you know to stay put!" Rusty yelled against the wind as he flew under the pegasi, running the field right through fifty banshees. Those spirits that weren't ripped apart were weakened enough for the pegasi to finish the job.

You still alive, boss guy? Rusty ground his teeth at the smug voice of Greasy Piston. His wingmate raced down from above and leveled out on his left side. Thought that ghostly had you for sure.

Cut the wax and take out those banshees, the more we take out, the quieter those wails will get! Rusty barked back as he manhandled his fighter towards the nearest banshee he saw.

Greasy Piston waggled her wings and sprinted off to a different target. Not as fun as shooting though!

* * *

Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash sat in the bridge of the _Long Shot_ on the twin thrones, their attention spread out through all of the pilot's eyes. Each queen let the pilots do most of the thinking and action, but directed them towards targets when individual pilots couldn't find one on their own.

"You really think ghosts are all they have left?" Rainbow asked with genuine curiosity. "There can't be much of anything left after those gravity bombs."

"A safe bet with a swarm that used to be just under a million strong is to assume so." Twilight Sparkle scowled at the state of the battle. It was going too well. _Sure we lost a good number of pegasi and a few pilots to the banshees, but where is the rest of the enemy?_

"Squashed I'd imagine," Rainbow hazarded back. "You saw how they just clumped back up together after the first mega spells. We're not talking about geniuses here." All she got out of Twilight was a huffy pout, earning an exasperated glare out of Rainbow. "How about we leave getting a better idea on who's left down there until after we clear out the ghosts and the dust first."

* * *

Not being directly linked to the pilots like her mother, Intel squinted her eyes trying to watch the fighting, but the aircraft were the only things that didn't look like black dots.

Ferrum gave a bored huff, but otherwise said nothing as he oiled the action of his pistol. With nothing to do, and the enemy distracted by the pegasi and aircraft, Counterspell busied himself with studying the aftereffects of the mega spells on the local mana currents. Thunderfury had given up on personally seeing any action and laid on his back and stared up at the intercom awaiting the all clear signal that was sure to come in the next few hours. "We have wings too, why can't we get out there and fight?"

"Be careful what you wish for," Ferrum snarked. He held the gun close to his eye and scrutinized what he suspected was a bit of dirt inside a spring. "Just let the ponies be the ones to bleed for once and be happy. The princesses are hell bent on taking this one for the team."

Talk died down as the squad waited for something to happen. They didn't have to wait long.

The quartet were jarred out of their lethargy by a quick series of explosions and a raw mana wave that rocked the flagship. "What in Tartarus was that!?" Ferrum yelled.

"That mana wave came from below us!" Counterspell was the first to race to the platform and jumped overboard to get a better look.

He was soon joined by not only the rest of his squad, but several reserve pegasi and other drones stationed on the pony ships. Three warships were engulfed in emerald fire with two of them being completely broken in half amidship while the third's balloon had burst with the ship plummeting to the jungle below.

The bottom row of ships were panicking to break formation to put some distance between the stricken ships. Intel and the others saw a thick green mist spreading across the ground with three long snakish monsters rising out of the miasma. They glowed with a deep dark green that painted the landscape around them.

"What in blazes are those!?" Thunderfury cried out even as one of the monsters bellowed a challenge with another coiling up before shooting forward and firing a beam as thick as a truck at the nearest undamaged ship.

Chaos roared over the local hive mind with both queens trying to get a clear picture, giving Intel a few moments to digest what she was seeing. "If I didn't know better, I'd say those are grossly oversized tatzlwurms."

"Since when did tatzlwurms get death beams!?" Thunderfury shot back with his twin shields held close to hide his face. "I can't block spells of that magnitude!"

Ferrum witnessed pegasi racing to face this new threat while the fleet was breaking formation piecemeal as word spread slowly through the ranks. "We can figure that out later, let's lay some smack down!" With that said, Ferrum turned into a steep dive straight down.

"Just don't get hit by that gnarly beam!" Thunderfury roared after him, howling in sheer delight at getting to fight.

Not needing to wait for her queens to give orders, Intel chased after her squadmates with Counterspell falling in place behind her.

The squad found themselves in the middle of a platoon of pegasi swarming down to give the rest of the fleet time to reposition. Yet the tatzlwurms were not idle and fired their beams at three more ships. The recovered unicorns brought up a shield around two of the ships, with the third getting its balloon destroyed. Those shields buckled and broke within seconds, allowing the beams to rot and burn away at their victims in a spectacular explosion once the engine fuel detonated.

Ferrum's charge faltered after seeing several pegasi ahead of him being cut down by invisible forces. "What the?" He scanned for any trace of spellwork cutting the pegasi down, and noticed blurs that seemed to meld with the backdrop of the glowing green cloud that continued to grow at the base of the tatzlwurms.

While confusion raged through the alliance fliers, Rainbow Dash saw what it was after seeing it through the eyes of her children. Gimme your horns, kids, these guys are being cheeky.

With Twilight acting in tandem with her sister, the forty eight purple and blue changelings charged their horns and launched a wave of energy down towards the cloud. Dozens of hostile drones were unmasked right in the midst of the pegasi. To their credit, the pegasi were quick witted enough to start cutting down the uncoordinated chitin bound changelings. Yet among their numbers were a dozen liches that upon being revealed, immediately started weaving spells to cut down anyone they could see.

Ferrum was more than eager to slice his way straight towards a griffin quasi lich with Thunderfury staying close. The lich saw them coming, snarling a grin and thrust both claws at them. Her claws glowed a sickly blackish purple before a lance of magic rocketed towards Ferrum.

Duck back! Thunderfury yell at Ferrum, prompting his squadmate to pull back on the speed, allowing Thunderfury to take the front. Both shields took on a violet sheen and took the beam head on. Thunderfury used both his telekinesis and forelegs to hold the shields in place, straining under the force of the blast. Ferrum ducked to the left and flashed his sword to catch the attention of the lich.

Assuming Thunderfury had been incinerated, the lich changed the beam's direction, only to give Thunderfury the opening he needed. With a series of internal gearwork clicking into a different configuration, the shields took all the absorbed magic and blasted it back in a massively wide cone.

The effect blinded the lich, causing its attack to sputter out, giving Ferrum the opening he needed to swing in and decapitate the undead griffin. The corpse burned to ash as the magic keeping it together now ripped it apart.

Intel and Counterspell were not too far away, facing down a bat pony lich who had a jagged black horn that bubbled with black magic. Counterspell was hovering in place, his horn a beacon of silver holy light as he kept the bat quasi from unleashing his necrotic power. Intel was burning a path through the undead minions the lich kept pulling from other areas of the battle to keep Intel and her flamethrower away from him.

Twilight briefly spoke to Counterspell before commandeering his horn. His comparatively blunt and clumsy approach to blocking the lich's magic was refined into a scalpel by Twilight. She noticed how hard the lich was trying to strong arm his way through Counterspell's efforts, and corked the lich's magic right at the base of the horn with a fraction of the effort. The built up dark magic around the rest of the horn went out of control and started dissolving the undead bone and tissue, eating the lich alive from the top down.

Intel whistled to her squadmates over the Link to focus their attention. We have to punch through to the center tatzlwurm! Form up on me!

She was not the only one to have that idea. Even as the others gathered around Intel, she saw several squads of pegasi and siblings alike were making a beeline straight to the center tatzlwurm.

The squad got close enough to see the giant beast had discoloration before it turned its attention skyward and opened its four jawed mouth as wide as it could.

Get clear! Twilight commanded over the Link.

Every last furry drone in the area scattered to the four winds, and yelled the warning to the pegasi. Intel and the others kept together and sprinted to the west, but the tatzlwurm struck first. Instead of a focused beam, a wide cone of caustic magic wreathed the entire dog fight and threatened to burn gossamer and feathered wings alike.

Thunderfury felt his wings stinging badly and freaked out when he saw the holes in them growing larger. "Wha - wha- that's hot! Put me out, put me out!"

Intel waved at her bothers to get in close. Group up! TF, delta maneuver!

I don't know if this will work! Thunderfury braked into a halt and angled his shields downward towards the tatzlwurm. The rest of the squad piled up above him with barely a hair's breadth of spare room from the torrent of magic.

As if the Silver City itself had blessed those shields, the magical tidal wave failed to break through, and curved around the shields like a rock against a river. Thunderfury hissed in effort to keep the shields angled properly. "Frack frack frack! I don't know if my babies can hold this forever!"

Ferrum glanced around the green-tinted skies around him, watching pegasi, bat ponies, liches, and hostile drones alike being torn from the skies as their wings were the first to burn away. Those who fell, became green fireballs as they were reduced to charcoal. "Uhhh, it better or we're toast."

About that time, Rainbow Dash slipped into her son's eyes while Twilight borrowed her three children. Hey, Intel, Rainbow spoke hastily. Guys, I got in touch with the fleet shipmasters, they're not going to risk the super spells this close to the fleet, so they're going to focus on the two side tatzlwurms with normal weapons. That means you four get the honor of taking out the middle one.

Intel shared an incredulous look with her squadmates, save Thunderfury who was too focused on keeping his shields in place. You mean the one currently breathing a river of fire at us?!

Twilight jumped in with her reassuring knowing voice. I know it'll sound crazy, but RD's plan should work. Besides, that 'river' is ebbing. The tatzlwurm isn't going to keep it up for much longer.

Out of all of them, Counterspell was the most nervous of all, and not all of the sweat on his brow was from the river of fire. "I am really starting to question this plan, and I haven't even heard it yet."

Rainbow Dash grumbled before shaking the irritation away. Alright look. As soon as the worm thing stops acting like a dragon, you four need to drop like you got your wings burned off. The squad started leaning towards Counterspell's sentiment. The new wave of tangos that'll pop out of the ground should ignore you. That way, you can get close to that dragon wannabe and bust him up. Now the squad was leaning so far into Counterspell's thinking that Rainbow could feel it over the Link. Don't worry, the fighters are being recalled to back you up.

Without giving them any time to think it over, the tatzlwurm halted its attack, revealing the clear blue sky once again. Go, go, go! Rainbow shouted, causing the squad to instinctively stop flapping their wings, making them drop like stones.

Thunderfury's instincts screamed at him to take control of his tumbling fall, but his queen was counting on him to do his part. So he decided to scream in bloody terror on the way down. "I really hate this plaaaaan!"

Wind whipped at Intel's hair and the flamethrower's hoses, forcing her to activate the safety and hug the nozzle close to her underbelly. Aunty, if I die from this, I'm going to do some creative things with a woopie cushion to you in the Silver City!

If you die, I'll let you get away with it for a year, then the prank war is on, Rainbow snarked back. Only to get a deathly admonishing glare from Twilight. Not that you will, cause my plans are foolproof.

Counterspell hugged his staff in tight, hoping it wouldn't slip away. He watched as scores of hostile black-chitin drones swarmed out of the green mists and prepared a shield spell.

At first, some of the closer hostile drones flying to intercept the ponies that evaded the tatzlwurm's attack veered off to intercept Intel's squad. Yet upon a few liches emerging from the cloud and seeing them in freefall, they diverted the drones back to the main assault.

Seeing that it was indeed working, Rainbow and Twilight directed their surviving marines to the flanks to make sure Intel's squad got as little interference as possible. Intel was starting to get sick to her stomach while flipping head over heels on the way down. _Why did I let TF talk me into eating a second helping of pancakes?_

Feeling Twilight's presence slide into her mind, Intel felt her horn power a spell that tingled all over her skin moments before the world went green as the squad fell into the cloud. Pins and needles blanketed her skin, causing the spell to flare, reducing the irritation of the cloud and making it feel like she was breathing through thin cloth.

Hang on everypony, you might feel a bit of a lurch, Twilight warned as a second spell washed over the squad, suddenly causing gravity to turn on its head, and sapping their momentum. They slowed down just enough that by the time they hit the ground, all four of them ended up rolling along a slant in the broken earth.

Being on point, Thunderfury rolled the farthest, using his shields to protect his horn and the other to save his wings. When he at last came to a stop, he took a moment to see if there was any pain. Upon feeling nothing worse than some scrapes and bruises, Thunderfury jumped up on all fours and cheered. "Woot! I wanna do that _again!_ " in that moment, he finally took note of where he was.

Thunderfury stood right in the middle of a ritual circle that had been badly disrupted by him sliding across half of the diagram written in ash. But more importantly to his immediate concerns were six astonished quasi with their horns still aglow with the spell they had been casting.

"Uhh…" It took him a moment before an idea cropped up in his head. His initial excitement and adrenaline gave out just enough for him to feel the onset of nausea from rolling head over heels for so long. As a result, instead of a winning swing of the hoof, he ended up stumbling in a dizzy mess. "You have summoned the Great and Mighty **Thunder** _fury_! What is your bidding?"

A minotaur bull snorted angrily and kicked at the dirt. "We weren't summoning moronic drones."

Thunderfury's stomach was already at the end of its rope, but between his theatrics and the stench of death leaking through the protection spell the last straw snapped. He puked his breakfast all over the the other end of the ritual circle, ruining the diagram even further. Thankfully the act quelled his nausea enough for him to function. He wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his uniform and waved a hoof at the minotaur. "Well that would explain the nausea. You guys have crappy aim you know that?"

"Kill that idiot!" A female sphinx commanded even as she gathered a globe of dark magic in a hand and threw it at Thunderfury.

"Whoa now!" Thunderfury took one shield, adjusted the arcane wing it projected, and used it to rebound the globe towards a minotaur which proceeded to burn a basketball sized hole straight through the bull's chest. The telltale roar of a flamethrower not too far away broke everyone else out of their stupor, causing the sphinx to throw a second globe of mana at Thunderfury.

With the thrill of combat widening his grin, Thunderfury used the same shield to bounce the second globe at a charging earth pony quasi and using the other to parry a clawing attack of a griffin. He bucked a pegasus lich sneaking up behind him, breaking the head off it's rotted neck.

"Eww, grooooss!" Thunderfury rolled away from a caustic mana whip and clocked a sphinx tom across the jaw, and jumped up and over the tom right as a third globe cratered the ground he had been standing on. "Girl, you really suck at dodgeball don't you?"

With a laugh, Thunderfury switched the arcane wing on his shields, and rammed one into the quasi he just jumped over and threw the other at the sphinx flinging spells at him. The second shield sailed at breakneck speed at the jane, but she nimbly side stepped the teardrop shaped shield.

"Ah, you show promise for dodgeball after all, good!" Thunderfury congratulated, even as he had to use the other shield to bounce another globe, only to not have a readily available target to try and aim it at. _Wish I figured out how to do a proper reflect._

"You can't keep that up forever!" the jane challenged completely oblivious of the thrown shield speeding its way back to its grinning owner.

"Won't have to," he said with a winning grin, giving the jane pause right as the returning shield beaned her right in the back of the head. Thunderfury threw a foreleg up and caught the shield right by the strap and spun around in the air to bleed the momentum off the shield, hooting in excitement all the while. "Wowzers, we need to do this more often!"

The noise of a heavy fireball exploding some distance behind him, made Thunderfury turn around to witness the smoking remains of an earth pony quasi fly out of the mist and land in a crumpled heap two feet away. "There you are, TF," Counterspell announced as he got close enough to be seen through the mist. His magestaff still glowing from use, "You see where the others went?"

"I heard the boss's flammer-" as if on cue, the signature breathing noise of a flamethrower came from the direction of the great worm near the point where it stood out of the ground. "That's gotta be Intel, lezz go!"

Nodding in agreement, Counterspell let his squadmate lead the way up a huge mound of broken earth and stone right up to the base of the worm. Upon getting close enough, the pair saw Intel and Ferrum standing near the gargantuan worm with a dozen burnt or cut apart corpses.

Ferrum flicked his sword to clean some of the sticky ichor off the blade. Good you're all in place, Twilight praised with her pride and love flooding the squad. Now, CS, I need you to be my conduit while the rest of you protect him as we work.

A round of acknowledgements rang out as everyone got into place. They were not a moment too soon as scores of undead zombies started flooding up the mounds while a pair of liches joined in. Counterspell tried to ignore the fighting breaking out behind him as he took three vials of ether from his belt and downed each of the bitter potions one by one. The surge of power raced throughout his veins like fire. Such power would have overwhelmed him into a comatose state were it not for Twilight's semi-puppeting effort. Together, they lifted his staff head to press against the worm. With all the excess power being funneled into the staff, the ruby gem that crowned the staff glowed like the sun.

Counterspell witnessed the spell start to carve through the flesh of the worm, eliciting an ear shaking shriek of pain as necrotized blackened flesh was exposed with thick crude oil like blood seeping out. The worm writhed and squirmed as the spell dug deeper into its body, cutting and blasting first a beach ball sized hole that rapidly expanded to that of a small car.

Counterspell had to sidestep and eventually fly above chunks of rotten masses of worm that sloughed off and dropped to the ground that reeked like rotten meat left out in the desert sun. By the time the growing wound was the size of a small apartment, the worm finally broke free of the liches controlling it and tried to kill the squad by slamming down on top of them.

Yet Rainbow Dash knew it was going to try that the moment it shifted its mass. Get out, hurry!

Each of them dropped their fight and fled to the east, with the liches getting just as panicked by the countless tonnes of tatzlwurm crashing down on them. Intel's squad evaded the smack down that was powerful enough to clear the center of the cloud away, revealing dozens of ritual circles that were summoning dead bodies as soon as they were made on the battlefield and brought back to unlife to fight against their former comrades.

Upon finding a moment to catch their breath, Intel's squad found themselves over two dozen meters away from the edge of the worm after the rust of air had shoved them back. We're not done yet, kids, Rainbow Dash stated with pride fully coloring her tone. "You need to hit the other side so it stays down."

The squad had stirred up the hornet's nest as dozens of hostile drones surged towards them, flesh golems crawled out of the wounds inflicted upon the downed worm that struggled to lift itself back up.

A series of magic concussion waves ran through everyone, drawing eyes to the northern tatzlwurm. The fleet was not in any planned formation, but that wasn't stopping the magi and cannon from peppering the leviathan with spell and solid shot alike. The beast tried to breathe a renewed attack, but the two Phoenix Roost gunships waited for it to open it's mouth before firing two fifty-seven millimeter slugs of hot death down its throat. It wasn't enough to kill the enraged wurm, but it kept the monster from bringing down more ships.

The third and last tatzlwurm was in the middle of ripping another warship apart, an act that caught Ferrum's attention. Look, that frigate jumped in the way of the attack. That worm is going after _Celestia's Light!_ "

Twilight came to the same conclusion and issued a command that had Rainbow's unsaid approval. The center wurm's out of action for now, get over there and stop that thing from destroying the flagship. Both queens saw the thickening skies of more hostile drones that were still crawling out of the massive tunnels the worms had created. We'll give you some cover to get in close.

Intel mentally sent Thunderfury a flight plan to which he happily took point with his trusty blue and purple shields at the front. Come on you bugs, you wanna live forever!? Not waiting for an answer, Thunderfury sprinted away shout-singing, "Yo way yo!"

The song pulled the rest of the tiring squad up with new energy as Intel chased after him, giving a shout-sing of her own "Yo way yo!"

Ferrum and Counterspell were not far behind and joined in, "Vaiyo A-Rah Jevruun Vrunningee!"

The four kept singing even as they prepared to clash with the cloud of hissing drones barring their way, only for them all to be distracted by the noise of a dozen growling engines. The four Queens' Guard pulled into a compact formation with Twilight using their horns to weave a powerful barrier.

The instant the barrier was in place, Rainbow Dash gave the pilots a single command tinted with all the glee she could muster. Give'em the ol Razzle Dazzle!

Flak exploded everywhere around the four Queens' Guard. Most drones were simply torn apart by the rain of shrapnel while others simply disappeared in a puff of smoke after taking a direct hit.

Moments later, the fighters roared past Intel's squad with a particularly uppity mare pilot waving both a foreleg and her airplane's wings at them before pulling the aircraft off to chase down more targets. Numerous aircraft strafed what few ritual circles they could find under the gloom of the cloud. Each one that was disrupted thinned the blanketing miasma, thus clearing the air for more to be discovered and destroyed.

Rainbow Dash projected a new path in Thunderfury's mind while speaking to the whole group. They've opened a corridor for you, move out!

Aye, my queen! all four replied back.

Even with the fighter support, Intel's squad was too far away from the third Tatzlwurm to stop it from opening its great jaws again to cut down _Celestia's Light._ Several aircraft peeled off to pester and distract the mammoth beast, but their flak cannons didn't even tickle its armored hide or inner mouth.

Ferrum jabbed intel on the flank and pointed up at the flagship. "Those don't look like normal mana bolts."

Sure enough, the distant flagship spewed three dozen large multicolored energy rockets that raced straight down towards the tatzlwurm. What baffled Intel most of all was that each rocket had a pegasus escort that kept pace with its pair.

Her team admittedly had difficulty watching where they were going, and keeping an eye on the technicolored rockets all the way up until they both reached the tatzlwurm when the biplanes pulled away.

Each rocket exploded on the worm or the ground around it to reveal a unicorn of all things. Those that hit the side of the worm or on top of unstable ground had the pegasus escort swoop in to save the wingless ponies from falling.

With both other tatzlwurms either down for the count or under heavy suppressing fire, the remaining undead and the scant few living chitin drones left rallied around the last wurm.

Multiple pegasi were shot down by a lich before they could catch their unicorn, with one such event happening right in front of the squad. "Holy - I got you!" Intel cried as she rushed over and half-caught half-cushioned that unicorn's fall.

The two tumbled and rolled the last ten feet of the fall before coming to a stop. Her squadmates engaged the throng of quasi and undead around them, allowing Intel and the unicorn to untangle themselves. Intel had ended up on the bottom after her flamer tanks caught against the trunk of a broken tree, allowing the pony to climb off first and offer her a hoof to stand back up. "By the light of the sun, I didn't think to run into you again."

Intel coughed up a leaf that had lodged itself inside her cheek and took his hoof. "Lieutenant Brimstone? How crazy do you ground pounders have to be to jump off that high?"

He laughed it off used his magic to pull off the twigs and leaves that clung to both of them. "Not too much I hope. We learned that rocket trick from the first Invasion of Canterlot. Never thought I'd use it in combat though."

A deafening roar brought all eyes up to the head of the great beast as it opened its maw to bring down _Celestia's Light._ Dark greenish black magic pooled in its mouth, but two shells from the gunships slammed dead center into the mass. The beam went wide, grazing a blackening hit on the flagship and causing the monstrosity to shriek in hate. The delay was costly though, as another pony warship was cut down by the third tatzlwurm.

Everyone, Rainbow Dash called out to all of the changelings attacking the tatzlwurm near Intel, That was the last shot the gunships have, and it's going to take too long to rearm them. I need every mage at the base of that worm and everyone else covering them pronto! Tell the ponies our plan!

Intel and just about every changeling near a pony relayed the plan. Brimstone cringed at the sight of flesh golems peeling themselves out of the main body of the tatzlwurm. The misshapen faceless pony-shaped golems stumbled upon heavy legs as if not properly formed. "Well my fair captain, I'm ready when you are."

The wink and a smile he gave her might have made another mare blush, but after living with Aegis for so long, it only tickled her fancy. _Never been with a soldier pony before._ "Then let's get to it." CS, you're up!

Intel took point this time and roasted a trio of shambling flesh golems while Thunderfury and Ferrum tangled with a few of their own. Brimstone grabbed the last two in Counterspell's path with his telekinesis and flung them at two quasi crawling out of a hole inside the tatzlwurm.

"So that's how so many of these freaks snuck up under us!" Brimstone growled out of effort. He fired off a mana bolt while Counterspell got into position and downed his last three ether potions.

Intel turned to Brimstone and pointed at the hole he had just thrown the quasi at. "Cover me with a barrier, I'm going to smoke them out." Ferrum, TF, get our backs!

Brimstone had little issue taking orders from someone higher up the food chain, even if Intel was of an entirely different command. "On it!" The two scrambled up the rough broken terrain, flying or jumping over downed trees and shattered underbrush.

Intel got up to the tunnel just in time to witness a quasi minotaur physically shove his way past the limp drones blocking the path. "Aegis sends her regards!" Intel challenged as she doused the minotaur and the crowded monsters behind it with a torrent of burning oil. Intel was wholly unfazed by the screams of unbridled pain as so many beings were cooked alive. Brimstone tried to ignore it as he zapped several more flesh golems peeling themselves off the side of the worm.

A wave of muscle movement under the giant worm's rotten skin drew both of their eyes up towards the mouth as it opened once more at _Celestia's Light._ Intel took a moment to look at Counterspell and the other magi. Their spells were only just now starting to eat away at the undead mass, but not fast enough to stop the beast.

As if sensing her fears, Thunderfury flew over to Intel's side. "I don't think we're going to make it!"

* * *

Greasy Piston zeroed in on a pair of liches raining down hellfire upon the north side of the ponies surrounding the great worm and pressed her trigger with glee. Yet she was rewarded with nothing more than loud clicking from her cannons. "No, no! Why did I have to run out of boom booms now!?"

All craft, Rusty Spring called out, return to the carrier for rearmament!

Gritting her teeth, Greasy pulled out only to notice the great beast was still pooling a renewed beam in its open mouth. Boss, that thing's going to cream the flagship! Can't we do _something?_ "

negative, Rusty shot back with his best command voice. Unless you can cast a big enough spell to stop that thing, then pull out, that's an order!

Greasy was only moments into her climb that an idea smacked her like a sledgehammer. Boss, permission to use a big battering ram instead.

You're not serious… Off in the distance, Rusty saw Greasy's aircraft turn towards the tatzlwurm and went full throttle. Damn it, Greasy! Permission granted, but only so long as you don't die so I can punch you later!

Greasy Piston pulled back up just enough to get over the lip of the worm's jaws before powering into a dive straight into it's mouth. The controls rattled in her hoof, loosened badly from the countless pockmarks of damage her aircraft had absorbed. "Fly my boy, fly and make momma proud. Greasy first kissed her left hoof and then placed that spot onto the dashboard.

Believing she was close enough to not miss, Greasy pulled herself out of the cockpit and jumped out. Using her momentum and wings, Greasy Piston barely cleared the gap between two jaws right as her fighter slammed into its mouth. The explosion broke off one of the wurm's flailing tentacles which smacked Greasy across the back of the head and ripped away at her wings.

Knocked senseless she free fell out of the sky, but the great worm had been stalled once again. Several pegasi had seen what happened and broke away to catch her. The act left them exposed with many getting cut down by drone and lich alike. Were it not for the unicorns exploiting the distraction to counterattack, none of them would have reached Greasy Piston in time, let alone avoid the falling tentacle easily the size of a redwood tree.

The behemoth never had a chance to recover as the spells Twilight was channeling through her children came together and cut the tatzlwurm in two. Its massive upper body groaned and heaved as it toppled over like a freshly cut tree.

Everyone, alliance and swarm alike, ran to clear the falling tower of beast. Its crash into the ground was joined by its last triplet who finally succumbed to the punishment the remnants of the fleet was raining upon it. That tatzlwurm crumpled in on itself and collapsed to the ground, its undeath extinguished. A cheer rang out from the alliance members who rallied to cut down the dwindling numbers of the swarm and deliver the deathblow to the center worm, ending the battle at last.

* * *

With the undead tatzlwurms slain and the crushed swarm broken and dying on the blackened battleground, the alliance breathed a sigh of relief.

Intel led the small platoon of surviving Queens' Guard and Marines in a joint effort with the ponies of the Royal Navy to sweep the ruined landscape looking and putting down any survivors they found. They culled the undead without conscience. Zombies and ghouls were killed a second time on sight, while a few liches had managed to get caught under rubble or were scrambling to put together one last ditch defense inside the tunnels. Those living drones that survived had either scattered into the jungle when the controlling quasi had been killed, or fought on like cornered animals.

With the equestrian fleet staying in the area to purge the necrotic taint out of the land, and to try to locate and identify the bodies of fallen naval crewponies, the navy would have to remain in the jungle for some time.

Presently, the _Long Shot_ started its long trip back to Phoenix Roost once the _Steamrunner_ linked back up to the fleet. The two warships brought as many wounded or dead as their hulls could carry.

Without a battle to oversee and their children returning home, Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash sat in a two-seat sofa in one of the rec lounges. Over the first several days of the return trip, it had taken some effort to get the dead and injured organized. Both queens were currently gazing up at the ceiling and the sky beyond. It was starting to become a sort of ritual of theirs after a day of mourning. "It could have gone so much worse if Sticky Spit and Luna had screwed up," Rainbow said absently for the twentieth time in the past week. "Poly would have creamed us with that swarm."

Twilight hummed pleasantly, taking the time to enjoy her sister's proximity. "We should throw Luna a parade when we get back. If you can believe Kreesus' recount, Grogar was no match for Polybia in single combat, so it was all up to her to save us."

Rainbow pulled herself off the couch, nearly causing her sister to fall down in the process. She stretched and popped some joints and looked around the empty rec room silently wishing some of their kids were off duty. "Speaking of that goat, any news on that contract of his?"

"Let's find out." Twilight sat back up in a pout at losing her warm backrest. She opened the conversation to Rainbow Dash. Rolled Scroll, how's that contract coming?

The androgynous and cheery tone of her ambassador glided its way into her mind. My most exalted queen, I received word not two hours ago that Luna's lawyers have combed over every square inch of the contract, tickled every word and fondled every verb-

 _Fondled?_ Twilight shuddered. _Don't ask, just don't ask._

Rolled Scroll rattled on unabated. And jousted every term. I dare say if Grogar actually signs this then he is putting an awful lot of trust in us.

You're saying Grogar is on the level with us? Twilight asked in disbelief. Why would he give up so much power?

I suggest you ask _him_ that, my queen. Assuming he's willing to give a straight answer that is.

Not a fan of being near the guy, but I suppose I have little choice if I want the truth, thank you, son.

Twilight could almost sense her ambassador genuflecting. A pleasure as always, my illustrious queen.

Rainbow Dash chuckled at Rolled Scroll's antics. "I gotta ask, sis, what did you put in RS's incubator fluid to make him turn out like that?"

Twilight rolled her eyes and stepped towards the exit. "Not a clue."

The pair barely made it out of the door before running into Kreesus who was being tailed by two changeling escorts. The elder queen appeared dignified, but her wavering purple emotional aura painted a much more panicked picture. She was sweating profusely, and couldn't quite hide a nervous tick in her right eye. "Ahh, there you are," she gave a shallow bow out of respect. "I must speak with you."

Twilight gave her a worried frown while Rainbow smoldered a scowl. "Should we step aside for privacy?" Twilight inquired, ignoring Rainbow's snort of disapproval.

Why bother accommodating this traitor at all? Let her stew in embarrassment.

Twilight gave Rainbow a mental kick, but outwardly remained diplomatic to Kreesus. For her part, Kreesus was able to calm down a bit to get her sweating under control. "That won't be needed," Kreesus glanced briefly at the two sky blue guards behind her. "Anything I tell you will undoubtedly filter down to your brood and I care not one iota if a non-changeling hears of this." She took a moment to compose herself. "If you were headed somewhere, we can speak on the move."

"Sounds fair," Twilight took the lead with Rainbow Dash making it a point to trail after Kreesus while giving her 'the look'. "We were headed over to Grogar's cell. Turns out Luna's lawyers think the contract Gorgar wrote is on the level, if a bit disturbing about having your soul as collateral if his egg is destroyed or is killed as a child."

"How convenient," Kreesus stated as emotionlessly as possible. "I was just about to ask if you could order those paladins aside so I could speak with him."

Sounds like we can bake two cakes with one oven if you ask me, Rainbow snarked as the group found the stairwell down to the lower decks. There was a minor announcement from Twilight to the crew to stay clear of the royals so their larger size wouldn't cause traffic congestion in the narrow passageways.

While I am glad you have managed to keep your mouth zipped, Rainbow, could you at least promise me to keep it that way?

Psh, whatever.

Kreesus could sniff out a Link conversation when she saw one, but decided to hold her tongue on it. _Rainbow Dash isn't one for letting go of a grudge is she._ "So there is no reason for you to deny him his request?" she asked with a hopefully even tone.

"Nothing from his end at least," Twilight answered cryptically.

* * *

Grogar's cell came into view with the four paladins keeping a tireless vigil. The four of them gave the royals a glance before returning their hard gaze back to the undead ram. Only the closest paladin kept his focus on the queens. "Sir Gleaming Shield, at your service, your majesties. What brings you here?"

"Well met, Sir Gleaming Shield," Twilight greeted with a grateful smile. She noticed in the corner of her eye that Grogar was sitting quietly next to a leather-bound book. The necromancer had been scribbling away with a green quill, but paused upon the royals' entry. "Word has it that Grogar's contract is exactly as advertised. But I need to speak with him one last time before we go any further."

The paladin scowled deeply with the lines of that frown visible from under his helmet. "If I may be so bold, your highnesses, trusting a demon is never wise. Contract or no."

Rainbow Dash stepped up, pushing her way past Kreesus who was more than happy to stay as far away from Grogar as possible. "Believe me, pally, _we_ know."

With a curt nod, the paladin stepped aside, and gestured with his weapon for the rest of his four-pony team to stay by the two exits. Kreesus gave some short excuse to stay with the paladins, leaving Twilight and Rainbow Dash to approach.

Twilight kept a firm yet pleasant disposition, while Rainbow Dash leaned against the door frame of the drunk tank looking as if there was no real danger. Seeing this, Grogar closed his tome which proceeded to fold in on itself as if the very air was devouring the sacrilegious book. "Writing a do-it-yourself necromancy guide for your new life I take it?"

"Not for myself," the hornless ram stated with his usual flat and emotionless tone. "I have other debts to pay with the knowledge contained within, and I am… putting my affairs in order, I believe is the modern term. And no, I will not be keeping this book or any other like it."

Twilight and Rainbow Dash shared a look that betrayed some measure of reassurance. Twilight did her best to choose her next words carefully to get the most information out of him. "That is something that's been troubling me about your efforts. The contract states you're also not keeping any written form of knowledge, be it magical or the power structure or Tartarus. I can understand you needing to purge yourself of memories, but why not keep your written knowledge?"

"Yeah," Rainbow butted in with her usual raspy voice, "that's gotta be worth some bank to you at least."

Grogar had to fake needing to sigh, for in truth he couldn't feel exasperation towards them or anyone. "Because I want nothing to tempt my reborn self to ever follow back down the path I'm leaving behind." He directed his gaze at Kreesus, speaking loudly enough for her to hear. "Given Kreesus' weakened state, what with having no drone workforce anymore, I don't want her to have the temptation to use dark magic as a crutch. Such acts would mar my future… childhood."

"I see," Twilight stated flatly, keeping her face unreadable. "In light of the agreeable terms of the contract, it will be signed the day of the ritual in one week's time. But until that time, you will be kept under close watch."

Grogar bowed his head, forcing a fake toothless smile. "I'm looking forward to it."

At the mention of actually signing the contract, Kreesus gulped down the lump in her throat. "Ah, Queen Twilight Sparkle, may I have a word with you outside?"

Twilight glanced at Kreesus questioningly, even as the scaly queen was inching for the door. "Very well. We're done here anyway."

"Hey, you speak to her, you talk to me too," Rainbow Dash called out as she followed her sister out into the hallway. Grogar hummed contemplatively at Kreesus' hasty exit, _take care you don't convince them to do anything foolish._ With nothing else to do, he waved a burning rune in the air. A small black portal materialized and coughed the book up along with the ink and quill. Grogar returned to his work while the paladins scrutinized him with righteous glares.

Outside in the well lit hallway, Kreesus was nonplussed by Rainbow involving herself, but still only spoke directly to Twilight once the hatch was shut behind them. "So you're seriously going through with this whole rebirth the demon idea?"

"It's mostly you, isn't it?" Rainbow countered with a flick of her head to get her long mane out of her eyes. "Last I checked, you signed that contract, not us."

"Yes- but-" Kreesus was inches from dropping the dignified act for one of desperation. "I don't have any drones except for those two quasi Grogar absconded with, and might I add that I might have to put them down due to how deep their dark magic corruption is. At least I have Fluffy's egg, for which I am eternally thankful that you rescued, but that only compounds the issue. I can't support a princess' egg, let alone after she hatches."

"Then why did you agree to it?" Rainbow demanded, knowing it would get a rise out of Kreesus.

"I didn't have a choice," Kreesus hissed defiantly. "It was either that, be killed by Polybia, possibly turned into a zombie for him, or be mutated into one of those horrific egg worms. And before you sass me again, _Queen_ Rainbow Dash, do try to remember I sacrificed everything to buy the _Steamrunner_ enough time to get to Polybia's hive. My drones, the one princess I had left, and even my life!"

"Oh yeah, I remember a similar story with a place called Stripped Gear, ever heard of it?" Rainbow snarled back, shoving her face into Kreesus' muzzle. "Save your martyr stories for somepony who gives a rut."

"Alright that's enough!" Twilight pushed the other queens away from each other, imposing herself in between. "Rainbow, you and I both know that if Grogar decides to call Kreesus out on this, he'll take her soul and then run off to find a new body some other way."

Rainbow Dash growled and let Twilight shove her back. 'Why don't you just say it, Kreesus, you want _us_ to raise Kid Gar."

Kreesus' vindictive anger wilted, and sighed slowly. "…Yes. I can only place myself at your mercy."

Twilight gave her a sidelong smirk. "I was honestly wondering how long it would take before you asked." Kreesus blinked at Twilight, and glanced at Rainbow who only huffed at her and averted her gaze. "We were not ignoring your situation, Kreesus, and we've already come to a consensus about the issue."

"Y-you have?" Kreesus asked with hope coloring her voice.

"Tsk, isn't it obvious?" Rainbow fumed while making a show of rolling her eyes. "And before you ask, Grogar's going into one of my eggs. Loyalty runs in my blood, and if we're having to raise a former demon lich as one our own, I want every card in play to keep him on our side."

Kreesus breathed a sigh of relief and stood a little straighter, her demeanor warming considerable. "For what it's worth to you, I thank you, Queen Rainbow Dash. No doubt you'll be successful."

"Yeah, yeah, suck up all you want. I'm done here." Rainbow didn't trust herself in Kreesus' presence any further and stormed off.

Twilight let her go and turned to Kreesus. "We can give you some food and love crystals to get you back on your hooves. But I strongly suggest not staying for long. Rainbow Dash's animosity for you is going to filter down to her half of the hive and beyond."

"I wholeheartedly agree." With her near future no longer looking so bleak, Kreesus gave one final thanks and excused herself.

Left alone Twilight witnessed the crew reappear, numerous drones passing through the corridor now that the royal roadblock had moved on. _Well, I better go inform Chrysalis' puppet that she can taunt Polybia now. Better to let her vent this way than give her cause to hold a grudge against us for refusing her._


	84. Chapter 84

The Age of Twidash Has Begun

Chrysalis materialized within a dark expanse illuminated by a dim red glow in front of her. She took stock of herself by looking at an upraised foreleg. Instead of a slightly glossy black shine, her carapace was silver and partially transparent. "Such a shame my time here is so limited."

She put her leg down as her sister, Jstrul materialized beside her. Here though, the green queen still had her eyes. She too gave herself a once over with Chrysalis waiting a moment before cantering forward towards the red light. "Come, sister, our time is precious."

"It has been a long time coming," Jstrul replied with no lack of dark glee.

The black expanse seemed unending as the pair closed in on the red glow. However, Chrysalis spotted distant faint reflections of the red light. _So this prison is a giant sphere, or we've been shrunk down. Best not dwell on it._

Focusing ahead, a structure started to come into focus as if a camera lens was correcting itself. Black stone provided a base for steel beams and rattling chains that formed an enclosure. Fiery red and orange runes were placed sporadically on everything. The last thing to come into focus was the guest of honor: Polybia.

The two sisters stopped in their tracks once the object of their hatred came fully into view. Polybia was mostly silver, but had streaks of blood red coursing through her. In addition to the steel chains binding her struggling form were silver chains weighed down by ebony black locks. Although neither queen was all that familiar with demonic magic, let alone Grogar's signature, the second set of chains that wrapped around Polybia's fetlocks and wings gave both of them a vindictive smirk.

As for Polybia herself, she was pulling hard on the chains gripping her left foreleg, the one facing away from her visitors, in a vain effort to free herself. That allowed the sisters to walk almost right up to her before Polybia noticed she was no longer alone.

"Well isn't this a fitting end," Chrysalis sneered, jarring Polybia out of her efforts. "The self-proclaimed most sanctimonious of us all will be reduced to a succubus, a slave of lust willing to debase yourself at a moment's notice." Polybia tried to spit a glob of salve in her face, but none was forthcoming in this realm.

"A pity we won't be able to see just how low you can sink in the process," Jstrul said mockingly without even acknowledging Polybia's wordless reply. She walked up and struck Polybia across the chin. The impact stung, but only produced a breathy groan out of Polybia. Even so, the strike produced a satisfied grin on Jstrul's hard face.

"Is that the best you have?" The red streaks in Polybia flared, dancing around behind her eyes in a tight bundle. "Come on, Jstrul you can hit me better than that." She turned to give Chrysalis a 'come hither' look. "You can join in too."

Chrysalis scowled deeply and shoved her way in between Jstrul and Polybia, "Are you really broken that quickly?" While her power here was gravely limited and did not come easily, Chrysalis managed to summon a bit of holy magic from the Silver City and shot it in Polybia's face. The red tangle writhed in pain before fleeing to her extremities.

The look on Polybia's face went from sultry to shocked before settling on a hate filled snarl. "What are _you_ doing here you miserable pus filled kelja?!"

Now that she had Polybia's undivided attention, Chrysalis circled in front of her, purring at the sight of Polybia's situation. "Just thought I'd see you off to Tartarus with my _best wishes._ "

Jstrul grabbed Polybia's face with both hooves and shoved her muzzle in her face. "We get to have front row seats to your final damnation. Yeelindrus sends her regards."

Polybia had enough freedom to at least wrench her head out of Jstrul's grip and snapped at one of the hooves, forcing Jstrul to pull back. "I did them all a favor and gave them honor they'd never hope to reach otherwise."

Chrysalis originally was going to snap at her, but then realized there was a madness in Polybia's eyes that was much deeper than it had been in the hive, and by far more than what the mad queen possessed the last time she saw her before Grogar's capture. Polybia continued ranting like a frothing lunatic, the red streaks worming around in her spirit flaring like fires ripping through dry grass. Her wild eyes were overly wide with an insanity that could only truly manifest in this spirit prison.

Not that Jstrul let that dissuade her from venting her heartache and rage against Polybia. At each slung insult, every excuse, and the last condemnation only disturbed her further. Polybia's words were spewing forth so rapidly now that it was becoming unintelligible. Jstrul was unwilling to listen to a second longer of it and screamed wordless vengeance and pummeled Polybia's face in with a barrage of flying hooves. Had it been the physical world, Polybia's head would have been reduced to a red smear. Yet in this prison, no real harm was possible, allowing Polybia to rattle on her tirade of nonsensical venom, only serving to infuriate Jstrul even further.

Slowly, the red streaks returned to coil behind Polybia's eyes, causing her hate filled growls to shift into one of pained pleasure. Every beating produced an excited moan, every kick was rewarded with a heated sigh, and Polybia drank in Jstrul's cries of rage as if it were a song for her basest lust.

At that point, Chrysalis tried to pull her sister off Polybia with a telekinetic shove, only to have her magic fizzle. Assuming it was the prison's doing, Chrysalis resorted to physically pulling her sister back. Jstrul whirled around at the restraint, ready to kick Chrysalis away for interfering. "Enough, sister! Look at her," Chrysalis commanded, forcing Jstrul to refocus on who she had been hitting. Polybia was writhing in pleasure in her chains. She was pulling on her leg bands to cause herself pain, only to fawn over the bondage like a masochist. "You're only pleasuring her at this point."

Polybia started cat calling Jstrul, begging her to keep hitting her over and over, eliciting a shudder of disgust out of the sisters. The revelation did little to give Jstrul any measure of peace. "Does demonic influence really taint one so deeply with so little?"

"...It would seem so. Either that, or she just gave in after being so thoroughly trounced by Luna."

"Or the prison itself," Jstrul added with anger laced pain. She kicked at the ground, wishing there was a rock to punt.

"Perhaps. In either case, we're wasting our time here."

"…She cheated us," Jstrul fumed as she walked away from Polybia so the future succubus queen's catcalling would be out of earshot. Chrysalis followed soon after, and was soon taking the lead back towards the entry point. "She's given into her corruption just so we can't pry some vengeance out of her for our sister."

"In her state, I wouldn't think it impossible now that she no longer has undeath to keep it in check."

Keeping her exterior rigidly stoic, Chrysalis walked back to the entry point with her sister in tow. No words passed between them. Jstrul seethed, vibrating her wings irritably yet silently since there was no actual air. Polybia's sultry smutty grin taunted her mind's eye. As for Chrysalis, Polybia frightened her more than anything else. _She sarificed everything…_ everything _to win, and just look at her now._ More troubling fears sprouted up like weeds. _Could that have been me, if I had found Grogar first?_ Dozens of close calls and near death experiences during the course of the war jumbled their way past her mind. _Polybia used to be among the best of us. Admittedly the most devoted to the First Mother of us all._

Ultimately there was only one fate she could truthfully see her following had Grogar landed in her lap first. She turned back towards Polybia, and for the briefest of moments, saw herself locked in those chains. She stopped frozen in her tracks, and blinked her eyes hard. When she opened them, it was Polybia in those chains. Yet that instant was enough to send her heart hammering in her chest. At that moment, a far more grim fate danced across her mind. That she was not alone in that prison, but her sisters too. All three either locked in this cage or victorious in the war yet driven insane by the cocktail of undead and demonic power.

 _Would I have damned my sisters? Turned on them if they didn't fall in line? What if they-_

"Sister?" Jstrul called while briefly jostling Chrysalis' shoulder. "Are you coming or not?" Chrysalis jolted back to the present and recoiled from her sister's touch, catching a flash of a necrotic lich with burning demonic eyes as her sister. Jstrul took the recoil in stride, but was giving Chrysalis a concerned frown. "Forgive me, but our magic doesn't work very well in here so I had to touch you directly. Are you alright?"

Shaking herself out of it, Chrysalis saw her sister was normal again. With a wave of her hoof she dismissed the apology. "Well enough," Chrysalis replied with a tone that brooked no investigation.

She composed herself and spoke evenly. "Just giving Polybia one last look to see if it was all an act," Chrysalis lied smoothly. She marched forward to the exit, passing her sister by in the process.

Jstrul knew her sister enough to know a lie when she heard one, but was unwilling to call her on it.

Upon arriving, the black floor opened up on them. They fell through the hole and suddenly snapped awake in their bodies inside Chrysalis' throne room. The two queens needed a moment to gather their wits.

"Just as well my focus is out of that puppet," Jstrul fumed now that she was blind again. "I'll leave speaking with those Equestrians to you while I handle local matters."

Chrysalis was actually going to suggest something similar. _This works out nicely. I'd rather her not eavesdropping on me._ "I'll leave you to it then. I will be along later after I finish things with them." She watched Jstrul leave the room, guided by a pair of attending seeing-eye drones. _There's more going on with Polybia than simple madness. There just has to be! A queen of her age should have resisted better than that. It doesn't make sense otherwise._ Chrysalis knew she was grasping at straws, but her shaken pride goaded her along this line of thought.

Casting her consciousness across thousands of miles, Chrysalis slid back inside her puppet at the Equestrian border. The land she left her puppet at was a one hundred foot island nestled in the middle of a vastly larger lake. It was close to a break in the Macintosh Mountains where northern rivers fed the lake, and the lake fed smaller rivers going into the southern jungle. A pair of changeling shuttles were parked right above the water with ropes staked into the grass covered ground. The vehicles were providing the only real source of illumination via four floodlights. The moon was full and the stars seemed impossibly dim for being so far away from civilization.

Twilight, Rainbow, Luna, and a few pony paladins stood near the shuttles muttering to themselves, their conversation lost to the gentle lapping of flowing water and the hum of the array. Chrysalis and Jstrul's puppets were standing inside a blood red demonic array that had dashes of black that ran the length and breadth of the pattern that dominated the island. It was a squarish pattern that had sigils of power floating in midair that seemed to taunt Chrysalis to delve into their secrets.

For now, with little power flowing through it, the array was, in essence, idling. Grogar stood in the center of the array with the bell containing Polybia's prison floating ten feet above him. Standing in stark contrast to the rest of the demonic array, was a patch of golden light off to the side where a single blue egg would be placed upon a white blanket when midnight arrived.

Chrysalis turned to her sister's former puppet. _She hasn't ordered this thing back yet?_ "Drone, go home."

Without a word or gesture of acknowledgement, the green drone immediately took to the air and flew south. Its ultimate fate of returning alive was of no concern to her. Upon seeing the puppets moving once again, Grogar halted his efforts in perfecting the minute details of the array to address Chrysalis. "I take it you've had your fill."

Chrysalis glanced at the Equestrians. They were watching both Grogar and her puppet, but none of them were within earshot thanks to the ambient noise. "Hardly." She turned back towards Grogar who watched her passively. "I am no expert on matters of soul magic, but something about Polybia felt…" Chrysalis fidgeted with her real forelegs trying to phrase it properly. "Incomplete. Like she wasn't all there."

Grogar grunted in approval. "So you noticed that did you? Most wouldn't." Quickly assuming what her follow up question would be, he continued. "What you likely saw was an old scar upon her spirit. My guess is right around the time she decided to steal my power. It has healed poorly."

"Taking in your magic is that damaging?" Chrysalis asked with a growing concern that she should be much more thorough in cleansing the lands of necrotic taint, just to be on the safe side.

"Not in that respect." Grogar waved a hoof in the air, forming a new sigil. "Something or someone ripped a large piece out of her soul sometime after I was captured. Probably a month or so ago at the very least."

Chrysalis narrowed her eyes out of interest. "And that loss weakened her resolve or sanity, I take it?"

"Someone's personality is shaped equally by brain and soul alike."

"She did it to herself, didn't she?" Chrysalis stated as if there was no question. "That means she is still alive somewhere else."

"Possibly." Grogar finished the sigil which floated away to take its place. "The fragment was torn away by a poor novice. The fragment could not survive on its own; it would need a host body and soul to latch on to. Not even a phylactery could sustain it after that kind of haphazard surgery."

Chrysalis narrowed her eyes at him. "You're being quite generous with information."

Ever without emotion, Grogar forced a shrug of indifference. "And what use would keeping that knowledge serve me when I am mere moments away from being reborn?"

"Point taken." Chrysalis fumed, but let the slight go. "But who would she trust with a fragment of her soul? She didn't exactly have any real allies-" Just then, a flash of numerous quasi soared through Chrysalis' mind. _No… She wouldn't actually do that, would she? Sure she was desperate back then but-_

A coy grin found its way on Chrysalis' muzzle. "I must thank you for this information. For what it's worth to you, I'll consider this a favor towards your new self."

"I would…" was all he would say. Grogar turned away to finish his work, wordlessly dismissing Chrysalis. "Not that I'll remember," he deadpanned. The last comment actually made Chrysalis turn around and give him a puzzling look.

"And here I thought you lacked a sense of humor."

He lowered his gaze to a section of the array, and started weaving a hoof over it to fix an error that he missed earlier. "Faking one is easy enough, I've found."

Chrysalis hummed approvingly, yet before she could fly away, Grogar gestured for her to wait with a hoof. "Now that I think about it… The scar on Polybia's spirit is jagged and deep. Likely created in haste."

Chrysalis hesitated to respond for a moment. "Are you saying it wasn't self-inflicted?"

"Maybe yes, maybe no." Grogar studied the array with utmost care, and found a sigil was slightly out of place. "I've not the time nor inclination to find out since it does not interfere with my plan. The only thing I am sure of is that the fragment was never restored to her spirit."

"Is that a fact?…" Chrysalis trailed off. She gave the necromancer time to work as she mulled over the information. "It seems you have given me something to distract myself with. For that, I thank you." When Grogar only gave a curt nod in reply, Chrysalis had the puppet fly away before departing its mind. _After I stabilize the hive and my daughters, I'll get to have some entertainment in this little hunt._

The hour approached midnight when a dark inky black portal appeared in front of the array. Everyone's eyes turned to see not a demon, but an earth pony with drab grey coloration from his eyes to his fur. His form was mostly covered in a flowy royal red cloak that spoke of immense wealth. With a toothy grin he gave a flourishing wave towards the undead ram. "Grogar, my longtime friend and ally, you're looking a little worse for wear." The newcomer made a point of looking up at the lich's missing horns.

"Schadenfreude," Grogar growled lowly. "I should have your head after the information you gave Polybia."

With a chuckle, Schadenfreude stepped away from the closing portal to briefly survey the diagram. "It all worked out in the end, did it not?" He turned back to Grogar, "That's why I'm standing here after all."

With a flat scowl, Grogar stomped on the ground and pulled the tome out of the ground. "It's all here. Now do your part."

Blood red magic formed around an invisible horn on Schadenfreude's head. He plucked the book away from Grogar and slid it inside his cloak without checking it. "Then this is goodbye. I will miss our long talks over coffee."

Grogar said nothing further and stood at the center of the array patiently. Schadenfreude pulled a hoof up to his face to read the changeling-made wrist watch he had, indicating it was a minute to midnight. Both demonologist and demon looked to Rainbow Dash who was on time. She placed a single blue egg on the sanctified ground without a word and moved away from the array.

Satisfied everything was lining up, Grogar nodded to Schadenfreude. "I suppose I will miss them too. I will say that you were the only one worthy of any worthwhile conversation."

"Perhaps we will again someday," Schadenfreude smirked as he summoned his magic, only to get a warning glare from Grogar. "Provided your new self seeks me out first of course." More or less satisfied, Grogar said nothing further.

Upon the stroke of midnight, Schadenfreude had enough power gathered and slammed his hooves into the edge of the array. Dark magic surged throughout the lines and sigils. Grogar pulled one last thing out of the ground: his phylactery. With a hoof glowing in demonic magic, he held the thing close to his face and whispered words of power into the decanter shaped phylactery. With the words spoken, he smashed the phylactery with his other hoof, shattering it like brittle glass.

A fully dark red mass of soul popped out and sank into Grogar's body. "Now, Fel-weaver!"

Schadenfreude flared his magic, causing tentacles of black mana to burst forth from the sigils. Each sigil bore two tentacles, one latched onto Grogar while the other adhered itself to the bell. The tentacles pulled taut and started pulling away at Grogar's soul. He quickly collapsed to the ground as pain seared every dead vein and artery. Scrap by horrendous scrap, the demonic taint of his soul was ripped away and sank into the prison bell.

The changelings and ponies watched in morbid fascination. Twilight was trying to understand the spell she was witnessing while Rainbow Dash could only now start believing Grogar was honest. Luna and the paladins remained unmoving though.

You think painkillers would even work here? Rainbow queried only half seriously.

I'd be stunned if it did, Twilight replied absently. She was too engrossed in the spell to do more. The array was aggressive and thorough, ripping away whole chunks of demonic essence at a time like a butcher. One particularly bright piece of red soul fragments tried to cling back into Grogar, yet that only made the tentacle grow thicker and beefier to redouble its efforts. With a meaty thwack that sent a wave of nausea across the group, the piece of demon soul was snapped off and deposited into the bell. This is insane. I know he warned us he'd not survive outside of a new body, but I'm beginning to believe he won't survive period!

After a long and grueling half hour, the last scraps of red taint were dredged from Grogar's limp form. Luna barely caught the sight of dead milky eyes when the red glow burned out. The bell by contrast was a beacon of demonic energy, radiating power like an angry sun.

Without missing a beat, Schadenfreude ripped at the ground under his hooves and heaved it at Grogar's body. The impact broke the tentacles away. Stepping up to his old friend, Schadenfreude took a porcelain bowl and acted as if he was going to scoop ice cream out of Grogar's body. The bowl passed through him as if he wasn't real. Yet what he scooped out was very real: a soul. It was a tiny thing, barely enough to hold itself together outside of a vessel. Yet that would not last long if a new one wasn't found soon. "So this is what you've reduced yourself to. A few motes of light."

With the bowl carefully kept upright, Schadenfreude walked over to the egg. He had to squint to keep the gentle golden light from blinding him. Refraining from using any magic of his own, Schadenfreude picked up the egg and carefully laid it to rest inside the bowl. He placed it back down into the patch of holy ground and backed off towards the center of the array. From there he thrust a hoof towards the bell. The object raced towards him and vanished inside his cloak. With his task complete, he pulled some herbs out of his cloak and threw them across the ground. The traces of demonic magic in the array were sucked into the herbs until there was little more than dried flaking blood on the ground. Once he was satisfied, he departed the array to join the witnesses.

He bowed at the royalty before speaking. "Your highnesses, the deed is done. Give it a minute or two and what's left of Grogar will be fused with the egg."

Luna gestured at the paladins who moved to start purging the remains of the demonic array and sanctifying the island. Just in case. "Did he survive the process?"

"Oh yes, I was _quite_ meticulous." Schadenfreude flicked a grin and a spark in his eyes. "Any flicker of demon essence thin enough to escape me will soon be expunged by the patch of holy dirt back there."

"Very well," Luna suppressed a sigh. "You may take your leave."

"As you wish, Princess. But I have to ask," Schadenfreude added right as he bowed out of respect. He faced Rainbow Dash in particular. "I'm very curious about what you will do with that egg. From what I understand, none of you are bound by any contract to keep it alive… aside from that Kreesus character I've heard so much about."

Twilight shared a brief conversation with her sister over the Link before addressing the demonologist. "Information like that doesn't come for free."

Schadenfreude belted out a hearty laugh that did little to provoke humor in the others around him. "Good to see you are a mare of understanding. How about I consider it a small favor? As far as I'm concerned, Grogar is dead, so any of his enemies will be told the same thing should they come asking."

Satisfied with his answer, Rainbow Dash heaved a heavy sigh and looked at her distant egg. Uncertainty creased her brow, trepidation formed a slight frown, and no small amount of fear held her tongue for a few moments. "I think we're going to leave the egg in stasis for a bit. Can't do it for more than a week or she'll end up with birth defects, but that should buy us time to get her a counterpart before hatching."

"And think of a new name," Twilight added cryptically. _Along with putting the egg into a royal incubator,_ she mused to herself, not willing to offer that information.

"I see," Schadenfreude replied with a little disappointment. "Well, this is when I must bid you adieu. I have work to do and a schedule to keep." He bowed once more as the ground beneath him became inky black in a circle around him. Everyone shifted away a couple of steps as the grinning demonologist sank into the portal. "I do enjoy our little chats. Don't be a stranger, your highnesses."

As quickly as it had appeared, the black portal closed behind him. A whiff of black magic danced upon the wind before being extinguished by Luna. "If it is all the same to you, I'm up for going home."

* * *

In the middle of Canterlot, Pear Butter and Paintbrush were in a panic. The room above the brothel was dimmed, save for the fading sunlight peeking from behind the curtains. Stopwatch was still in a cocoon under the bed. Paintbrush was holding onto a shaking water mug trying to get his thoughts straight while Pear was pacing back and forth speaking rapidly and couldn't stop her tail and wings from twitching on their own accord.

"What are we going to do!? If Night Light takes the princess to Ponyville that means Twilight Sparkle is going to discover what she is!" Pear stopped pacing as it was not helping the pounding migraine causing the spots in her eyes to worsen.

"W-well what do you want me to do about it!?" Paint Brush cried in frustration. "Ah don't know anything about disguise magic, Ah just _do_ it!" He tried to stomp his hoof, only for him to lose his balance and topple over.

Pear Butter was sluggish to try and help him back up as she struggled to maintain balance with her tail acting erratically. He managed to get up without her. "What is wrong with us?" he groaned through clenched teeth as as spike of pain lanced through his already bad migraine.

For a few moments, Pear Butter felt her thoughts grind to a halt and stood there in a sort of limbo before the world started moving again. Her thoughts turned to anger, "I bet it was our oh so beloved queen!" She cast a spiteful eye at the cocoon. "She wanted us to die after we secured the princess' safety. We're loose ends."

"Ah don't believe that," Paint Brush growled while giving her a stink eye of his own. "We're her guardians, remember?"

"We're not needed anymore," Pear countered heatedly. "She has the Sparkle family now!"

"And what if something happens to them before she's grown?" Paint Brush shot back defensively.

"Well why don't we let Stopwatch settle the matter?" Pear jabbed a hoof at the cocoon with gritted teeth. "Oh wait, she's safe and sound in her little shell until we end up dying. The princess only needs one outsider for protection and it won't be us!"

"Y-you're wrong!" Paint Brush cried with mounting desperation at his failing body. "She - she needs us…"

Both quasi sank to a sitting position as fatigue drained away at them. Pear Butter could do little outside of cursing Polybia's name. As if to mock her, a loud crack resounded from the cocoon. Both quasi turned to see a jagged horn briefly poke out of the waxy shell followed by a hoof. "Well now here wakes up our replacement."

"Maybe she can help us," Paint Brush replied with forced optimism. Both of them summoned the strength to walk over and lend feeble aid to free Stopwatch of her cocoon.

She was in the middle of hacking up cocoon fluid as the others plopped back down and short of breath. Paint Brush sighed in overt relief while Pear Butter was far more distrusting. "Finally you're awake. I half expected ta have ta move yur egg before somepony came look'n," he said with a chuckle.

Pear Butter studied Stopwatch for any changes, and was confused when she saw no noticeable changes from a standard drone. "Any idea why you were in there to begin with?" she started, not wanting to tip her hoof just yet. _That filly would be better off without SW watching over. Ah think I can still kill her with what magic Ah have left._

Stopwatch finished clearing her lungs and gulped air down while holding up a hoof to stop any more questions. She finally opened her eyes to reveal the normal blue glow was gone, with normal round pupils staring back at the two quasi. "The queen's last will was to give us independence." Her breathing started to normalize, allowing her to stumble onto the bed to recover. "At least that was the last thing I think she told me before forcing me into a cocoon."

In a mechanical, almost preprogrammed in her movement, Stopwatch climbed to her hooves and tapped the side of her horn on both quasi's foreheads. Neither of them had the wits to question or stop her. It was like a switch being flipped, the two quasi felt strength returning to their bodies, the migraines let up and the pain was receding. Pear Butter took the first deep breath she had all day. It was invigorating how nice it felt.

Paint Brush's hope and good cheer surged right along side his recovering health. He pounded his chest and relished the pow that was restored to him. "Like an ox!" He tipped his painter's hat at Stopwatch. "Thank ye kindly for that." He shot a smug look at Pear Butter who pointedly avoided his gaze.

As soon as it had happened, Stopwatch's personality reactivated and she blinked away the stupor she found herself in. "W-what just happened?" With her thoughts returning, she could hear two voices in her head, one male, the other female. Their words were as quiet as a whisper and were unintelligible. Bewilderment struck home as she knew what those voices meant, _It's Pear and Paint's voices! But that would mean-_

By contrast, neither quasi could hear any voice inside their head except for their own. With Paint Brush lording over Pear Butter with a mountain of smug satisfaction, the mare pouted in silence, freeing Paintbrush up to speak with Stopwatch. "Much obliged, ma'am. Ah knew the queen wouldn't abandon us. She used you to reconnect us to her, I take it."

"No… you're only connected to me." That put a halt to both quasi's mood. "Our queen is - is dead." The enormity of what she just said struck Stopwatch like a freight train. Her whole life, her world, her existence had been for her queen. And now Polybia was gone. Feared as she might have been, the hole in Stopwatch's heart made her clam up. Tears flooded her eyes, her lips quivered terribly, and her wings vibrated in a pallor hum. It was all she could do to keep from wailing her heartache in front of the two quasi. "P-please, leave me. I need to be alone."

The realization that she was now truly without a queen nearly sent Stopwatch over the emotional edge. It was only the quasi's presence that made her keep some measure of composure. Paint Brush couldn't help but to get caught up in mutual grief, but Pear Butter felt nothing but satisfaction in the news that all of them were freed from Polybia's influence once and for all. "You can grieve all you need later. Right now the princess is in danger."

Had Pear given any other reason for her curt, if hollow-ringing sympathetic tone, Stopwatch would have screamed at her to leave. So instead, she allowed her voice to be colored by shaky emotion. "How?"

Pear Butter's own fully sized insectoid wings buzzed irritably. "Word has it that Grogar's been killed and that Twilight is set to return to Phoenix Roost within the hour. Right as I was goin' off the clock for the night, I saw Night Light was packing a suitcase, and planning on takin' the princess to meet her new sister. He's only waiting for Azure Sky to get off work to take the next train together. Which means-" Pear Butter lifted up a hoof to glance at her wristwatch. "Just to make thin's worse, he's insistin' that Ah meet with Queen Twilight herself. Saying 'she'll want to know who Stellar's foalsitter is'. Ah've got two hours before I'm expected back at the manor."

Paint Brush leaned on the situation like a crutch to keep himself emotionally steady. "We think Twilight or at least one of the other changelings might see past PB and the princess' disguise and discover what they truly are."

It took Stopwatch a moment to remember casting the original disguise spell on the princess. "But the queen specially crafted it to be subtle enough to fool someone of Twilight Sparkle's caliber."

Paint Brush shook his head. "Last Ah checked, that spell was only meant for a foal that Twilight might have seen in passin', not remain close to her for hours or days on end as a family member. Ah ain't will'n to risk that."

"And Ah don't think Ah could fool her either," Pear added with heavy concern of her own. "What with bein' the foalsitter 'n all. She'd splat me like a bug and then might double check on the princess."

The risk to the princess gave Stopwatch enough motivation to swallow her grief, but not all that effectively. "I'm just an infiltrator posing as a prostitute," she hissed in a sorrowful rage, "what would I know about-" Stopwatch blinked as information she never had before raced across her mind in flashes. Details on changeling magic, quasi creation, and many others that were far above her pay grade.

The pain of having so much information so quickly was mitigated by integrating it into the molting phase. "I - wait. I think I can help with that." Mitigated or not, the new information was in a jumble that nauseated her to sift through. "G-give me one of those necklaces on the desk over there."

Paint Brush was quick to do as requested while Pear Butter grew suspicious of the sudden seemingly unrelated request. She decided to keep her peace due to curiosity and being in a hurry. Once Paint Brush handed over a cheap gold colored necklace, Stopwatch's horn lit up with a shaky green light. The necklace started to shine in a mirrored green light, and it took over ten minutes for the enchantment to solidify. At the end, Stopwatch was shuddering from both her emotional control fraying at the edges, and the spellwork being heavily taxing. "There. That, that should keep her disguise from being sniffed out. Put it on her for ten minutes and it should last a few days. I'll have to make a more permanent one later."

"Will it work for me too?" Pear asked with lessened hostility while accepting the jewelry. "Ah'm probably goin' ta have to follow the family down to Ponyville."

"It should, I think. Just keep the necklace on you at all times." Stopwatch laid down on the bed and covered her head with the pillow. "Can you two leave me alone now? I really need to be-" she didn't finish as the emotional warble in her voice threatened to break out into a full out sob. When neither farmer didn't jump to leave, she curled up into a fetal position. "Just get out of here!"

Paintbrush was quick to tug Pear Butter's foreleg and try to gently direct her to the door. "Sure thin', Stop. You just get yourself sorted out, and we'll take care of the princess."

* * *

Two days after Grogar's ritual, Phoenix Roost was abuzz with the return of their queens. As the _Long Shot_ pulled into dock, Twilight and Rainbow waved at the changelings crowding every square inch of the dockyard and many more in the air. The flight deck had every available crewmember standing at attention. Luna received equal praise from her perch atop the _Steamrunner_ as it pulled into an adjacent dock, although it was largely from the resident imperial thestrals over the changelings. Mostly because the changelings were too busy going after their mothers first.

As soon as the docking clamps secured the carrier in place, the civilian changelings swarmed over the ship to bear hug their reunited siblings. Twilight and Rainbow Dash were spared the brunt of the swarm only because they were glomped by Aegis and Blitz respectively before anyone else could reach them. Aegis was covered in eight nymphs clinging to her mane and tail.

Aegis full on knocked Twilight down in her mad rush to be first and all but choked her with a crushing bear hug. "You're finally back! I missed you so freak'n much you like, can't believe!"

"Maybe, but I can imagine," Twilight giggled as she hugged Aegis right back. The nymphs swarmed over both purple queens, giggling and laughing the whole time. Twilight pulled her head away from Aegis' side to look at one of the nymphs trying to grab onto her snout. It took her a brief moment to realize the nymph was not linked directly to her, but to Aegis instead. "These wouldn't happen to be grandkids now would they?" Twilight snatched the nymph up and let it join in the hug on the floor with many others trying to join in. Many of them had clumsy hands grabbing and pulling on hair and fur alike.

"That they would!" Aegis squealed with unbridled glee and pride. Aegis climbed off of Twilight and scooped up as many nymphs as she could hold in her arms and nuzzled all of them, making the kids giggle madly. Aegis relished the unique flavor of a child's love for their mother that was only ever matched by Twilight's love for her. It was enough to bring Aegis to tears. Thank you for letting me become a queen.

And a fine queen you have become, my dear. Twilight didn't need her empathy to see how utterly content Aegis was, for she was all too familiar with that particular feeling.

By now, quite the number of drones had reached them and started dog piling into a massive hug of purple, all but pushing Aegis out of the way to squash their queen.

Aegis had to gingerly pull the remaining nymphs out from under the pile with her magic. "Guuys! Watch the nymphs!"

Barely ten feet away, Rainbow Dash and Blitz were being squashed in a dog pile of their own that was getting rather cramped thanks to the wall and railing of the _Long Shot's_ balcony. However much she wanted to bask in the love of her brood, Rainbow Dash kept her tone somber. Everyone, let's back up and have a celebration later this week.

The tone of her announcement caused all of the jubilant changelings to take a step back. Blitz and the other royals stayed on the balcony while the others took to the air. Rainbow Dash sent word down to the crew of both ships. While we may have had our Day of Mourning on the way back, the ships are carrying the remains of both changeling and pony alike. Let's see the ponies safely returned to Equestria before we start our victory party.

The finality and dour tone of the command sent most of the drones away while others helped the crew remove the coffins. Content to leave that effort in Rainbow's hooves, Twilight waved Blitz to come over and join both her and Aegis. "I hope you two have been good while we've been gone."

"I've managed to keep Miss Burnanator here in check," she deadpanned getting an eye roll out of Aegis. "But I've been working on some big projects." Blitz hopped up onto her back legs and shifted her front hooves into hands to start counting off points with each finger. "I requisitioned Engineering Team Fowler to start working on a larger deforestation machine to make clearing land for Tradewinds quicker, I got together with a few prominent business ponies and surveyors to see how we can get water based shipping along the rivers started almost as soon as the hive is ready for manufacturing, and then there-"

Aegis stood up and leaned heavily onto Blitz, interrupting her and distracting her with the nymphs playing at their hooves. "Long story short, we haven't been sitting on our duffs twiddling our thumbs."

"Twiddling your thumbs?" Twilight asked with a raised eyebrow.

"It's a sphinx saying," Blitz explained while waggling her thumbs to draw Twilight's attention to them. "It means what you think it means."

"Ah. Well, okay. At any rate, I look forward to going over everything with you both. Now that this nasty business in the jungle is calming down, we can focus on breaking ground for Tradewinds."

Twilight was about to elaborate on that when a call came in. My queen, pardon me for the intrusion, but I have some news for you.

Twilight made a cutting gesture at Aegis and Blitz to let them know she was distracted. It also gave her time to place the voice as one of the guards she had tactfully stationed at her father's manor in Canterlot. The guard had a muffled giggle in his voice as if he was trying to conceal a secret. Something wrong?

Not at all, my queen. But Granddad has a family announcement that he wanted to tell you _in person,_ he stressed heavily. He wanted to take a train to Ponyville, but canceled when I told him your pony friends were visiting Rarity who is in town at the moment.

Twilight projected her humored bemusement over the link. And what pray tell does he want to show me?

The guard tried to clamp his mind shut to keep her from sifting through the memories, not that he could stop her, only delay her for a few minutes. Uh uh! Big secret, and I promised I wouldn't tell. Just get over here, you'll love it.

Twilight couldn't help but to give off a snorting snicker. Well I certainly can't say no to that now can I? Let him know I'll take the _Steamrunner_ over shortly. _That'll keep Luna from having to take a carriage back to the castle._

Sis, Move the pony coffins to the _Steamrunner,_ I'm needed at Canterlot. Twilight went on to tell Rainbow the short version of her conversation with the guard.

That's cool, just bring back some curry from Little Griffinstone. I'm getting a craving something fierce!

You got it. Twilight refocused on the two freshly minted full queens in front of her. "Sorry, girls, it looks like I'm needed at Canterlot for a bit. We'll go over the details of your plan in a Linkscape, deal?"

Blitz nodded with a surge of giddiness. "That's perfect! I'll be able to better visualize all the plans!" She was quick to thrust her face into Aegis' own. "You're coming with me. We need a quiet place to start forming the Linkscape."

"Why me? It's your plans."

Blitz pecked a kiss on Aegis' snout. "Because, silly, just because you're military that doesn't mean you get to pass on civic planning. Now let's tally ho!"

With a cheer, Blitz leapt into the air to fly to her favorite quiet place: the library. "Gauuh, you always do this!" Aegis gathered up all her nymphs and had the perfect excuse to make a detour to the nursery.

That left Twilight standing there alone after Rainbow flew off to personally oversee the care of the coffins. _Now what exactly would daddy be able to keep secret?_ A warm yet highly intrigued smile crossed her lips. _I do love a good mystery._

It was only now that the jubilant crowds cleared away after Rainbow's announcement had time to filter through when Twilight noticed Cadista standing on the flight deck near the conning tower.

Movement further astern drew Twilight's attention to Thunderfury and Rasua chatting away. Refocusing on her mother, Twilight floated down to greet her. "I have to say, momma, I don't know how you survived down south for so long."

"A stiff upper lip, and no small amount of grit." Cadista gave a stiff hug due to the public setting and ended it quickly. "I'm glad you took my advice in physically removing yourselves from combat. I fear it was a lesson your daughter had to learn firsthoof."

 _Ah, she means that skirmish from the Steamrunner's maiden voyage._ "It was eye opening for Rainbow in particular, not that she'll admit it."

"Admission is not required, only taking the lesson to heart." Cadista nodded her head towards the distant lights of Ponyville and took to the air. "Given my… retirement, I wanted to attend a spa in Ponyville. Would you care to join me tomorrow after things settle down?"

"I'd love to, but my father wants me to personally come up to Canterlot right away."

Cadista tilted her head and paused in her flight. Since she hadn't gone far, Twilight simply walked over instead of flying up. "Judging by your tone, it doesn't sound disastrous."

"I certainly don't think so," Twilight replied with a thinly veiled smirk. "Given how my father talked Hidden Blade, the guard I assigned to him, into keeping me in the dark, I'd wager it is rather good news."

Cadista brushed the underside of her chin with her eyes going out of focus as she thought. "That mare, Azure Sky, was it? You think it might have something to do with her then?"

"Oh I have no doubt she's involved. A little fast for a marriage proposal though," Twilight commented with mounting interest in the exact news.

"Well, whatever the case may be, I look forward from hearing about it from you later. We can share the news over one of those mud baths I've heard so much about."

Twilight had the mental image of Cadista laying in a mud bath with oversized cucumber slices and started snickering behind a hoof. All the while having the spa twins filing her hooves and horn. I can't wait, she said over the Link since she couldn't trust her voice at the moment.

No amount of polite hiding behind a hoof could stop Cadista from reading Twilight's emotional aura, but it was the thought that counted. As such, Cadista took a more inquisitive than offended posure. "You can't see me… How did she put it? 'put a whole new luster in my coat'?"

"I took you for more of a sauna person myself," Twilight chuckled and tried to wave off her growing laughter.

"Yes, well a few lifetimes of work and rulership, some respite in these twilight years is called for. Don't you think?"

Twilight Sparkle's good mood fell rapidly, but she kept it buoyed for Cadista's sake. "I certainly believe so."

* * *

It was midafternoon when Twilight glided down in front of the Sparkle Manor. There was a ceremony scheduled to honor the fallen ponies in the next two days, so she arrived alone at the gates. Standing at the marble colored guard shack behind the gate was a unicorn royal guard stallion in a private security uniform. However, it was his holstered pistol and jubilant emotional aura that gave him away as one of Twilight's sons in disguise.

"Queen Twilight Sparkle, good to see you again!" he said cheerfully as the false-unicorn pressed a button to slide the gate open. "Word has it the war went poorly for the Royal Navy. Went worse for the baddies."

Without needing to turn around, Twilight could sense several nobles walking along the streets, with many well within earshot. Playing her part, Twilight nodded in gratitude. "It could have been better, yes. But at least the worst part is over."

"Glad to hear it." The guard swept a hoof towards the manor. "The master is expecting you."

"So I hear," Twilight quipped with an intrigued grin.

It was not long before Twilight made her way past the yard and knocked on the front door. After a minute or so, the large mahogany doors yawned open to reveal an old brown earth stallion who had a growing number of grey hairs in his mane and several more on his face. "Mister Pranceston," Twilight said with a friendly grin, "have I ever told you that you age well?"

"Flattery will get you nowhere, young miss," he sighed like a tired old stallion. "You cannot know how stressed your father gets every time you go off to fight some threat to the world." He waved her inside, allowing Twilight to cross the threshold. "I'm barely an inch from convincing him to take up yoga lessons."

The idea caused Twilight to halt a step. "Not a bad idea, Mister Pranceston, I could use a destresser often enough myself. Where's daddy and this surprise he has for me?"

"In the lounge with Miss Azure Skies."

Twilight put two and two together and replied in a sing song voice, "Looks like somepony's getting _marrrried!_ "

She trotted off towards the lounge leaving Pranceston behind her. She never had a chance to witness the mild grin he allowed himself. Truly a worthy sight lost to the history books.

The bright hallways were awash with natural light. Twilight cantered through the halls to find the lounge doors wide open. At the end of her travel, she stopped at the last corner at the unmistakable sound of a foal squealing with laughter. Taking the final steps, Twilight emerged into the lounge to find quite the fascinating discovery waiting for her.

Her father was lying on the floor with a little purplish blue giggling filly in a diaper balanced on his hooves as the aging stallion bounced her up and down like a pogo stick. Azure Sky was sitting close by ready to catch the filly in her magic if Night Light slipped.

"Ready? One, two, _three!_ " Night Light yelled before he thrust all four legs up, sending the squealing filly three feet into the air, laughing maniacally all the while. She flailed her little legs and flipped around. Azure Sky caught her in her magic and spun her back around and placed the filly back on Night Light's hooves for another round.

The filly babbled in her happy high pitched voice, squirming for him to do it again.

"Hello, everypony," Twilight announced as she walked in. Night Light cradled the happily giggling filly in his magic before depositing her on his back. "Who's this little ball of fun?" Twilight cooed as she strutted inside with bounce in her step. With no care to play the part of the regal mother, Twilight indulged herself in a little childishness. "Is she your daughter, Azure Sky?"

"I can't claim that honor," Azure Skies replied with a friendly wave of her hoof.

With a 'here goes nothing' forcibly wide smile, Night Light trotted up to meet Twilight halfway. "I adopted her just two weeks ago." Twilight's eyes dilated as far as they could go, making Night Light try to hurry his next words out. "And being the family mare you are, I figured you'd want to adopt little Stellar Drift here as a new little sister."

He presented the dark furred and bright amber eyed filly up to Twilight's face. Stellar Drift's giggle died away into a state of stark awe as the little faux-unicorn was utterly mesmerized by Twilight's reptilian eyes. Stellar was completely silent as she drank in the sight of the comparatively massive queen's face.

Twilight was too busy getting so caught up in cuteness-induced diabetes to realize how peculiar the filly's behavior was. "Awww, she's adorable!" With the practice of thousands of nymphs beforehand, Twilight gracefully snatched the little filly out of the air and cradled her in a hoof. "You weren't having empty nest problems were you, daddy? All you had to do was ask and I'd have sent some nymphs over to live with you."

The dotting and cooing from Twilight, who was already producing minute bits of love for Stellar Drift caused the filly to snap back to the present and start babbling and clinging on her new older sister with an enthusiasm that surpassed the clinginess Night Light expected of her.

Night Light sighed in relief at how quickly Twilight and Stellar were talking to each other. _You old fool, worrying like that. Thinking Twilly would actually get mad at having_ more _family._ "Wellll, I know you would," Night chuckled as Azure Sky slipped in for a light hug on him. "But my grandkids grow up a bit too fast if you ask me. Although. Truth be told, I wasn't planning on adoption originally." Twilight twisted both ears his way to show she was listening even as she blew on Stellar's belly. "But poor Lady Ginger Slice suffered a horrible miscarriage recently."

Both Azure Sky and Twilight's good humor died in an instant as he continued the tale. "Her husband wanted to have a friendly get together to cheer her up as it usually would, but Ginger got into the wine a bit too early."

"I have to give her credit," Azure Sky added in while Night Light took a breath. "She's not the worst drunk I've ever seen. I don't think I'd be any better in her shoes at a time like that."

"How terrible," Twilight offered morosely. Mother of thousands that she was, the occasional failed egg happened on from time to time. "Please give her my condolences."

Night Light bowed his head with a thin smile. "She'll appreciate that I'm sure. As for the get together, Ginger took a turn for the worse when little Stellar here," he said while caressing the filly's cheek. The dark maned foal cooed softly. "Appeared on the manor's doorstep with a note effectively saying the foal's mother couldn't support her any more."

Azure Sky shook her head at the memory of it all. "Ginger snapped like a dried twig in a drought. She started carrying on accusing changelings of poisoning her unborn child and trying to push Stellar Drift as a replacement." The middle aged unicorn mare placed a light kiss on Night's cheek. "Not your brood of course, but the other queens out there. Ginger lost her faculties enough to the point where she told us all to cast the pony imposter to the street. That's when your father stepped up and claimed the filly as his own."

"Admittedly after we did the appropriate scans to make sure she was in fact a unicorn," Night commented with a wave of a hoof. "Otherwise we'd have passed her along to you sooner."

Twilight's ears flattened out of sympathy. "In that case I wonder if condolences might be taken the wrong way coming from me." The tale made Twilight look at Stellar Drift in a new light. "Are you a changeling, little one?" Twilight asked in baby talk, producing even more squealing out of the rambunctious little unicorn. Twilight placed Stellar Drift on her back, to which the filly proceeded to run up into Twilight's mane and nestled into the hair. "Well let me see if you are."

"Just be careful with her, Twilly," Night Light cautioned. "The doctor at the get-together warned us that anti-disguise magic could be very harmful to children."

That was the first Twilight had ever heard of that being an issue, and forced her to give pause to what she was about to do. "That's right… All unmasking spells are based off the one I used during the Invasion of Canterlot, and it _did_ cause those changelings to become highly disoriented. Probably in more pain than I cared to notice at the time."

Azure Sky hummed in dour agreement. "The doctor tried his hardest to remind everypony of that." She gave Stellar Drift a concerned frown. "The poor dear started crying from the pain after _Lady_ Ginger got too aggressive with her spellwork. Took ten minutes to calm her down after we stopped Ginger."

Night Light placed a hoof on Azure's shoulder with a silent frown that begged her to not speak ill of others. Not that it worked. Twilight hummed in contemplation after pointedly removing her attention from the couple's silent argument, and refocused on Stellar Drift. The purplish blue furred filly had wrapped herself in Twilight's mane and was taking a nap. Her little chest rising and falling only served to make Twilight's heart melt like chocolate on a blistering summer day. Yet more importantly to her, she could feel the filly's love radiating out like a little sun lamp. _Amazing. We've only just met and she loves me that quickly? And here I thought only nymphs did that. But then again… if Pinkie Pie and my other friends have shown me anything, it's that pony foals can come in all shapes and sizes._

The line of thought gave Twilight enough incentive to scan the filly ever so gently. The spell couldn't unmask anything, but she was looking for any subtle telltale signs of disguise magic that would give her away. A charm here, discrete suggestion, tactile force fields that felt like fur, and a myriad of other small cogs that went into a disguise. However, due to Stellar's age, Twilight checked herself by using only passive observation rather than direct scanning. A minute or so of searching revealed many leaking strands of mana. _Well that at least is normal for unicorn foals before they learn mana control. All the disguises I've seen so far make it a point to avoid leaking of any kind. Nothing feels like changeling magic, just normal pony magic._ Above it all though, it was the free flowing love gave Twilight more information, but not quite enough to silence her nagging inquisitiveness. She gave one last check to sense any psionic activity from the foal, but felt nothing beyond what was normal for foals.

 _Now I'm just being paranoid. I'm_ not _going to turn into my mother over an innocent foal. Especially one as sweet as this one._ Sighing deeply to purge herself of that dark thought, Twilight imagined she was restarting her mind like she would an engine and made sure to shift the transmission far away from suspicion. "I wouldn't worry so much, daddy."

She turned to the side and carefully laid down on her belly so they could see Stellar Drift sleeping. "As far as I can tell, Little Stellar here is a cute as a button unicorn."

Night Light had a fatherly grin cleave his face as he knelt down to nuzzle her adopted daughter. "Well there's a stamp of approval you can bank on." Stellar Drift fidgeted in her sleep at her father's touch before circling deeper into Twilight's mane. "I think Aegis has competition for your number one fan."

Giggling bubbled out among the group with Twilight wondering what sort of person her new sister would turn out to be. _An archmage, a researcher, or maybe even an engineer if I can spark that fire in her._ "You have to let me bring her down to PR some time."

"Sounds like a good plan to me," Azure Sky agreed with a giddy smile. "Oh how I've been wanting to visit that city of yours for months, but work and life always kept me too busy to go."

"Well first she needs to visit the pediatrician," Night Light cautioned before either mare could get too excited. "We don't know what her original parents could give her or if she might have some childhood disease we don't know about yet. Not to mention she needs her immunization shots. So until the appointment this coming Saturday, she's better off staying here for now."

Twilight was about to offer the services of one of her hive's doctors, but she held her tongue. _No, I should let daddy take care of things. He knows a thing or two about raising a good kid,_ she mused with no small amount of pride in her pony family. "Alright, daddy, you win. Just let me know when you want to travel down. I have _got_ to see Stellar's face when she rides an airship for the first time." She could already picture the look of abject wonder on the filly's face. _Oh I am going to spoil the ever living daylights out of you!_ Visions of books, engineering schematics, scientific journals, math equations upon miles of chalk boards, and magic study all danced inside her head. Those daydreams found Twilight teaching Stellar Drift all she knew and a filly eager to consume vast quantities of knowledge so large that the royal archives would be but a pittance. _Oh I can't wait!_

Outside in the hallway and looking into the lounge, Pear Butter was sweating bullets at the sight of Twilight Sparkle. She was nervously grinding her teeth with her ears splayed flat. _Okay, so it worked for the princess. But Ah'm an adult. She ain't goin' ta have such reservations probin' me willy nilly._

Pear Butter started backing away. _Like they always say, 'discretion is the better part of valor.'_ With that, Pear Butter turned around to make herself scarce when Murphy's Law came knocking.

"There you are, Miss Pear Butter, come here!" Night Light called out before she could slip out of sight. "You have to meet my eldest daughter."

Giving the biggest scared grin that could possibly fit on a pony's mouth, Pear Butter turned about face. "Be right there!" she sing songed.

Trying to force her faux-grin into a more normal appearance, Pear Butter at least managed to canter forward without raising some eyebrows. As she approached, Twilight stood up to her full height with Stellar Drift snug as a bug on her back. "H-hello your majesty. As - uh - as ya might've heard, Ah'm Pear Butter. Ah'll be little Stellar's foalsitter."

Twilight quickly caught on to Pear's intensely nervous aura, and gave a sidelong smile while offering a hoof. "No need to be so formal, especially since you're practically family. Call me whatever you like."

"Ah thank ya," Pear replied with venting relief that she wasn't under a magical microscope yet. "B-but Ah…"

"-don't deal with royalty very often?" Twilight offered with a knowing smirk. Pear Butter clamped her mouth shut and nodded briskly, and shook the offered hoof as delicately as she could for fear of causing insult. Twilight let go of the shake so she could giggle politely behind the same hoof. "I don't think you have anything to worry about, Miss Butter. I assume my father's already cleared you," she asked while turning towards Night Light. "When the old stallion nodded, it was all Twilight needed to see. At that, Twilight could sense Pear's emotional aura shift to express gratitude and hope that the trembling mare hid behind a curtain of uncertain fear. "Your accent though-" Twilight started, jarring Pear out of a mental stupor, "I've heard that a lot from the Apple family. You wouldn't happen to be related by chance, would you?"

"The Apples?" Pear half-asked. "Ah've heard of them, but not much else Ah'm afraid."

Twilight hummed casually to keep the tension low. _As far as I know, the Apples have family in just about every town that sports that kind of accent. I suppose it's possible she's from some other town…_ "So what brought you to Canterlot?"

Pear Butter's teeth started chittering. "Ahh, well, ya see, Ah needed a new place to live. Living out in the boonies wasn't sitten with me anymore." Pear started to gain a little more confidence in her half-truth. "So mah momma told me Canterlot was the place ta be."

That produced an interested eyebrow lift out of Twilight and she scrunched her mouth to one side. "That reminds me a lot about how my friend Applejack got her cutie mark-" The instant the name 'Applejack' left her lips, Pear Butter went stock still as if the world was stretching out into infinity.

Twilight noticed the mare went comatose almost immediately. Yet before she could press another question, Night Light stepped forward and placed a hoof on his daughter's shoulder, an act he had to rear up to accomplish. "Let's not grill the mare on the spot, Twilly, that's hardly good manners."

The use of the words 'grill'' and 'hardly good manners' set off alarm bells in Twilight's head. _He said the same thing when I used to ask Pranceston about his time before being our butler._ Seeing that inquiring further without getting to know Pear Butter further would only upset both her and Night Light, Twilight waved her hoof. "My apologies. Sometimes I get too inquisitive for my own good." _I can always ask later._

Seeing that Twilight understood his meaning, Night light watched Pear Butter visibly calm down with a few deep breaths. "Why don't the five of us go out for dinner? Get to know each other in a better setting?"

 _Staying a whole dinner right next to the one mare that could unmask me with a thought!?_ Pear Butter gulped hard and let off a shaky laugh. "Sounds great, Ah was just about to suggest gettin' the little filly some dinner any how."

Azure Sky stepped past the group at a slow canter. "Then it's settled. I could die for some curry right now."

Twilight snickered at being reminded of her sister. "You wouldn't be the only one."

Right as Twilight turned around to discuss details about selecting a restaurant, Pear Butter gingerly sidestepped so she would slip back into Twilight's peripheral vision. "Begging your pardon, your highness, but when we're there, could you tell me more about this Applejack friend a' yours? Ah feel like it's familiar, but Ah can't place it."

"I would be happy to," Twilight replied with a friendly tone. _And that might let me find out more about my sister's foalsitter._

* * *

High up in the wintery peaks of northern Equestria, a solitary gothic styled structure clung to the mountain side. Snow caked everything, save for the windows. By all appearances, the hundred meter long facility looked at peace, with only a few chimneys giving any constant clue that life stirred within.

A heavy metal door overseeing a somewhat narrow plaza groaned open. A single unicorn mare stood at the lip of the doorway. Despite the frigid climate, she wore only threadbare boots. Her hooves trembled from more than just the cold. The morning light spilling over the feral clouds casting shafts of light that illuminated the catwalk leading towards an open air train station.

Those light shafts seemed to beckon to the off-white furred mare, calling her away from this place. With a nervous first step, Velvet Sparkle left Arkmare Asylum and walked back into the world. Held tightly in her magic and against her chest was an oak scroll case. Once fully outside, a gust of wind tore through the air, threatening to snatch the case from her, yet Velvet redoubled her grip with a terrified zeal. When the wind died down again, she blinked away the frost on her face and finally took the yawning landscape below in for the first time. Winter was harsh, yet stunningly beautiful with untouched snow as far as the eye could see. A single plume of smoke revealed the existence of a train headed up the side of the mountain.

"Glad to see you take your first steps back into the light," sad an elderly yet strong voice behind her. Velvet turn back to see her savior: Doctor Arvatus. The grecian sphinx had a heavy winter coat wrapped snuggly around him. "You should really put on a coat."

Velvet gave a thread thin smile, yet her sullen face bore a deep scar of forlornness. "No thank you, doctor. I need to feel this cold unfiltered. This is but a fraction of what I did to Twill-" Velvet stopped herself with a hitch. _I don't have the right to use that pet name anymore._ Blinking back frozen tears, Velvet shivered where she stood. "Of what I did to Twilight for so long."

Even with her reasoning, it went against Arvatus' honor to stand idle. "Be that as it may," He pulled the spare jacket she had forsaken off his back and presented it to her. "But penance comes in many forms. Try to at least keep yourself from catching a cold."

Velvet's gaze lowered out of guilt. A guilt that she had locked away behind madness and mental gymnastics. "I - I'll put it on once I get on the train. Would that be acceptable?"

Giving a half smile, Arvatus nodded in wordless response. "I know it doesn't feel like it, but you've crested the hill, Velvet Sparkle. The worst is over for you."

Velvet wanted to look south towards Equestria, but the mountain was in the way, so she had to pretend the panoramic permafrost plains in front of her was the right direction. "I have to face my family, my princesses, and the public. How is that not harder?"

Since Velvet was reluctant to take the coat and coin pouch, Arvatus padded over and draped them over her snow covered back. "Because we are always our own worst enemies. I can not say the path before you will be a smooth one, if anything it will be rougher than you can imagine." He patted the jacket just to make sure it wouldn't slide off. "But I believe in you, Miss Velvet." She shared a look with him, searching for comfort in his old eyes to which he was glad to share. "You can do what you need to do, once you set your mind to it."

 _I can at least try._ The train whistle howled over the wind, signaling it was nearly at the station. Velvet breathed deeply and let off a long shuddering sigh. "Twilight, my dear," she said for the world to hear, "I may never redeem myself in your eyes, but I will try until my last breath."

Steeling herself and feeling a burst of warmth against the snow, Twilight Velvet stormed across the catwalk towards the train. She ignored the cold, fought the wind trying to blow her off the catwalk, and more or less kept the ice from making her slip.

Staying near the warm promise of the door, Arvatus watched her leave with hope bringing a tear to his craggy eyes. "Oh Great and Welcoming Queen Twilight Sparkle," his whispered almost in prayer, "This humble servant wishes you well, and I hope my efforts will bring you comfort, or at least some… closure."

end of act four


	85. Chapter 85

act five: Mother of the Hives

Prologue

If there was a city of glass and brick in Equestria, it was Manehattan. The city of two and a half million stretched across the eastern coast of Equestria, harboring ponies of all walks of life from the rich and famous to those who shied away from the public eye. Nestled between two blocks of skyscrapers was the city library, a city of books to mirror the metropolis outside.

It was here that a Grecian sphinx stepped into the reception hall. He gazed about the marble and granite chamber with accustomed eyes. His eyes fell upon the receptionist at her desk, who was occupied directing a patron. With his cat-like paws being uncomfortably silent compared to the ever-present clip clop of hooves, he glided his way behind the patron to patiently wait his turn. The receptionist gave him a worried look, feeling her distant prey instinct upon seeing such a predator. Once she finished her conversation with the patron, and sending him to the exit, the receptionist gave a thin yet courteous smile to the sphinx. "Can I help you, mister…"

The sphinx took the brown flat cap off his head, and bowed with it. With a thumb, he pulled a lock of dyed blue hair out of the way to reveal the tattoo of the open eye of a Psykira to her. The mare relaxed a bit, and gave a shallow curtsy in return before taking her seat. "My apologies for arriving at this late hour, but I must speak with an employee of yours." From a pocket in his brown leather coat, he produced two pictures, one with a pony's face, the other with a cutie mark. Alongside the pictures he also withdrew a scroll bearing the mark of Celestia and a crest of the Royal Guard. "I am on crown business."

The receptionist gasped behind a hoof at the sight of the crest. "My word. I had no idea you sphinxes were allowed in the Guard." Her face turned beet red. "Sorry, that was rude of me. Let me take a look."

With a casual snort, he pocketed the scroll and handed over the pictures. "Think nothing of it. It still feels strange to me as well. To be given such trust from the state is a novelty that has yet to fade."

The receptionist cleared her throat. "So I hear." It didn't take her long to identify the pony in the photos. "Ah yes, I know her. She usually brings me tea when she comes on shift. You'll find her in the archives, second level section B." The mare pulled out a thick rolodex and started flipping through it to mark the visit. "She's not under investigation or arrest is she?"

"I should hope not," the sphinx replied with hushed concern. "She's an old friend."

* * *

Deeper still into the archive section of the library, Twilight Velvet was alone with stacks of books and documents. Bags clung to her eyes, and her mane was collected yet frazzled with more grey in it now than purple. Documents and books alike flew into shelves or carts with practiced ease. A magic-driven quill scribbled on floating parchment, recording every filing and indexing.

Tired eyes moved from box to book and back again as the older middle aged mare trudged dutifully along. Her mechanical-like reshelving came to an abrupt halt upon seeing the imposing yet noticeably aged sphinx standing at the top of the spiral stairwell. Her eyes narrowed briefly, searching for the employee badge that should have adorned his chest or hat. Upon finding no sign of one, she stood a little taller in a stony and warning manner. "The archives are closed to visitors and patrons at this hour. I must ask you to leave."

With a wrinkled old grin, the sphinx shuffled forward and stepped fully into the light. "My word, Twilight Velvet, has it really been so long that you've forgotten me?" he asked with faux emotional pain.

Velvet gasped and nearly dropped the inked quill. "Doctor Arvatus? Is that really you?"

Arvatus bowed with his cap and gave her a warm friendly smile. "It is. I see you've aged well."

Velvet dropped her quill in the ink well and walked over to give him as strong of a hug as she could. "Oh, I wish I could say the same about you, Doctor." Velvet pulled away to get a better look at the old psychiatrist. His eyes were sunken and bloodshot, a ghastly pallor was visible under his fur, and the gums of his teeth and lips were black. "You look absolutely dreadful."

A hollow aching laugh escaped Arvatus as he hid his eyes behind his hat. "Not one to pull your punches. I always liked that blunt honesty about you."

Even as sick as he looked, Arvatus was able to walk over to the stool Velvet had been using. Velvet was quick to pull it away from the desk to make it easier for him. With a quick word of thanks, he sat without any noticeable weakness. "I see you have made yourself at home in Book City."

The attempt at humor did next to nothing to diminish her concern. Velvet fished out a teapot and starting using a spell to heat it up. "It's been kind to me. Thanks to Gleaming Light becoming the face of the PCE, I've been more or less forgotten now that the group has disbanded. I can't tell you how grateful I am for that."

Emotion threatened to spill over, but Velvet bore it with measured grace and tactfully wiped away a solitary tear. "I hope you like jasmine tea. I'm afraid all I have is sugar to mix with it."

"I would love a cup, thank you."

As Velvet turned to the tray to dole out the drinks, Arvatus brooded silently while rapping his fingers on the brim of his hat. The tea was ready in short order, giving him a welcome distraction. "Smells wonderful."

"I only wish I could have made it myself instead of using store bought," Velvet bemoaned ruefully as she took a few sips, and waited for Arvatus to do the same before continuing. "I used to have a small tea garden behind the manor." Velvet looked up at the simple chandelier. "A pot of jasmine tea used to be Twily's favorite part of the day. Little Shining never did care for tea; he was too much like his father and loved coffee." She pressed her eyes closed as an emotional warble of pain escaped her lips.

"Even after all this time, she remains in your thoughts?" Arvatus asked behind his cup. Velvet sat on the floor, brooding silently. "I understand how difficult it can be to face something such as this." Arvatus rubbed his cup as memories of his own came forth. "I can't tell you how many speeches I heard from other Psykira back on the homeland, trying to keep us going just one more day. They worked for a time, but rarely more than a few hours." He paused and glanced up from his tea. Velvet was hanging her head low with shame washing over Arvatus' senses. "You should go talk with her."

"I can't do that," Velvet said after a long moment of contemplation. "I don't have the right."

Arvatus arched an eyebrow, but held his peace for a few sips. "Last I heard, there was no restraining order between you two."

"There is no need for something so vulgar." Velvet slowly traced a hoof around the bottom of her cup, and stared blankly at the steaming liquid. "I disowned her the instant I attempted to take her life. And I am of no mind to disrupt her now. Twily has her life now, and I have mine." Feeling the need to shore up her emotional walls, Velvet paused to take a long relaxing sip. "I still like to hear about her in the news though."

Both of them allowed the conversation to fall away. Eventually, Velvet broke it when she offered to refill the sphinx's cup. "But I'm not your patient anymore, Doctor. I get the chance to ask about your life now."

A brittle chuckle escaped his cracked lips. With a nod of thanks, he sipped his refreshed drink. "Fair is fair, I believe the saying goes. I retired. I haven't practiced medicine for months now. I've taken up exploring the land that welcomed me with open hooves. Walking in the open without fear…" He paused to suppress a hiss as pain lanced through his chest. "To those who have lacked it, freedom is more valuable than gold."

Velvet gave him a worried grimace. "Be truthful with me, Arvatus. You retired because of your illness." She paused, waiting in vain for him to fess up. "I may not be too informed on sphinxes, but surely you don't age that miserably."

Arvatus' face wrinkled like he had taken a punch to the gut. "Ohh, going right for the artery, aren't you?" When Velvet's concern only deepened on her face, Arvatus slumped. He placed his half drained cup on the desk. "Very well. It is true, my illness is not natural. That freedom I spoke of…" Dark memories of other sphinxes assailing him crossed his mind. "There were some who took advantage of my new carelessness. Some enemies of the old world tracked me down and poisoned me with a blade." Velvet gasped behind both hooves. "I was given an antidote, but the damage was done." Arvatus gazed upon his hands, taking in each dry crack in his skin. "The poison only affects those of us who practice psychic power. I'll be bedridden in a month or so, faster the more I use my power, but I plan to die with grace before that."

Velvet approached him, and draped a caring foreleg on his arm. "Can nothing be done at all? I still have some money stashed from my PCE days."

Arvatus smiled gratefully. It was a look that reminded Velvet of that wise being that had brought her back from madness; a kind and protective expression that had stuck with her for all these years.

"Save your money. Your daughter already spared no expense. She never directly suggested rebirth was the only salvation, but I knew she was desperate to help me. In the end, she gave me open credit so I could continue my tour of the Alliance."

"I had no idea you and she were so close." Velvet averted her gaze. "I wish I had her ability to pick better friends."

"I have a confession to make, Ms. Velvet. I told her of the aid I gave you in the asylum."

Velvet pulled back, an upward twinge on her lips. "I suspected you had. Otherwise I imagine Twily would have been watching me like a hawk for all these years… assuming she'd even let me walk free instead of into a prison."

"…Ms. Velvet, I must be as honest with you, as you have with me. Ever since you walked out of Arkmane Asylum, I considered your healing as my greatest accomplishment, if not the very reason I was born."

She gave him a sad look. "Come now, doctor, I'll - I'll admit I was a trying patient, but surely you have had better accomplishments besides me. The exodus from your homeland must have been worse."

"Perhaps," Arvatus conceded with a brief snort of amusement. He allowed Velvet's nerves to calm a bit as he took a long drag of his tea. Upon finishing, he gently swirled the remaining liquid for a few moments longer. "My father used to say to me: great deeds are not always the most difficult, but those with the largest influence on history." Arvatus tried to give her a compassionate look without seeming too ill. "Both you and Twilight Sparkle still bear the wounds of your… separation. It would bring me such peace to see you reconcile with her."

Velvet squeezed her eyes shut, but couldn't stop several tears from betraying her. "I came here because I'm a coward. I couldn't go through with meeting her again. From what I hear, Twilight's been doing just fine with forgetting me. Why shouldn't I just let her live without ever having to think of me and my actions again."

"I know it would be so terribly hard for both of you, Ms. Velvet, but can you truly say it is possible to forget one's parents? Your daughter still thinks of you in her private moments. She confessed as much to me on the rare occasion when conversation deemed it permissible. In passing, a slip of the tongue, but very real.

"Time heals all wounds, Ms. Velvet; it is up to you to change just how _much_ time is needed. If there is one thing your lands and people have above my homeland, it is your ability to forgive. Is not Princess Luna a prime example of that?" Arvatus said nothing further, interpreting Velvet's silence as taking time to think.

In a flash of movement, Velvet downed a full cup of hot tea in one go, gritting her teeth from the painful heat. "I am not a sister to the one pony able to pardon all crimes."

"Pardoning and forgiving are two very different things, Velvet." Arvatus met her red-rimmed eyes. "Your daughter's satisfaction would be enough to stay even Rainbow Dash's ire."

The conversation dropped into silence. The grey and purple mare's breathing was labored with barely reined in emotion. Time dragged on long enough for steam to stop rising from the teapot, and still Velvet was lost in thought. Eventually though, Velvet opened her eyes to give him a determined glare. "I can't do this for myself, but if it helps Twily, then I will suffer whatever slings and arrows she or her brood throw at me."

A slow exhale of relief flooded the old tom. "I thank you, Velvet. Either success or failure would put me at ease for the long sleep. Now, I feel I must make a second confession." Velvet eyed him curiously as Arvatus reached into his suit and pulled out a scroll bearing the golden crest of Celestia. "I cannot understate how important I feel your attempt at reconciliation is for both you and your daughter. So in the event you declined, I requested Celestia to make it an official summons to the Solar Court."

Velvet jumped to her hooves, knocking her tea cup away and spilling it all over the marble floor. "What?! W-why did—" Her initial question died as she could already guess. "You want this to happen that badly?"

Arvatus' back creaked disconcertedly as he climbed to his paws. "I do. Ms. Velvet, it is my belief that we mortals have such short lives because the emotional stress of a longer one can be too much for many to bear." Velvet's ire dipped a little into a smoldering scowl. "Even the best of us can go on for only so long. For beings like the queens and princesses, they don't get the luxury of a fresh start. They must bear their scars for an age or longer."

He approached Velvet and placed a reassuring paw on her shoulder. "You love your daughter again, do you not?"

More tears threatened to break free. Velvet hung her head, her mane spilling over her face. "I should never have stopped."

"Then if not for yourself, do this for her. One less scar for her to bear." Arvatus presented the scroll to her once again, beckoning her to take it.

Memories flashed in Velvet's mind of times with Twilight Sparkle; memories of Twilight's childhood and tutelage under Celestia, but more hauntingly, her own slow fall from concerned mother to a mockery of her old self. "I'll leave on the first train tomorrow."


	86. Chapter 86

By Royal Commandment

Early the next day, two individuals were passing a guard checkpoint between the Commons and Palace District of Canterlot. The courtyard was as busy as ever with teams of ponies going to and fro. There was a scattering of other species in the mix, the largest minority being free-trader changelings, but even they were dwarfed by the ponies' numbers. The bright morning sun was framed by a few clouds giving the hot summer day some much needed shade. At the heart of the plaza was a tall and proud gold statue of three ponies in old style armor whose names escaped all but the royal sisters.

Lyra Heartstrings and her lifelong friend, Bon Bon, smiled and gave thanks to the soldiers as they left the checkpoint. Both mares returned their citizen badges, one of Equestria and one of Tradewinds, the new changeling hive shared by Queens Aegis and Blitzkrieg, to their saddlebag and satchels respectively. Lyra twirled the court-summons scroll in her fingers before socketing it in a scroll clasp.

While the cream colored earth mare had changed little over the years, save for gaining a bit of weight thanks to her confectionery business, the same could not be said of her tall friend. Ever since Lyra awoke from her rebirth, she stepped out on two legs and never looked back. The seafoam-green changeling's eyes held a blue glow, barely perceivable in the morning sun. She wore an assortment of fanny packs. As with all her new kin, she had small holes in her limbs, and her horn had become smooth with a slight backward curve that ended in a sharp point.

Their original conversation picked back up once they were clear of the checkpoint with Bon Bon taking the lead. "Can't believe it's been so long since I've been to the palace."

Lyra craned her neck to see the tops of the marble spires. "Doesn't look any different. Some things never change now do they?"

Bon Bon eyed a passing patrol and their firearms with a scowl. "Too bad some things do."

The change in Bon Bon's voice and emotional aura brought Lyra's attention first to her friend, and then to the patrol's weapons. The pale green changeling unconsciously tapped her holstered pistol. "Are you ever going to get over firearms? With so many things going on right now, the queens want all of us to wear one."

"It's not that," Bon Bon chided right back. "There was a majesty about swords and spears. I mean look," she waved a hoof at a golden statue of Celestia commemorating some old battle where the alicorn held a sword aloft. "Back when sparring was an art, not just a race to win."

Lyra shrugged and picked up the pace a bit. Bon Bon easily kept up with her as they passed into the great hall. Ponies both common and noble were crammed together. With the day court in full session, there was almost nowhere left to stand or fly. While the gold plated soldiers stood vigilant over the various passages that led deeper into the castle, none bothered to give the crowd any sort of organization. Unicorn and earth ponies alike were so jam-packed that no amount of perfume could hide the waft of sweat and body odor made worse by the summer heat.

Lyra didn't mind the smell, as changeling odor was worse in some ways, but her nose twinged all the same at the disorganized throng. Her gossamer wings buzzed irritably. "Come on, let's find a guard since I got an official summons."

"Sounds like a good idea." Bon Bon waved a hoof in front of her nose. "The sooner the better."

It didn't take much effort to spot one, but squeezing their way through to reach one was another chore entirely. Bon Bon had the wisdom to direct them to one of the guards along the side exits where the crowd was thinnest. It was thankfully a short walk, and Lyra offered the guard her scroll upon reaching him.

"Heyya guy, can I break in line since I got an official summons?"

The uniform white unicorn eyed Lyra and Bon Bon carefully while unrolling the scroll. "…Everything seems to check out." He returned the scroll and turned to his partner on the other side of the exit. "These two have a priority audience with the Princess. Cover for me. You going to be fine solo?"

Lyra sensed an irate emotional aura coming from the partner, but his outer appearance remained as stony as ever. "I think I can handle it. Just make it brief."

* * *

Within short order, Lyra and Bon Bon were ushered through one of side passages and into the main throne room, the door of which was cleverly disguised as one of the stained glass windows. Princess Celestia sat on her throne, listening to a petition from a collection of five earth ponies. Lyra and Bon Bon's intrusion drew a brief glance from Celestia—one just long enough for her to recognize the changeling and her friend. Celestia gave a curt nod to the guard who bowed and departed, leaving the pair to stand near a pillar. Lyra chose to pass the time by leaning against it while they waited.

By the time the Princess returned her attention to the supplicants, they had brought up a large whiteboard with a drawing of the southeastern seaboard and a collection of boats around an island far off shore. From her time in helping construct Aegis and Blitz's hive, Lyra might have paid attention, but there was a strange tint to the emotions in the room. The brightest came from Celestia herself. The alicorn possessed the same warm composure as was common for her. Lyra sifted around the earth ponies' aura, only finding the expected nervousness of rejection and hope of success.

 _Not them… Somepony in here is super antsy, but where?_ She looked to the guards and found bits of pride and boredom. _Not them._ The scent of restlessness mocked her, but all she could glean was that it came from a single source. _Gah, there're too many ponies in here for me to get a good lock. Maybe when this group leaves I can find it._

It was then that Bon Bon nudged her and whispered. _"Hey, wake up. I think we're going to be called soon."_ Lyra closed her empathy to focus on Celestia.

"I must admit I have been worried for a long time as to what happened to the hippogriffs. You may have your expedition. See the royal financier about funding in three days' time."

The petitioners sang Celestia's praises and quickly packed up to leave before she might change her mind. The Princess kept a cheery face and waved them farewell. It was only after the earth ponies moved away from the throne that Lyra spied an oddly familiar mare on the opposite side of the room, the source of all the anxiety, fear and depression. The grey and faded purple mane teased Lyra with the mare's identity, and all it took her was a brief query to the hive mind to know who it was.

 _Velvet._ Lyra scowled harshly with clenched teeth. Her wings buzzed angrily, and she pushed off the pillar a bit. _"What is she doing here?"_ she hissed under her breath.

Bon Bon may not have had access to the hive mind, but she remembered the news of Velvet's trial and crimes. It was not something she could easily forget. "Wasn't she in an asylum or something?"

"Got released a few years back," Lyra growled as she clenched her fists. "She should have stayed there."

"Lyra Heartstrings," Celestia called out warmly from her throne. "Thank you for answering my summons."

Lyra did her best to throw her anger aside to give the Princess the respectful smile she deserved and bounced over to stand before her and bow. "Pleasure's all mine, your majesty. Not that I'd ever say no."

"Oh?" Celestia asked impishly as she idly watched Bon Bon join her friend and bow much lower than Lyra had. "You may be half tempted after hearing what I am about to ask of you." She flicked her eyes in Velvet's direction. "You may step forward Ms. Twilight Velvet."

Lyra inwardly bristled at the full name. _She doesn't have the right to bear Queen Twilight's name, even in half._

The sullen yet resolute mare obeyed and quickly made her way to stand on the opposite side of the red carpet from Lyra. Velvet tried to ignore the spiteful glare Lyra was giving her and focus instead on Celestia. "I am at your service, Princess." Lyra snorted disdainfully, but otherwise kept her mouth shut.

"It has been six years since Psykira Arvatus attested to your return to sanity and willingness to repent." Celestia granted her a thin smile. "Something few beings are capable of after falling so far, less so without purification from ancient magic. And yet thus far you are not acting the part." Celestia shifted to a gentle frown as Velvet started to shiver a bit. "Unless I am mistaken, you have spent all these years locked away in a library. I expected you would naturally need time to compose yourself and catch up on recent events, but sadly it took a visit from Arvatus to finally stir you into action. Do you have any reason for this that I am unaware of?"

Lyra fully expected Velvet to go on a defensive rant. _Here come the excuses._

Yet all Velvet did was hang her head and mutter just loudly enough to be heard, "None. I'm sorry, Princess."

Silence ruled for several moments. Celestia had the barest thoughtful frown as she studied the bowing mare before her. "Ms. Velvet, you remind me much of your daughter's protégé, a pony if you can believe it. A mare by the name of Starlight Glimmer." That got a surprised look out of Lyra and Bon Bon, and a confused one out of Twilight Velvet. "Like Starlight, you both have committed serious crimes that would normally require stone imprisonment or worse. Admittedly, your actions were far less... how shall I put this … apocalyptic."

Velvet gulped at the description. "I can't say I've ever heard of any Starlight Glimmer, let alone anypony else with world ending plots."

"I'm sure either she or Twilight Sparkle can elaborate on the matter further should they desire. But the matter that concerns you here and now is that unlike Starlight, you have yet to make any attempts at reconciliation. That must begin _today_."

"Yes, your highness." Velvet tried to keep her tone determined and humble, yet she could not hide her shakiness.

"Excellent. Now, as for you, Miss Lyra Heartstrings," Celestia's posture and outward expression brightened considerably. "I want you to escort Twilight Velvet and make sure Velvet does not come to harm." Celestia didn't need to be an empath to see the sheer indignation in the changeling's tense shoulders and barely hidden scowl, but she chose to ignore it. "I trust the queens will keep your kin from doing anything rash, but there might be other parties out there who would."

Lyra anxiously scratched the back of her neck. "Not that I'd question your wisdom, your highness, but why me? I'm a musician, not a soldier."

"Granted. However I have two reasons for your selection. First, as for the matter of security, it is my understanding that Queen Aegis has made it a point to have all drones of Tradewinds trained to use firearms." Celestia's eyes drifted to the pistol still strapped to Lyra's thigh. "I have made it an imperative that the public views these weapons as little more than deterrents than anything else. After all, a horn is capable of much worse if used for dark ends. That alone should be enough protection.

"As for the second, and more personal reason," Celestia gave Lyra a thoughtful look, her critical gaze taking in the hybrid's features. "To the best of my knowledge, you're the only pony to date who willingly became a changeling without any… extenuating circumstances. That is why I want you to be the one to escort Twilight Velvet."

"I don't mean to presume, Princess," Lyra countered as politely as she could while sounding irritated. "But why not just leave Velvet in whatever hole she was hiding in if she wasn't screwing around? Why would the Queen want to reopen old wounds?" Lyra ignored the hitched gasp from across the carpet.

Celestia, on the other hoof, took on an admonishing tone. "Because I would assume a changeling would understand a mother's importance." Celestia put a touch of magic in her voice to make it reverberate in Lyra's ears. "Am I correct in that assessment?"

Lyra bowed in submission along with a frown and drooping ears. "Yes, your highness. Unless my Queen commands otherwise, I'll do as you ask."

"You would not be here if Blitz was unaware of this matter." Celestia eased up on the gentle intimidation for a warmer demeanor. "Now," Celestia waved Velvet over so both she and the changeling stood a little closer together. "This is not a problem that can be aided with deadlines and schedules. Nevertheless, I want to see actual progress. I will leave the details to you."

At last, Celestia turned towards the cream colored earth mare. "Miss Bon Bon, from what I hear, Lyra and you are practically joined at the hip."

Bon Bon tittered a bit before releasing a sigh. She gave Lyra a sidelong grin. "Not so much these days. Lyra's music career takes her away from Ponyville and my shop all too often."

"Life always finds a way to change on us," Celestia replied with no less remembrance of things past. "Given how important I feel this task is, the crown will compensate you for any lost business you incur should you wish to aid your friend."

Bon Bon blushed and tried to dig into the floor with a hoof. "I appreciate the offer, your highness, but I have a family back home that I can't leave for that long." She gave Velvet a courteous, if studious look. "I get the feeling this might take a while."

"If that is your wish, far be it from me to stop you," Celestia clapped her hooves together in a gesture to end things. "I expect to hear good things in the future." She directed a more focused stare at Velvet, making sure to hold the other mare's eyes. "I've kept my eye on you, Twilight Velvet. I have no doubt you are remorseful." The mare in question wilted only slightly. "Things _can_ get better for you, but you must convince yourself of that before it can happen."

* * *

Once the audience with Celestia was over, Bon Bon directed the three of them to the hotel she had reserved before learning about the summons. The walk there was more or less uneventful as far as Velvet was concerned. With all of her time being away from the public eye, few ponies gave her more than cursory glances, and none spoke to her outside of polite greetings. She was just a vaguely familiar face with no name.

The hotel room itself at first glance was barely classy enough to be on Music Row. As with most of Canterlot, the room was mostly white marble with luxurious furniture. Upon closer inspection, however, the furniture was a little worse for wear. There were small holes along the side, and the coverings were close to being threadbare. The marble had large cracks revealing the stone was only half an inch deep, with wood making the bulk of the floor. At the end of the day, however, it was ritzier than Velvet had expected, or even experienced in far too long.

Yet she was hesitant to do more than stand by the door and watch as the bipedal changeling petted and kissed her lyre. "I'm sorry I had to leave you here all alone, but momma's back."

For a moment, Velvet felt she was back in the asylum. Not wanting to dwell on that unpleasant sensation, Velvet looked to Bon Bon, who was scrounging around the mini fridge to grab some lunch.

That left Velvet feeling more or less out of place since no one had told her what she was allowed to do. So she resolved to discreetly sit in the nearby armchair and watch Lyra tune her instrument.

Her silent vigil was eventually broken by two things. First, the delightful smell of salad dressing, and the second was the occasional plucking of strings. The plucking alone would have only warranted mild attention, since no actual song was being played. However, it was the sound of the notes themselves that was bizarre yet exotically enticing. She watched Lyra play, only to realize the changeling was not using magic or hooves to play, but those curious fingers. It was akin to hearing a whole new instrument for the first time. Velvet was so enraptured by just the tuning plucks that she almost didn't notice Bon Bon had brought three salads over.

"Where are my manners? Let me help you." With a bit of her magic, Velvet relieved Bon Bon's back of the salads and placed the bowls on the table.

Feeling like her lyre was in good shape, Lyra carefully placed it back in its case before joining the rest of them at the small round table. She glared at Velvet while telekinetically applying her salad dressing. The lime green mare exuded enough malice to make Velvet do everything in her power to keep from looking at her. Sitting outside of the silent battle, Bon Bon noisily clattered her fork. "So, Velvet, I know you're feeling emotionally raw with all this, so I won't pry on the hows and whys. But I'd like to get to know you a little better before we try to set any plans."

"I can tell you all about her," Lyra grumbled as she stuffed her fork. "The Link has allll kinds of dirt on who you are."

Velvet's fork dropped and clattered on her plate. Her thoughts were racing enough already without Lyra's anger stoking the flames. The most prominent thing that kept running through her mind was what she felt the last time she saw Twilight Sparkle at the trial. Hate. Raw, unbridled hatred for the monster that had claimed her daughter's mind, body and soul. Framing it all was Arvatus' efforts in breaking her out of that madness. "...I'm sure it does," she said at length, barely above a whisper. She pushed her chair back and spoke with forced calm. "I need to freshen up, please excuse me."

Bon Bon watched the shaken mare retreat to the bathroom before turning around and smacking Lyra in the back of the head. _"What is_ wrong _with you?"_ Bon Bon whisper-shouted. _"You're supposed to be helping her, not doing your best sour donkey impersonation!"_

Lyra rubbed the sore spot that was sure to become a welt. "Hey, the Queen and Princess just said I had a job to do; it doesn't mean I have to like it, or her for that matter."

"And what kind of job do you think this is exactly?" Bon Bon rebuked. "Velvet needs support if this is going to happen the way the Princess wants, and you're making it harder than it has to be."

Lyra grumbled and fiddled with her fork. "You don't know what it was like to feel what that—" Lyra caught herself from saying the barb that was on her tongue. "That pony did to Queen Twilight."

Bon Bon leaned back in her cushion and leveled a disbelieving eye. "And you do? Last I checked, you were still a pony when all that business happened." A heavy silence hung over the table, broken only by muffled noises coming from the bathroom, noises Bon Bon could only assume was sobbing, but couldn't be sure.

"...I saw the memory of Velvet's betrayal." Lyra shoveled some food in her mouth while Bon Bon's ears went flat.

"You did?"

"Yeah, and it's not like reading a book or hearing about it in the news. I saw it all from Twilight's eyes. I saw every little verbal knife twist that that—" Lyra bit her tongue again, "—that pony said and did. _Everything._ So you'll forgive me if I can't be all spring daisies and cinnamon."

"Did Blitz see that memory too?" Bon Bon asked after thinking for a few seconds. "Like you did?"

"Yes," Lyra huffed before shoving more salad in her maw. "It's the only way I could have since I'm not directly connected to Twilight."

"So if Blitz is willing to give this venture a try, shouldn't you too?"

"Bah! That's why she's queen material and I'm not."

"Do I need to find another drone and tell them to get Blitz on your keister about being a sour tart? Because at this point I doubt you'd relay it for me."

At that, Lyra pushed her plate away and rubbed her face with a groan. "You know what, answer me this, and I'll try to keep my mouth shut." Lyra jabbed a finger at Bon Bon. "Forget what the royals want for a second. Do you think she's worth the effort after everything she did?"

The pregnant pause dropped the room into a long silence. In the stillness, Bon Bon couldn't hear a sound from the bathroom. "If she were my mother… I guess I'd wait and see if she proved sincere. You have to give her that chance."

Lyra mulled over the argument, scratching the base of her neck. Her scratching got faster and harder into a fevered pitched. For a moment, Bon Bon was worried she'd have to stop her before she cut herself. Before she did though, Lyra stopped and crossed her arms in a pout. "Fine. I'll be good, but only so long as she doesn't tick me off. That, and I still have a concert to practice for."

"Thank you, Lyra. When Velvet comes back, I'll take her around town and give you some space."

As if on cue, Velvet chose that time to emerge from the bathroom. The old mare looked no worse for wear, but couldn't hide her reddened eyes. "My apologies for running out like that. I just needed to clear my head."

Bon Bon gave Lyra a warning glare before becoming more friendly. "Perfectly understandable under the circumstances. Lyra has to practice, so would you like to go for a walk?"

Velvet glanced at Lyra who was making it a point to avoid looking at her. "Yes, I could really use some air."

* * *

Leaving Lyra to cast a soundproofing spell behind them, Bon Bon led Velvet Sparkle out to the lobby. The ground floor was a decent affair, and lunch was still being served at a buffet. But the hour was a bit late for lunch so only a few patrons were left. Most of them were visiting ponies or other species who could afford it. Bon Bon made to leave out the front lobby only for Velvet to turn away and start walking along the pathway that ringed the ground floor. Bon Bon picked up the pace a bit to catch up with her.

A few questions lingered on her lips, but Bon Bon decided to keep her peace. This allowed Velvet to be the first to speak as they rounded the corner leading to the indoor pool. "That friend of yours… is she originally from Canterlot?"

"Yes and no," Bon Bon answered with a sheepish grin. "But I don't think I'm allowed to say more than that."

Velvet nodded in acceptance. "I remember a filly by that name and color from Twilight's tenure in magic kindergarten. I don't wish to pry if you can't answer, but why did she become a changeling?"

"If you knew her, it wouldn't be much of a mystery." Bon Bon rolled her eyes, but couldn't help but snicker at a memory. "Lyra's always had this fanatical fascination with hands. So much so that she modeled her method of telekinesis after the things. So when Queens Aegis and Blitz showed up with hands, Lyra went bonkers trying to join them."

A faint ghostly smile crossed Velvet's features. Bon Bon waited for some sort of reply, but outside of a nod, none was forthcoming. The two mares did a lap around the lobby before Bon Bon broke the silence. "Did you not want to go out and about?"

"I don't think I should." Velvet gave a forlorn sigh. "You heard the Princess. Lyra is my protection, and the last thing I want is somepony attacking me and getting her in trouble. I've made enough enemies already without adding to the list."

"You don't think anypony would actually do that right here in Canterlot do you?"

"Do you know all of my crimes, Miss Bon Bon?" There was an air of resignation and mild acceptance in her tone. Velvet stopped walking to give the younger mare a sad look; the calm way a person spoke on their deathbed.

"I read the papers."

"Then you should know that I foalnapped both my daughter and Rainbow Dash from within the castle itself." Bon Bon went wide eyed at her, and almost stopped walking out of shock. "I doubt the princesses would have included that little nugget of a security breach."

"...No, they didn't." Bon Bon tried to sound supportive, but she couldn't stop the slight accusation in her voice.

Satisfied her point had been made, Velvet returned to her stroll. She spoke up only when Bon Bon recovered and ran up to join her again. "I will not lie and say Lyra's words do not hurt, but they are wholly justified." Velvet gave Bon Bon a fatigued look, only to be met with a sympathetic one. "Please don't forget that."

"I will on two conditions," Bon Bon replied with steel, catching Velvet a little off balance. "First, you cut out the pity party when Twilight forgives you."

"I—" Velvet started before her gaze fell to the floor. "I don't know if I can keep that promise."

Using a bit of harsh friendship she used with Lyra, Bon Bon jabbed a hoof at Velvet's chest, jarring the mare out of her funk for a few moments. "Well, tough, because you need to. My second condition is that you need to come to Lyra's concert tomorrow night."

Velvet gave a blank blink. "I suspected I would have to regardless seeing how I am shackled to her."

"Not exactly how I would describe the arrangement, but I'll take it," Bon Bon said with a modicum of good cheer. "Trust me. Once you hear Lyra play, you'll feel worlds better, I guarantee it."

* * *

Halfway across Upper Canterlot, Azure Skies was leaving the Canterlot Observatory and made to put her employee badge in her saddlebag when she spotted Night Light waiting for her on the steps. The blue stallion had aged well, with a single streak of grey in his mane and a greying muzzle. Night Light bounced up from his sitting position to make a flourishing bow. "There's my lovely lady, how are you this fine day?"

"Oh, bless your heart. Have you been waiting since noon? I told Blue Bar not to be late in covering for me." She made her way down the steps, allowing Night Light to theatrically lift her hoof and kiss it.

"Think nothing of it, my dear, because I have some good news."

"Oh? You finally got that promotion to director?" she asked with excitement bubbling over her hunger pangs.

"That's still in the works," he dismissed with a hoof wave. "But I have something a little better." From within his mane he pulled out a collection of black tickets with gold letters. "Twily sent us six tickets to see Lyra Heartstrings' performance at the Royal Orchestra Hall."

Azure's face twisted into confusion. "Isn't she the girl who became a changeling willingly? I didn't know she was a musician." Using her magic, she plucked a ticket away from the pack to inspect the writing.

Night Light folded the remaining tickets and returned them to his mane. He waved her forward to the street so they could walk to their favorite bistro. "I asked Twily that very same thing. Apparently she was very small time before her rebirth, and has been practicing in secret since then. Twily said she took extra lessons from her homeland and that her music is quite exotic. Which is a little odd since I thought Equestria was her homeland but I think she was using that spy talk Twily uses on me. She can be quite the goofy filly."

"In that case this sounds like it will be all over the gossip rags and there's no way I'm missing that." Azure did a mental count. "Six tickets, the two of us, the girls, plus one… I thought we agreed to never take those three together out in public after the Cheese Incident."

"That's why I'm thinking on making Pear Butter our plus one. She's the only one who can wrangle the fillies, and I think she's more than earned a concert, don't you think?"

Azure Skies laughed lightheartedly at memories of the children's antics. "Ah yes, and then some."

"Oh come now," he joked, "the little ones could always be so much worse behaved than they are."


	87. Chapter 87

The Foalsitter

 _Five years before present day._  
 _One year after the Reformation._

Barely after dark on a cold snowy night, Night Light was lounging on a bench located in the manor garden. Azure Skies had taken to gardening winter flowers, but the mare was a novice at it, and her plants were not doing well, the fact that work and family demanded so much of her time wasn't helping either. Nevertheless, Night Light found enjoyment out of the pitiful amounts of color they brought. With Azure Skies busy at the observatory, it left the manor feeling a bit empty.

The light of the oil lamps danced across the steam from a cup of hot cocoa held aloft in the stallion's magic. Between sips, he watched Stellar Drift playing with Pear Butter as the two were building a snowpony. Mostly Pear Butter, since the young filly couldn't quite master collecting snow in her magic, but Stellar squealed with delight all the same. While the foalsitter was able to get away with a scarf and a snow hat, the poor filly was so bundled up in warm clothing she could scarcely move.

Night Light snickered at the sight of Stellar flopping over on her side and feebly wiggling her stumpy legs trying to right herself until Pear Butter came to the rescue. Upon draining the last of his cup, Night Light made to get up and join the fun, but the sound of buzzing wings made him turn back to the manor with a sly smile.

Twilight Sparkle was flying over with a second filly just as overdressed as Stellar Drift, this time in a purple outfit compared to Stellar's navy blue. "Okay, daddy, Amber's ready to play!" she announced with a giggle. The blue filly's face and horn were barely visible under the layers of clothes, and she let out peals of laughter when snowflakes occasionally tickled her nose.

"I don't see how she can, being crammed into that yak suit." All the same, Night Light was more than happy to accept the little bug into his magic for a quick kiss before dropping her onto the powdery white. With a bit of magical assistance from her aunt and great uncle, Amber managed to chase down Stellar and the monster snowpony.

Night Light enjoyed watching the fillies, and looked to Twilight to offer a drink. But the dour look in his daughter's eyes blunted his mirth. It didn't take him long to notice her gaze was centered on Pear Butter. Letting out a patient sigh, Night Light warmed the pot of cocoa with a heating spell, poured two mugs, and offered one to Twilight. "Care to join me, Sweetie?"

Twilight dropped her frown and adopted a grateful smile. "I would love some, actually." She accepted the drink and joined her father on the cold bench after sweeping some snow away for a spot to sit. "I can't tell you how long I've missed your hot chocolate. My chefs can never quite get it right."

With a twinkle in his eye, Night Light winked at her. "Family secret. Promised your granddaddy I'd only share it on my deathbed, and I don't plan on going down any time soon."

"Oh bah, you only say that to give me more excuses to come visit."

Father and daughter shared a brief laugh before they lapsed into silence to watch the fillies. Unlike pony foals, Amber had developed quickly to be able to walk, fly, and eat solid food, but physical development noticeably slowed down below pony norms after that. As such, she had no problem keeping up with Stellar, hobbled as they both were under so much clothing.

Eventually though, Night Light took on a mildly disappointed tone of voice. "My dear, has the foalsitter insulted you in some way?"

Were it anyone else outside of the hive, Twilight would have dismissed the comment and changed topics, but there was no such filter between Twilight and her father. "Not directly, as far as I know. But I am more concerned with little Stellar."

Night Light tried to remain calm and not let Twilight's comments sour his mood. "Twily, I know you have your doubts about Pear Butter, but I have seen nothing that would suggest she is a danger to anypony in this household. She dotes on Stellar as if she were her own child." He paused a moment to better study Twilight's pseudo-relaxed body language. "I trust you have not confronted Pear on this, you know how I feel about second chances."

Twilight inwardly grimaced as Night Light moved to go straight into a fatherly lecture. "Daddy, please," Twilight interrupted as gently as possible, causing the stallion to give her a mild stink eye, "PB is not my only concern with my little sister. To put it plainly, I have a strong feeling little Stellar is a changeling. A royal caste if I'm not mistaken."

Whatever rant material Night Light had went up in smoke, leaving him with an open mouth and no words to say. He closed it and shifted his gaze between Twilight and the filly in question. "I suppose you would be an authority on the subject, but what makes you think that's the case?"

Twilight took a sip of her cocoa to buy time to formulate her case and to watch both Stellar Drift and Pear Butter closely. "Have you ever noticed how Stellar tries to preemptively avoid ponies that don't like children, but will rush to any that love kids, even if she's never met them before?"

It didn't take Night Light long to recall several such incidences. "Running towards strangers? I can admit to seeing that. The girl scares the dickens out of me every time she scampers out of sight when I bring her into town or to a social event. I'm often tempted to put a leashed on that girl." Father and daughter shared a short-lived chuckle. "I only ever really find her in the hooves of somepony gushing about how cute she is. As for avoiding ponies that don't like kids, I'd wager that's - wait…" Night Light gave his eldest daughter a curious look. "Now that I mention it, I was introducing her to high society just last week with Cornell Slatterhorn. It was more out of courtesy I introduced her to him since he's notorious for being borderline cruel to foals who go near him. Poor girl started crying when I brought her over to the colonel, so that at least gave me an excuse to make the introduction brief."

Trusting her father to have properly protected her sister from such a person, Twilight opted to let that particular irritant well enough alone. "I suspected as much. My biggest theory is that Stellar Drift is empathically active." Night Light looked at her with wide eyes. "So unless she's the new Cadance, there's only one species I know of that's both pony shaped and has empathic abilities."

The hairs on the back of Night Light's neck stood up. "If you're right, will you be taking her back with you?"

Twilight burst out laughing, almost forgetting to giggle behind a hoof. Then she roped her father into a tight hug to dispel the disturbed look on his face. "Oh daddy, of course not." She ended the hug to look her baffled father in the eyes. "I'd be more than happy to teach you all you need to know about how nymph rearing is different from a normal pony." Twilight's eyes lit up with stars, and a stupid grin cleaved her muzzle. "In fact I prepared a whole list on the flight here. It's actually not too diff—."

"L-let's not get carried away." Night Light stood up and smoothed his mane. "I appreciate the vote of confidence, Twily, but why don't we see if your suspicions are even correct before doing anything else?"

"A sound idea," Twilight replied with a sly smirk towards Pear Butter. The royal bug called out to the foalsitter. "PB, could you be so kind as to gather the little ones in the parlor for some hot chocolate?"

* * *

The parlor was a warm and cozy affair with a lit fireplace and appealing décor. The fillies were able to shed their dense clothing and prance about the furniture and grand piano. It wasn't long before the fillies were drawn to the coffee table after sniffing warm chocolate in the air. Twilight was already there with a bag of marshmallows. After cramming as many marshmallows into their mouths as they could, the girls were soon following Twilight's lead in adding the little edible puffy white pillows to the hot cocoa and blowing on them to cool the drinks off.

Pranceston stood sentinel by the entryway towards the main hall looking as stony as ever. While he rarely outwardly showed it, Twilight could sense a note of protective pride towards the children.

Night Light was sitting on the couch hanging the damp winter clothes by the fire and breaking open his own bag of marshmallows, eager to dine on gooey goodness. Twilight waited for Pear Butter to return with a fresh pot of cocoa, only to find Azure Skies enter at the same time.

"Sorry it took so long to get off work. You would not believe how strange Betelgeuse has been acting. I'd swear princess Luna was toying with us if she didn't deny it so hard."

"Welcome back, madam," Pranceston said with a slight bow.

Night Light deftly slipped around Pear Butter to reach Azure and nuzzled her briefly, an act that she reciprocated in kind with a peaceful smile. "I wouldn't worry; you know the royal sisters are notorious pranksters."

Pulling away from the stallion, Azure heaved a tired sigh. "Don't I know it." Azure didn't get far before a lump of giggling fur slammed into her legs. She followed the sound of childish laughter to find Stellar Drift clinging to her and calling up to her in broken Equish. "Why, hello there, sweetie pie. Were you a good girl today?" Stellar gave several clumsy nods. It only took Azure a moment to spot the line of chocolate covered fur on Stellar's upper lip. The sight of the wiggly foal always brought a smile to the mare's face. She took Stellar into her magic and set her down on her back before looking at the other two mares in the room. She nodded approvingly at Pear Butter then looked to the purple queen. "Twilight, I'm sorry, I completely forgot you were coming. How are you?"

Twilight got up and happily hugged the tired unicorn. "Well enough. I was actually waiting for you before checking to see if my little sister is a changeling."

Azure drew her head back in confusion, but the sound of a pot rattling horribly drew everyone's eyes to Pear Butter who was using a hoof to steady the rebellious pot. "S-sorry 'bout that. What was it Ah heard about lil' Stellar being a 'Ling?"

"That _is_ a bit out of left field," Azure added in agreement. Azure turned back to look at Stellar Drift, only for the filly to giggle and squirm at the attention.

"We don't know for sure…" Night Light started.

"...But I'm about to find out," Twilight finished. She moved to the Azure's side and made to grab Stellar. "If I may?"

"S-sure," Azure sputtered, still in a bit of a shock at the declaration. After Twilight picked the child up, Azure found Night Light sitting in a nearby loveseat and parked herself next to him.

As for Twilight, she gave Stellar a sisterly nuzzle and sat her back down at the table and offered a warm cup of cocoa to distract the filly. So as to not distract the filly from her drink, Twilight scooted the couch back a bit so she could sit behind the child. Everyone watched with mixed feelings as Twilight started off with a deep magic scan for the telltale signs of disguise magic, but as expected, the chocolate guzzling filly magically appeared for all the world to be a normal pony. _No surprises there or else I would have noticed something a long time ago._

Next she psionically sniffed around for any sign that Stellar was subconsciously searching for a hive mind to connect to, but again, her search came up empty. _As much as I suspected. If I'm right about her being a changeling, and she's been without a hive mind for all this time, I don't think she would be quite the bubbly little ball of fun she is now._

"I think she's actually connected with an existing hive mind," Twilight announced while shooting Pear Butter a dangerous look. "I can't tell whose until I break the connection."

"Didn't you say that was risky?" Night Light said, trying to keep himself from disturbing the filly who was still distracted by her tasty drink. Azure Skies was holding his hoof with a mix of worry and no small amount of anticipation for drama.

"If I used brute force like capturing a drone, then yes." Twilight hummed aloud. "But I have a backup idea that should be perfectly safe… for her at least."

As her father frowned in paternal worry, Twilight pulled an enormous amount of love out of herself and poised it on the tip of her horn. The pink glowing orb pulled the attention of Amber who cooed at it. "If a love infusion can bind an egg to me, then perhaps a massive amount could do the same here. If she's a pony—which I highly doubt, mind you—then she won't feel a thing."

With a gentle flourish of her horn, Twilight sent the orb of love into Stellar. The little filly was so startled by the influx that she sputtered her cocoa all over the table and started coughing, much to the delight of Amber who giggled madly at the show. Pear, Azure and Night Light jumped to her aid, but it was Twilight who was first to gently pat Stellar on the back to help her cough and clear her lungs. The little filly would have started crying then and there had she not been buffeted by the siren song of Twilight's hive mind. Even for a child as young as she, Stellar Drift was struck speechless by the loving song.

As for Twilight, her hunt for the source of Stellar's original hive mind came up blank, as it was devoid of anything outside of a carrier signal. _Drat. That's that theory gone._

Off to the side, Pear Butter had quietly took a dry cloth off the teapot tray to clean up the spittle. Despite being slightly ill at ease on the outside, on the inside she was a nervous wreck.

Welcome home, little one, Twilight sang, breaking Stellar out of her paralysis. All the singing and voices now barraging the unaccustomed nymph terrorized the poor filly and she started wailing in abject fear, and she cradled her head trying to protect herself. The reaction caught Twilight completely off guard and she stumbled to act. She pulled the girl into a tight hug as her brain tried to fix the situation before her father could become angry at her for disturbing the poor child. After all, Stellar still looked like a pony and was now crying due to a spell Twilight had cast on her. Not a picture Twilight wanted to paint for herself.

Now that Stellar was one with the Link, Twilight could feel what Stellar felt, and could at last see how perfectly the young filly's disguise had evaded her senses. _Astounding. Oh, I wish I had the time to study this beautiful work of art._ Now that she could see the patterns, it was trivial for Twilight to unwind the filly's disguise, revealing her true changeling form for all to see. The act stopped Night Light from leaving the loveseat and pulling the child away from Twilight.

"Shh, now little one, you're okay, it's just the rest of your family." Twilight was already being bombarded with questions about the new voice in the hive mind. Stellar's royal entry into the Link left an impression that no drone could possibly confuse for anything else. Twilight was forced to leave a part of her brain power to explain the situation with the curious yet jubilant drones and her other sister, but left most of her attention on her pony family. _Idiot, just turn the volume down!_ Chastising herself for the oversight, Twilight acted quickly to tourniquet the Link connection with Stellar Drift, keeping it just strong enough to remain. _I'll have to take it slow in introducing her to the full hive mind._

The response from Stellar was almost immediate. She stopped cradling her head, but the crying had only partially subsided. To make matters worse, the noisy sobbing made Amber start crying as well. The new source of tears made Twilight feel all that much worse for inflicting this terror upon her sister and now her niece. Pear Butter moved to go and comfort Amber, but Twilight stopped her dead in her tracks with both magic and a lethal glare. Unaware of the exchange, Azure Skies reached Amber and started comforting the little nymph.

Pear Butter shrank back from the queen's ire. Twilight let go of Pear when Azure Skies claimed Amber. "Here, daddy, Azure, maybe you should take Stellar while I calm Amber down."

Both Night Light and Azure were all too eager to accept, and soon both fillies floated to their respective caregivers. Stellar was held by Night Light while Azure hovered over her like a mother hen. He held her close while Azure Skies stroked her mane. "Shhh, now little one, it's all over."

During the time they had been agonizingly waiting for Twilight to surrender their daughter over to them, Night Light and Azure Skies had noticed everything about Stellar's true form. While her coloration remained thankfully the same, her slitted eyes, crooked horn, obvious holes, insect wings, and large swaths of chitin removed any doubt as to what she was.

Amber proved easy enough to calm down after Twilight cast a sound dampening spell over Amber's ears. As a result, Amber was content to snuggle her aunt, freeing up Twilight to take in Stellar's true form. Twilight noted the chitin with disdain but not surprise. What briefly miffed her more than anything was that Stellar's colors had not changed. _Hmm. She doesn't match any of the queens I know of, so I can't tell who she came from, other than my bloodline at least._ Fortunately, Night Light sat between Twilight and Azure Skies, allowing Twilight to shuffle over to sit side by side with her father so she could plant a sisterly kiss on the filly's forehead.

The act drew Night Light's attention towards Twilight. "This may cause a scandal in regards to the Harthworths, but as for me this changes nothing." Night Light hugged the dark purple princess with as much might as he dared; a hug she eagerly returned.

"Agreed," Azure declared with equal certainty. "It's rather hard to live in this house without having a soft spot for furry bugs now isn't it?" The attempt at humor lifted the mood a touch.

Night Light looked to Twilight with fatherly concern. "What happens now? I'm sure you need to do something before you let me keep her for good."

Twilight's answer was delayed as she sensed a strange fear coming from Pear Butter. There was the terror the foalsitter had towards Twilight, which was understandable, but what caught the queen off guard was that there was a good deal of maternal fear for the little filly. An overwhelming need to comfort Stellar Drift herself.

"Distracted by the Link again?" Azure Skies stated more than asked, pulling Twilight away from Pear Butter.

"S-sorry. But yes, I'd like to rebirth her to remove all this chitin. The public are fine with my bloodline, but adding somepony with chitin into the mix might be hard to swallow. Even more so when she eventually starts a hive. As for the amnesia, Stellar's young enough that she doesn't have enough memories to lose any."

"Fair enough," Night Light conceded with a touch of worry. "There's no reason to give schoolhouse bullies more ammunition." By now, Stellar had calmed down and was content to remain in Night Light's embrace and bury her face in her father's fur.

Not wanting to be left out, Azure gestured to Night Light so she could hold the filly. With a nod he surrendered her over. Stellar briefly complained, but quieted back down after being surrounded by warm fur and affection again.

Azure Skies frowned at the hard black shell coating much of Stellar's skin. "It doesn't help that hard shell is tough to hug through the poor dear."

As Twilight and her father studied the young changeling, they noted chitin covered her entire neck and torso. In addition, more chitin blanketed her back from front to tail. The edges where fur and chitin met were jagged and ugly to the eye.

That was the part Night Light hated most, that something of his adopted daughter was abhorrent to look at, let alone touch. But he willfully pushed that revulsion aside for the sake of Stellar's wellbeing. The act was made far easier since the filly's face was devoid of chitin. Yet through it all, he inwardly approved of the sleepy reptilian eyes that now looked up at him with tears still staining her fur. "Shhh now, little bug." He grinned at the new nickname, unoriginality be damned. "Mama's got you."

Night Light nuzzled Stellar's neck, ignoring the hard uncomfortable chitin pressing against him. The shock and tears had worn out the little filly, and she drifted off to sleep. Between all the excitement, Amber was on the edge of sleep as well, and hung almost limp in Twilight's forelegs. "I suppose we're going to need that list-of-care after all. Any big ones I should know right away before you take her to the hatchery?"

"Oh, don't worry, daddy, nymphs don't require much more than normal pony foals that the Link doesn't provide. However," Twilight's gaze locked on Pear Butter. The mare noticed instantly and quaked on her hooves. "Like Amber, Stellar needs a steady diet of meat. Even more so than griffins at this age. Given how healthy she is, I get the feeling that particular need has been met for some time now."

Except for Pear Butter, the other adults looked at Twilight with confusion. "Miss Twilight," Pranceston huffed at the thought, "I assure you I have never seen the master nor the chef ever give the little miss anything of the sort. I suppose Miss Azure Skies might have, the deviant that she is."

"Ugh, it was one time," Azure bemoaned. "I didn't want to be rude to Steel Claw. He put a lot of effort in trying to make tilapia palatable, and it _was_ actually quite good. But no, I haven't given Stellar any meat."

Twilight let the statement hang in the air for a long moment before addressing the foalsitter. "So that only leaves, you, Pear Butter."

Upon being called out in a dangerous tone from the most powerful non-alicorn she knew, Pear started sweating profusely and trembled a bit.

"Have you given my little sister any meat by chance?" Twilight asked pointedly. "I recommend not trying to lie in your current state."

Pear Butter's eyes started watering while her lip quivered in abject terror as all eyes sat squarely on her. She started backing away into a wall. Yet before Twilight could stand up to challenge her, Night Light grabbed her shoulder and kept her seated on the floor with Amber. "Twily, don't."

"But dad!" Twilight barked indignantly. "She's obviously a spy! What if she attacks you one day?"

"My mother said much the same thing when your grandfather invited Pranceston into this house," Night Light declared with cold iron. The statement silenced Twilight long enough for Night to levitate the fillies towards Pranceston who abandoned cleaning up the last of the spilled cocoa. "Could you take the fillies to bed? The four of us need to talk."

"Of course, sir." With a respectful nod, the family butler easily accepted the wiggling fillies on his back and departed.

Night Light took to his hooves and Azure Skies stood at his side. He waited until Pranceston closed the doors behind him before returning his gaze to his daughter and foalsitter. He could see by Pear Butter's wobbling legs and flat ears that she was no less petrified of Twilight Sparkle than she had been a minute ago. "Can you honestly tell me Pear has ever acted like one of those other queens in any regard?"

Twilight kept a warning eye on the foalsitter, her mouth pressed in a line. "No. But that wouldn't make a very good spy now would it, father?"

"I do not need eyes to know how much Pear completely loves Stellar," Night retorted sternly. "So long as I live, you will not bully this mare, am I understood?"

"For what it's worth," Azure added a good deal more timidly. "I stand with your father on this. If Pear has been giving Stellar the meat she needs, then that hardly sounds like a dangerous pony to me."

Twilight grumbled and scowled at the three of them, but focused on her father. _Why does he have to be so darn stubborn!_ Not wanting to risk her relationship with her father, Twilight released a heavy sigh. "Alright, you win."

"That's my girl." Night Light gave Twilight a short yet grateful hug.

Twilight returned the embrace before standing. "If it's all the same, though, I'll be cutting the sleepover short and taking Amber back with me." She turned back to Pear Butter who was muffling sobs behind her hooves. _I'm going to find out which queen is milking daddy's forgiveness and ruin her._ Nopony _touches my family._

Twilight stormed across the room towards the door Pranceston left through. However she only made it halfway before Pear controlled her sobs long enough to shout with a quaking voice, "Wait, Y-yer highness, please." Pear spent a few precious moments to collect herself enough to speak again. By then, Twilight had turned to face her with controlled fury behind her eyes. "Ah'll spill. Ah can't - Ah can't _stand_ livin' this lie anymore. It ain't right."

As everyone watched, Pear Butter revealed her true form in a wash of flames. Her colors remained the same, but her gossamer wings, jagged changeling horn, and black chitin around her hooves left no doubt that she was clearly not the unicorn she claimed to be. She was certainly not the chitin-clad drone Twilight had been expecting, and Twilight found herself at a loss for words.

Both Azure and Night were equally stunned, but did not have the same indignant hostility that was rising within Twilight.

Knowing what question would be at the top of Twilight's list, Pear gave the prime matriarch a pleading look. "Ah was sent here to watch over and guard Stellar Drift by… by Polybia."

Night Light managed to recover from his shock first and stood up to stand side by side with his daughter. "Why would she do that?" he asked almost rhetorically.

Pear Butter couldn't bring herself to answer. Every time she opened her mouth, the geas crushed the words in her throat.

Despite this, it didn't take Twilight much of a leap to know why. "Because Stellar is Polybia's daughter."

Night Light had the same suspicions, and hearing it aloud only confirmed it. He took a long deep breath and steeled himself for an argument from Twilight. "This changes nothing. I don't care who Stellar's mother is; she's still family as far as I'm concerned."

"Of _course_ she is," Twilight cut in, insulted her father felt the need to convince her of that. Putting aside those hurt feelings, she directed her attention on Pear. "But tell me this, was Stellar's egg laid before or after Polybia started dabbling in necromancy and feeding on demonic power?"

"A-after," Pear replied with definite clarity. Seeing that she wasn't going to be murdered on the spot, the foalsitter was able to recollect herself more. However she still sniffled from time to time. "Stopwatch told me Polybia had the wits to cleanse her egg first. She also said the egg was laid at least five years ago, and had been put in stasis since that _bitch_ didn't know the first thing about raising a foal proper like."

Azure and both Sparkles had come to expect drones to revere their queen, so to hear Pear curse Polybia dumbstruck them both, Twilight couldn't believe her ears.

"Ah can't tell you how much Ah want to thank you for killing her." Anger and sick satisfaction flooded Pear Butter at the sweet memory of Polybia's death knell. So much so, her sobbing and tears momentary stopped flowing. "She did this ta me!" Pear waved a chitin bound hoof and buzzed her wings. "Stole me and my husband from our homes and turned us into this!"

"Truly?" Azure asked, barely able to believe it. "I heard the horror stories of what she did, but…"

"All of it and then some," Pear answered back with a stern and pained look that was more than enough to convince the two ponies.

 _It doesn't make sense for Polybia to make an intelligent drone, and if she's telling the truth, then that only leaves…_ "You're a quasi." Twilight wasn't sure how to feel about that, but it was at least better than before.

"Aye," Pear replied, her vindictive ire slipping away. "The only good thing—" Pear Butter had to work hard not to curse her queen's name again, "that Polybia ever did fer me was make me Stellar's guardian." Upon mentioning the youngster, Pear's voice lost all its edge and took on a pleading tone. "Please let me stay! It's all Ah got anymore!"

"Well, of course you can." Night Light cantered over and laid a reassuring and trusting hoof on Pear Butter's shoulder. "Isn't that right, Twily?" he asked with that fatherly iron that brooked no argument.

And yet argue she did. "Daddy, I can only agree to that if I know she's not a risk to anypony."

"If you want to think like your mother, then anypony is a potential risk," Night Light rebuked sternly. His dark tone even made Azure grimace, but she stayed by his side all the same.

Twilight's ears fell flat and a scowl of her own flashed across her face before she could control it. Twilight ground her teeth at the insult while she and Night Light stared each other down. "That's a low blow, dad, and not at all what I was thinking, _thank_ you very much." Ignoring her father's stubbornness, Twilight focused on Pear who was starting to cower behind Night Light. "Were you part of Polybia's hive mind when she died?"

Pear looked to Night for some sort of protection, but since Twilight's question was not a refusal, he did not offer much more than a nod. "N-no, but close to it Ah think. She cut loose 'bout a week or so before the news hit the papers."

"I see." Twilight studied the quasi, making sure to not look threatening in the process. She was already skating on thin ice with her father. "How familiar are you with the concept of sleeper agents, spies, and geas spells?"

"Twily," Night Light warned.

This time however, Pear averted her eyes, unwilling to look at her. "Intimately, Ah'm afraid."

"I suspected as much," Twilight replied with a sour face. "I doubt you'd even know if you were under a geas to attack anypony now would you?" Twilight expected no answer, and when Pear Butter didn't reply, she continued with a more compassionate tone. "Tell you what, Pear Butter, I can have a Psykira look into freeing you of any geas or trigger word. I know of one who claims to be an expert in removing those."

Azure Skies brightened at the compromise and gently tugged at Night Light. "That could work, honey."

"You'd really do that fer me?" Pear Butter's tears stopped for a that moment of hope. "Even after lying to you all this time?!"

Twilight huffed superiorly at her father. "I could have sussed the truth of the matter out of you on the day we met if daddy hadn't put his hoof down, so that's all on him."

Night Light dismissed the accusation with a snort and hoof wave. "If I hadn't, you'd have never given PB the chance to prove herself a wonderful foalsitter." Night gave the quasi an appreciative nod. "And a fine pony to boot."

"Hear, hear," Azure called out with equal friendliness.

To be called a pony, even after showing her true form, lifted Pear's spirits up to the point she shuddered in catharsis. Daring to hope she wasn't hallucinating, Pear Butter wiped her eyes. "So Ah can really stay?"

"Of cour—" Night Light started only to be cut off by Twilight.

"On the condition that you abide by the rules of my hive," she stated without question. "With a few clearly defined exceptions, no alliance changeling may use disguise magic with intent at long term deception. Keeping the good faith of the common pony is what keeps this alliance intact. I'm sorry, but as it stands, you must show your true form from here on out."

Pear Butter glanced at Night Light who didn't show any sign of disagreement. "It's no different than what all my grandkids do. Fair's fair."

"Ah can do that, but…" Pear raised a hoof to her eyes. Even after a year, the black chitin was no less ugly in her eyes, an affront to whom she used to be. "Is there any way to get rid of this? Maybe make mah horn look like your kinds? Ah always thought they were beautiful."

Twilight blushed a bit at the compliment. "I can't say I've ever heard that one before." She tried to steal a glance at a mirror, but none were to be found. "As for helping you…" Twilight cleared her throat as she mentally switched money-talk. "I have been experimenting with the idea of alchemical dipping as Rainbow likes to call it. The cost of localizing the changes without having it spread to the rest of the body is normally prohibitively expensive, and can really only go an inch deep…" Twilight caught herself before she started rambling and sighed heavily. "I can arrange it if you can tell me anything you know about any contingency plans Polybia might have had."

Trying to mask her vindictive glee, Pear Butter nodded. "Ah'd have sang like a canary 'bout her without the offer." Without a moment's hesitation, Pear sold out both Stopwatch and Paint Brush, giving Twilight every scrap of information on both of their whereabouts, domiciles, workplaces, habits, and hobbies. However, there was one bit she added at the end. "Ah know it may be a bit much ta ask, but could you try an' take Paint Brush unharmed? Ah'm pretty darn sure he was either mah hubby, or at least fiancée. He's really only loyal ta Polybia's memory because he doesn't remember much else. Ah'm sure one of them Psykira can fix that."

"I'll see what I can do," was all Twilight would offer. "But I won't promise what I can't guarantee."

* * *

Barely four hours later, a joint team of pony and changeling intelligence officers barged their way into Stopwatch's bordello. Patrons and servers alike jumped in surprise and alarm. A random pony yelled at everyone to scatter, prompting a stampede for the exits. However, more officers waited outside, corralling everyone to stay inside at sword point.

As a changeling guided several team members upstairs to hunt down Stopwatch, one of the earth ponies peeled off to address the stunned civilians. "By royal edict, the pony known as Stopwatch is hereby accused of being an illegal non-alliance changeling and is under arrest. All civilians will submit to a screening agent for other possible infiltrators. Your compliance is appreciated."

The trapdoor into Stopwatch's abode slammed open with a blue changeling at the head. Her scattergun swept back and forth over the dark room. Only an open window offered any light, illuminating Stopwatch herself sitting on a stool. "I surrender."

* * *

Stopwatch found herself being dragged to the Tower of Canterlot before being escorted into an interrogation room. Once the guards sat her down on the stool, a blinding harsh light shown down on her from above.

The guards left her to let Stopwatch stew in isolation. She looked around, but was unable to make anything out beyond the light. "So let's see, uncomfortable stool, light from above, probably some interrogator watching me from the shadows… you ponies are really unimaginative when it comes to questioning a prisoner."

A grunt of agreement sounded from beyond the light. "It's all they'd allow me to have." Stepping just inside the light came a blue changeling drone with his queen's eyes. "Were it up to me, I'd go full Dr. Caballeron on your tail."

"There's no need for the preferential treatment, your highness," Stopwatch responded with measured forbearance. "I'll sing whatever you want as long as I can get out of this alive."

 _"Gah, no one ever lets me have any fun,"_ Rainbow Dash muttered under her breath. It took her a moment to realize she had said that through her puppet, and she quickly grunted to ignore the slip. "We'll see after you answer my questions.

"Do you belong to Polybia?"

 _Asking a question you already know?_ "I did," Stopwatch replied with a pang of sadness. "But it's hard to belong to the dead."

If there was one thing Rainbow could understand, it was a drone's love for her queen. "Why are you intelligent? I thought we were the only ones to have smart drones."

"It's amazing what sort of mental gymnastics someone will do to both condemn something and yet still do it, all the while convincing themselves they aren't doing it."

Rainbow snorted with a smirk. "Yeah, that sounds like Polybia to a tee."

"If - ah - if you must know," Stopwatch began slowly, fearing Rainbow's response. "I'm actually a partitioned section of Polybia's mind, or at least I was until she died. Her last act was to make sure I could survive without her."

"Partitioned? That's a new one." Rainbow Dash's puppet glared at the chitin bound drone's eyes, searching for the madness the real Polybia had possessed. "So... what? Are you the good half she threw away so she could stomach working with Grogar?"

"In a way?" Stopwatch shrugged. "I know I was created before she captured Grogar. I didn't even know she had until Pear Butter told me. All I knew is that she wasn't the same person by the time I heard from her last." Stopwatch averted her eyes, thoughts lingering on how the queen she knew died long before the end of the war. When Rainbow Dash remained silent, allowing Stopwatch to volunteer information, the drone eventually did so. "Of course, I didn't inherit most of my queen's personality. I don't think she could have handled being a drone."

She looked back up to Rainbow Dash with a pained smile. "But if I'm all you got to work with diplomatically, then… truce?"

Rainbow scowled in disappointment. "Not much fight in you is there?"

"Heh," Stopwatch let off with a self-deprecating half smile. "Aside from fleeing from the jungle, my life's been mostly spent in that bordello. Passing on information from what I was able to tease out of my patrons. I'm not a warrior."

"That can't be all you were here for," Rainbow Dash stated after thinking it over. "Why else would Pear Butter know about you?"

"I was Polybia's only agent in Equestria, so Pear had no one else to use as her contact. She smuggled the princess into the city and I helped try to find a pony family to take her in. I'm sure Pear filled you in on anything else there is to know."

There was no joy for Rainbow Dash in this. Some vain hope she would get a mindless ranting drone from an equally mad queen had sounded fun at first, but every emotion she was picking up from Stopwatch painted a depressing picture. Hey Long Arm, are you sure this mare doesn't have a single other arrestable warrant or charge leveled against her?

Nothing I've seen, but then again, we didn't even know about her until now.

Finding no easy answer there, Rainbow scrunched her muzzle in thought. "If I were to let you go, what assurance would I have that you won't try anything?"

"As long as Stellar Drift's happy, then so am I. You'll never even know I exist."

Rainbow tilted her puppet's head to the side, listening to other council. "Tell you what. I don't like leaving you out of sight, so you'll be serving Phoenix's Roost from here on out." Stopwatch blanched at the unrefusable offer. "Go back to the bordello if you can get away with it, or somewhere else in Canterlot. There's always crime in any city with non-changelings in the mix. You spy for us, and maybe I can arrange short visits when Stellar is older."

For the first time in a very, very long time, Stopwatch was well and truly without words. She could only look at Rainbow's puppet with wide eyes and a gaping mouth. So long was her stunned silence that Rainbow Dash got impatient. "Should I take that as a yes, or do I need to have you jailed or banished as a possible rogue element?"

Stopwatch scrambled over herself to grovel at Rainbow's hooves and kiss them. "No. no. no. no, I'll take it! Doubly so! I'll be the best snitch ever! Anything that happens in Canterlot will go in your ear, I swear it!"

Rainbow Dash cringed and forcibly shook the slobber off her hoof and took a step back, much to the puppet's gratitude. "I'll stick with what goes through whatever stallion house you camp out in. I don't need an overenthusiastic spy mucking up other operations."

Stopwatch stepped away, fearful she caused offense. "Yes, my Queen," she replied automatically without even realizing it until after it left her lips.

"I'm going to pass on that," Rainbow rebuked not quite as harshly as she originally intended upon seeing the scared tension out of Stopwatch. "Chrysalis warned us that Polybia used Link bombs on a few of her rivals during the war, then add the fact that Pear Butter mentioned you went into what I'm assuming was a rebirthing cocoon to be a stand-in hive mind. Even if you weren't originally a walking bomb, I can't imagine that demon crazed loony would pass up one last chance to screw us over. So you can stay out of my hive mind as far as I'm concerned."

Not willing to press her luck, Stopwatch nodded in hasty agreement. "As you wish, y-your highness." It was only then that Rainbow's objection actually registered. "You don't think she actually turned me into a bomb do you?! I was supposed to be the princess' guardian."

"Yeah, a guardian that just so happened to let that princess land in Twilight's lap," Rainbow shot back with a smirk. A moment's thought wiped that smirk off in a real hurry. "Now that I really think about it, how about you just leave town instead. Go find some doctor who's willing to risk you exploding on him to see if you got a bomb sac in you or something. You come back with a doctor's note and we'll go from there."

Stopwatch fell flatly on her rump, hugging herself while the mental picture of volatile chemical sac within her just waiting for the wrong twitch to blow. _By the First Mother, she'd do it to! I knew it was weird to want so much garlic after my queen ordered me to prepare._ "I think I know one or two who I have some dirt on."

"Good, now if I don't hear about some back alley exploding in the next few weeks, I'll be expecting an intelligence report every month." Satisfied, the puppet stepped away and banged on the metal door. After sharing a brief word with the guard, Rainbow gestured to the exit. "The guards will see you to the train station and you'll get a ticket to anywhere free of charge. Now get outta here before I change my mind and have you quarantined in a bunker or something."

* * *

 _Present day._

Pear Butter stood in front of a mirror in her room. The door was ajar with the sounds of children cackling mischievously coming from the hallway beyond. The gentle blue glow of her eyes and naturally heightened night vision made her forget to turn on the lamp at this late hour. She was brushing her wavy orange mane in the scant few minutes she could spare before the three fillies tried to break something, or worse, tried convincing Pranceston into letting them give him a makeover again.

The last time they did that, Pranceston had suffered the ignoble ordeal with the expected grace of a butler. He had been sure to give Pear extra duties the following week as punishment for letting the fillies torture him with mascara and hoof gloss. _It might actually be worth letting it happen again so Ah can take pictures._ A sudden crash and the distinct sound of breaking pottery made her cringe. The immediate silence followed by 'ooohs' heralded the need for her return. _Too late. At least everything breakable in that room's cheaper than a bar o' soap._

With her hair more or less presentable again, minus the silly string that bedecked it a minute ago, she raced her way to the playroom across the hall. Pranceston was thankfully absent. _Good, Ah might have time to convince the girls to clean up before he sees anything._

Upon all but bursting into the playroom, Pear Butter found Stellar Drift, Amber, and Flurry Heart all trying to put a broken flower vase back together again. The mess was right in the middle of a cardboard box recreation of the walls around Phoenix's Roost with little pony and changeling dolls attending a ball in the middle. The broken vase had apparently been a stand-in for the castle. Flurry Heart had been levitating a piece, but dropped it upon seeing Pear's entrance. Flurry Heart was easily taller than the two royal changelings. "It wasn't my fault! Amber was trying to use the vase as a throne!"

"You said it could hold me!" Amber shot back with childish pouting.

"I _told_ you your butt's too fat for that," Stellar stated while wiggling her rump in the air.

"Nuh uh! Your butt is ginorrrrrmous!" Amber shot back while waving her hooves as far wide as she could.

"Nuh uh," Stellar bit back. " _Your_ butt is so big aunty Tia and Lulu have to move it every day."

"Girls," Pear Butter called out with a caring yet admonishing voice. "What's the first rule when you break something?"

Two tiny royal changelings and one alicorn hung their heads. "Clean up first, then point hooves."

Pear nodded sagely. "Just remember to point the hoof at yourself if you're at fault. The truth feels better than holding a lie. Now, let's clean up before the stone pony gets here or he'll hide the snaky cakes."

"I heard that," Pranceston stated with mild annoyance from the door.

Pear's wings buzzed out of surprise and she turned around with a sheepish grin. She noted the stallion had even brought a broom and dustpan. _Crud._ "Sorry about the mess, sir, the girls and Ah will get it cleaned up lickety split, right girls?" she asked while levitating the cleaning tools over to them.

A choir of 'yes ma'ams' rang out from the fillies as they hurriedly resumed their task.

As Pear made as though to join them, Pranceston beckoned her over with a wave of a hoof. "I'm sure the girls can handle cleaning a broken vase out of the carpet long enough for me to share a word with you. Celestia knows they have the experience."

With the butler as stoney as ever, Pear cringed and floated over to him and started whispering. _"Ah'm sorry, sir, Ah'll pay for the damages."_

The brown furred earth stallion lifted a solitary eyebrow. "You and I both know nothing in this room is worth more than the food stuck between your teeth."

Pear Butter blushed furiously out of embarrassment and started licking her teeth trying to find the offending food. A task which Pranceston was in no hurry to aid.

"Do not worry about the damages. In fact, much to my surprise, I come bearing gifts." From a pocket, Pranceston produced four black tickets with gold letters. "The little misses and you have VIP tickets to the next big show at the Royal Orchestra Hall. Apparently there is new talent in town."

As soon as the words 'Royal Orchestra Hall' left his lips, Flurry Heart gasped and bolted as fast as she could towards Pranceston, much to the ire of her changeling friends for abandoning their chore. The little alicorn rammed into Pranceston's standing foreleg, nearly knocking it out from under him. "Oooooo! I wanna go! I _neeeed_ to go! Pleeeeeease!" Flurry was a pro at sad puppy dog eyes, and she leveraged every ounce of that now.

Pear Butter had claimed the tickets when Flurry rammed into the butler to allow him to use his other leg to stabilize himself. With a mischievous smile of her own, a toothless one to hide the alleged stuck food, Pear Butter separated one ticket from the pack and waved it in front of Flurry's nose. "If you want to go, you better clean up and pick out a good dress."

"Deal!" Flurry let go of Pranceston and jumped high enough to claim the ticket in her mouth. Pear let it go so Flurry could take the ticket into her hooves to look at it. She could barely read the fine print, but Flurry was familiar with the famous black and gold tickets and squealed with girlish delight. "I'm going to the concert!" she sang repeatedly while bouncing up and down.

"Not if you don't help us ya featherbrain!" Amber called out grumpily.

More than happy to work for her prize, Flurry raced back over and tried to rush everyone else to stuff the broken shards into the pan. With the adults not directly intervening, the children started bickering over who should fetch the small wastebasket at the corner of the room.

Pranceston and Pear watched over them, mostly to enjoy the sight of children at play, but also to make sure they didn't hurt themselves. "A concert, though," Pear mused to no one in particular. "Ah don't remember if Ah've ever been to one before."

A hum of wistful approval escaped the stallion next to her. "The first one is always the most memorable."


	88. Chapter 88

The Concert

The night of the concert was quite the social event. To many in the upper echelon of Canterlot society, a night where unknown talent was being introduced was an excuse to peacock. All around the Royal Symphony Hall, noblemares and stallions were bedecked in their absolute best finery. Jewelry, dresses, tuxedos, perfume, and elaborate hats crowded the street and entryways. Not to mention the rumor mill was in full swing.

Night Light, Azure Skies, Pear Butter, and the three fillies were in a carriage which itself was in line behind a few others as VIPs were permitted first entry. The lone stallion was smartly dressed with sharp angles and dark colors being the motif of his clothing. Azure Skies and Pear Butter had only the best dresses money could buy, a perk for having Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash as benefactors. Those two queens had quite the friendship with Equestria's most esteemed seamstress and tailor couple after all.

As for the trio of young princesses, Flurry Heart's pink and turquoise dress was flecked with white to mimic snow. Since Stellar Drift's rebirth had not removed the fur and mane colors her pony disguise had possessed, her dress complemented her navy blue coat and dark purple mane. And the once fearsome necromancer turned little bug horse, Amber had a cloud theme going for her gown.

Stellar Drift sat patiently on her seat while Amber and Flurry Heart's faces were squashed against the right side windows. The two were soaking in every detail of the crowd. "You're going to mess up your hair if you smush your faces like that," Stellar warned.

Completely ignoring her sister, Amber cooed at a collection of mares' hats. "Oh wooow! They all look like swans!"

Stellar Drift fidgeted in her seat trying to ignore the temptation to go look.

Flurry rocked a bit as the carriage moved forward. "Ew, that one looks like a patch of poison joke."

That got a curious eyebrow lift out of Azure, and she scooted away from Night to investigate. Sure enough, upon peering over the little alicorn's head, she found the blue flowered hat. "Well, isn't that a bold move. I dare say those flowers look real," Azure hummed with concern. "Let's hope you're wrong."

Their carriage came to a stop at the red carpet with all three window watchers pulling back. Stellar saw both of the other fillies' manes were flat in front. "I told you two, but nooo."

Amber pouted and tried to do her mane with a hoof. "Looks better this way anyway," she claimed while trying and failing to resist Pear's efforts to fix her mane.

Azure primped Flurry's mane back into shape right as a valet opened the door to allow them to disembark. Camera flashes started immediately, with Night Light and Azure Skies taking the initial brunt of the paparazzi. The fillies filed out with Pear Butter bringing up the rear. The foalsitter couldn't stop herself from blushing from all the pictures being taken of her. She wasn't used to wearing such expensive clothing, and all the attention she was getting was overwhelming. She tried to use the rest of the family as a shield to little effect.

 _Just get inside an' forget about the cameras,_ Pear told herself as she tried and failed to exude confidence in the face of such judgmental ponies. She was sweating to the point it was beginning to accumulate in one of her leg holes. Oh, the itchiness that brought. Thankfully, Night Light was quite well-versed in tactfully directing attention away from Pear with a few well placed words to fellow aristocrats, while Azure Skies and the trio of fillies won over the rest of the attention.

The family made it inside with the press managing to take only a few embarrassing photos of Pear trying to scratch the offending leg hole. The lobby was filled with more nobility and staff trying to cater to everyone's needs. The fillies made a mad dash to the concession stand. As the adults walked over to join the little scamps, Night could overhear Stellar barking orders.

"We have to get the best taste to calorie ratio. Now, Flurry—" Night Light heard nothing more.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a grey and purple mare. He sharply turned his head towards the staff entrance, only to barely catch the end of a tail as the door closed, but he couldn't be sure if it was the two familiar colors. He narrowed his eyes in suspicion, but was jarred out of it by Azure waving a hoof over his eyes.

"You okay, hon?"

Night Light's hard expression vanished as he returned his attention to Azure. He briefly scanned for the girls and was grateful to see Pear Butter organizing their orders. "Sorry, baby, I thought I saw somepony familiar, but I guess it was nothing." He planted a kiss on Azure's nose to reassure her.

It seemed to work as she brightened up and skipped forward while pulling him towards the food stand. "Come on then, let's share a popcorn."

* * *

Just behind the staff entrance, Twilight Velvet was shaking in a cold sweat. To her everlasting gratitude, no one else was in the short bend of the hallway but her. _No no no! Why is Night here?! I have to tell Lyra I can't be here!_

After a minute or so, Velvet got her breathing under control and passed through the staff hallways without further incident. Simple music was already leaking in from the main concert hall, but experience told Velvet those were merely idle songs for now. She began to make her way to the musicians' row, and saw a number of ponies were getting ready out in the hall. Shielded by a wall of bipedal blue drones was Lyra's room.

Velvet hesitated at the sight of them. She couldn't suppress a shudder of old terror, of lingering fears realized. The internal war to squash those fears led her to overhear one of the musicians she happened to stop near.

The haughty stallion was speaking to another unicorn. "What are those _bugs_ doing here? I thought none of them could hold a tune to save their hides."

"They're not here to play," the other stallion whispered so the distant changelings couldn't hear, but Velvet could. She was using the conversation to distract herself. "Rumor has it, that Lyra character has something special in mind. You know, the mare that somehow managed to get the queens to turn her into a 'Ling?"

The stallion snorted derisively. "So they had to poach a pony to have a musician? Sounds about right."

The distraction wasn't working, and the overheard conversation wasn't helping either. Years of suppressed paranoia threatened to relapse as images of various kinds of weapons sprang to Velvet's mind.

"Hey!" a raspy voice called out from the screen of changelings. One of them was pointing at Velvet while a second buzzed over to her. "What are you doing? Lyra said you ran off to get snacks. You forget your bits or something?"

Velvet forced herself to not look at the two stallions who huffed and trotted off. "I realized there were some ponies out there who'd recognize me and might cause a scene if they saw me." Not a lie, just an omission of who exactly. She tried to hide that fact to keep her emotions from giving her fear away.

The blue changeling mare gave a half-frown. "Just my luck. Fine, whatever, go wait in the room then or something. I'll buy the snacks."

"T-thank you." Velvet levitated over the bag of bits and the list of desired snacks.

After the changeling walked away, Velvet sped towards the closed door and slipped inside. Her initial intention to announce her ex-husband's presence was derailed by a bewildering sight. Lyra was clinging to the ceiling as she practiced a slow dance while plucking away at her lyre. She did it mostly to playfully annoy Bon Bon.

The final distraction to completely throw Velvet's train of thought aside was the sudden music she had not heard in the hallway. It was a hauntingly exotic play style that gripped the soul. Velvet was so stunned that she stood in the open door until one of the drones outside shoved her through the threshold and closed the door.

Lyra did not react to Velvet's entrance at all, so the older mare was able to claim a seat next to Bon Bon after coming to her senses. With the burning question of the true nature of the music on the tip of her tongue, Velvet forced herself to keep silent for now. Bon Bon patted Velvet's hoof reassuringly, but otherwise remained quiet as well.

Taking a few moments to get a feel for the music, Velvet realized Lyra must have just started the song since it was building up in tempo. Lyra's hands danced over the strings, and as her horn lit up in golden light. A violin and bow rose up from the chair opposite of Bon Bon and took up station to Lyra's left. All of it still upside down. Normal unicorn levitation would completely envelop the violin and bow. Lyra's form of control, however, was a pair of ethereal hands that grasped the instrument, with another glow pressing on the chin pad for stability.

The bow hit the strings and a pitiful tune came out of it. The notes were faint, the pitch was grating to the ears, and it was an overall miserable companion to the lyre. Velvet flattened her ears and glanced at Bon Bon who had the same occasional winces of auditory agony, but kept her ears forward and straight.

Lyra didn't get very far before she stopped her dancing and the music cut off. She detached from the ceiling and dropped heavily to the floor. Instead of looking at the other mares in the room, she turned away, and tilted her head, letting one ear hang limp. "Gah! I can't practice with it like this." She paused, staring blankly at some point on the ground. "Well, I know that, but how can I get an ear for it without it plugged in?" Lyra turned away from the other two mares and said nothing further aloud.

Confusion washed over Velvet for a second or two before realization struck her. _Must be that hive talk._

A gentle hoof on her shoulder brought Velvet's attention to Bon Bon who had a half-grin. "She's a mad one, I'll grant you that," the pale earth mare stated as she tried to read Velvet's expression. "The violin will sound worlds better when she gets on stage."

"I would hope so." Velvet tensed a bit to ask that question. "Is that the surprise her fellows outside were talking about? Being able to play two instruments at once?"

Bon Bon chuckled and waved a hoof. "A little. That's mostly Queen Blitz giving Lyra enough extra brain power to multitask, but even then Lyra can't do that for very long. No, the bigger surprise is the violin being electric."

"Electric?" Velvet had to search through her admittedly limited musical knowledge. Staying locked away in an archive for six years tends to limit one's knowledge of modern advancements. "I know there are mana guitars, is that the sort of thing you mean?"

Bon Bon shook her head. "I made that mistake too when I first heard about the violin. But it's different than mana instruments." Bon Bon wiggled a hoof and looked up trying to think of the right words. "Lyra could explain it better, but there's a more… gut feeling to electrics over the more lofty and floaty mana ones. That's why you don't see any mana bass instruments. Plus, these electrics can perfectly imitate acoustics and mana variants with the flick of a switch."

"I see… I hope she remembers to flick that switch before showtime." Velvet sighed with a shudder, and inwardly chided herself with heavy self-deprecation. _Idiot! If the changelings were up to something, the princesses would have called them out on it by now._

The horrid music started back up, yet Lyra couldn't stand the noise after a few miserable notes and dropped to the floor with a sour face. "Ugh, I can't practice without the amps."

Before anyone could give a response, a yellow light bulb lit up next to the door, causing Lyra's face to brighten. "Looks like the first act is starting. I still have a few minutes." Lyra flew over to her fancy chair by the vanity mirror to rest in a slouch. Her violin was delicately set in its case.

With the lull in noise and conversation, Night Light returned to Velvet's mind. Assuming she would need to bring the issue up with her parole officer, she approached Lyra's relaxing form. "Pardon the interruption, Miss Heartstrings, but I feel it might be better for me to stay here during the show, or at least somewhere out of public sight."

With a kick, Lyra rotated her chair to give Velvet a grumbly face. "Look, I know the violin sounded bad, but that's because my sisters set the amps up on stage. Gimme a break. By the way, where're my chips?"

"I'm sure it will sound lovely," Velvet lied with a forced smile. "I was going to get your chips, but I saw my ex-husband in the lobby."

"And?" Lyra spat back with a glower most dire. "Isn't the whole reason why you're in Canterlot to face your family?"

Bon Bon got off the couch to join the others as Velvet gave a worried response. "Yes, but didn't you want all that to wait until after your big night?"

The dots finally connected for Lyra and she started to freak, only for Blitz to waylay the emotional outburst with what amounted to dousing her in emotional cold water. Lyra averted her gaze to speak rapidly with her queen until eventually nodding. When Lyra next faced Velvet, she bore the eyes of her queen. Her body seemed to burst into flames, and revealed the standard blue furred and rainbow maned colors of her brood. Lastly, the outline of Rainbow Dash's cutie mark manifested on Lyra's prismatic wings.

Velvet recoiled from the display while Bon Bon was entirely unfazed. The earth mare gave a respectful bow. "How are things, your highness?"

Blitz gave a warm smile towards Bon Bon. "Quite well, actually. My beekeepers are starting to see some good honey yields, plus Aegis and I have already compiled a solid list of candidates for royal rebirth."

Bon Bon clapped her hooves excitedly. "That's wonderful news. Do I know any of them?"

To that, Blitz put on a sly grin. "You do, actually." Blitz had to make extra sure her inner thoughts didn't leak into Lyra. "But we've decided on a 'wait and see' approach for now. It'll give us time to better prepare for supporting princesses and what sort of modifications will be needed." Pleasantries exchanged, Blitz returned her gaze to Velvet. "We'll have to catch up later, Bon Bon, unless you still wish to speak to me. If you do, I must ask that you continue to do so through one of my children outside."

Bon Bon stepped back and placed a calming hoof on Velvet's withers. "I think I'm needed here more."

The elder unicorn shuddered at the touch, but didn't shy away from it. The act got a nod of thanks from Blitz. "Ms. Velvet, it's almost an honor to meet the birth mother of my bloodline." Blitz narrowed her gaze as she studied the fearful mare. "I can see why you stayed away for so long. You're far from ready to face your family now, correct?"

Velvet imitated her daughter's breathing exercise and calmed down enough to speak more or less with an even tone. Both queen and earth mare patiently waited for her to find her voice. "Y-yes, your highness. I thought it best if I just stayed out of everypony's way. I - uh - I can't say I was preparing myself all these years for a confrontation like this."

 _"Obviously,"_ Blitz replied with more hostility than she wanted. Blitz took a moment to give a long sigh, both with Lyra and her real body. "The fact of the matter is, nopony can ever truly be ready for such things. If the novels and plays I've seen with such topics have a grain of truth to them, such reunions are always emotional trainwrecks. But ultimately… ultimately this _needs_ to happen. My aunt bears a scar only you or a memory wiping rebirth can heal, and she's not going to have that procedure for a very, very long time."

"We can compromise," Bon Bon offered. Blitz and Velvet gave her a quizzical look that silently waited for elaboration. "It can't be too hard to find out what seats Night Light is sitting in right?"

 _Of course, I gave them the tickets,_ Blitz couldn't keep that little snippet from leaking through to Lyra's mind. The musician was flabbergasted at her queen. Sorry. If things go bad tonight, I'll make it up to you. Uh, somehow. "Yes, I can find that out easy enough. I can already tell you he's probably taken a balcony."

"Perfect!" Bon Bon stepped away from Velvet to place one hoof on the wall with the other forehoof to the side and slightly below the first. "Say this top one is Night's and this bottom one is Velvet's seat. He's bound to notice Velvet before the night is out. If we give Night Light a few hours or even a chance to sleep on it to get used to the idea of Velvet being in the area, then he won't have all the usual shock and outrage if Velvet showed up unannounced."

Acting as if she hadn't thought of it herself, Blitz rubbed Lyra's chin in contemplation. "Night Light's well respected. He won't cause a scene in such a public setting." _Especially with the girls with him._ Lyra caught that part too. "I like it."

My queen, you are so meeeean! It's bad enough I have to face a crowd of the super rich and influential without the risk of somepony exploding out there, Lyra all but cried.

I like to think of it as tough love, Blitz shot back while blowing a mental raspberry backed by a stern presence. Besides, you need the extra excitement to perform at your best, and a bit of punishment for being so caustic to Velvet, deserved or not.

Back in the real world, Velvet had taken the two changelings' silence as time to think. "I don't really have a choice in this, do I?"

Bon Bon got off the wall to give her a reassuring nod. "You'll do fine. Once you get the first meeting jitters out of the way, you can bully through the rest of it with the momentum."

"I hope you're right." Velvet scuffed the ground. "I really do."

* * *

The concert was in intermission. The horseshoe shaped stage was masked by curtains, hiding the preparations for Lyra within. There was a general din among the audience filled with conversation and excitement. An excitement that had Azure Skies stuck between keeping up with her family's activities and looking over the private balcony railing to see if the show was resuming. Pear Butter had snuck in a deck of cards so everyone could play Uno during times like this.

The quasi's three remaining cards floated in front of her face, masking the _evil_ grin behind them. _One skip turn and two draw fours! I've got this one in the bag._

Yet before she could enact her dastardly plan on a hapless young alicorn, the lights went dim, and a hush fell over the audience. Stellar Drift, who had over ten cards, bolted off the floor, abandoning her miserable hand in an instant.

 _"Stellar!"_ Amber grumbled as she magically snatched all the cards off the floor and back into the deck box that Flurry Heart was helpfully holding up for her.

Willfully ignoring her sister, Stellar snuggled in between Night Light's forelegs, basking in his warmth and love.

Night Light gave the scamp a ruffled mane, but decided against calling her out on it. "Thank you, Amber, Flurry. Now hurry up or you'll miss the opening."

The six and seven year olds scrambled to shove the cards in, bending a few in the process, much to Pear Butter's horror. The young pair all but tossed the crammed box at the foalsitter before rushing into their seats.

Azure Skies doled out some freshly refilled popcorn for the little ones and sat down next to her stallion. Both little changelings had butter stains on their faces, but Flurry Heart had been careful to avoid such problems.

Azure's return was timely, for the curtain lifted to reveal a small collection of stone arches made to look like ruins serving as the background. Hidden in darkness around the edges of the stage, a few drummers sat at the ready. Perched on a tall simplistic altar sat what looked like a violin. However, those possessing keen eyes or theater binoculars could see the instrument looked more like a stylized treble clef than a functioning acoustic instrument. Not to mention it had more strings than a hoof could possibly use correctly. The whole stage was well lit, with a light behind the ruins mimicking the sun on a cloudless day.

A single drum beat rang out, focusing the crowd as Lyra walked out of the ruins and straight to the violin with her lyre in hand. She paid the crowd no mind on her march to claim the instrument. In what some might call an act of showmanship, cockiness, or an offering to the audience, Lyra let her lyre float in her magic while she held the violin aloft in both hands. The drums kicked up in tempo as Lyra rested the violin on the crook of her neck and withdrew the bow from her back. Calling back on her training in the mirror world, Lyra started playing only with her hands.

The audience was immediately taken aback by the sheer number of beautiful notes, precise warbles, and Lyra's light dancing with the music, as if her body was as much of an instrument as the violin. What would take two or three hoof-held violins all came from this single instrument.

Needing only muscle memory, Lyra closed her eyes and let the music take her. With her body swaying back and forth, she poured her love and experience into life. The first song brought to the common pony her interpretation of the song of the hive mind. The drums added the short bursts of intensity Lyra heard during military drills.

Almost mid-note, the violin flew a short distance away in her magic so Lyra could take her lyre in hand and played a short solo with it. During that time, a few unicorns conjured up a compact rainstorm over the stage. The musicians in the sunken area around the stage were shielded from the rain, but the rain started falling with enough intensity for bits of water to splash the closest patrons.

As soon as the storm was in full swing, Lyra switched back to her violin and played a different song, breaking tradition by not announcing the change. Yet the new song segued so smoothly only a few in the audience realized it. Back at home, Blitz started hive meditation, changing the music of the hive mind, making Lyra feel as if she was being shot with adrenaline. Her swaying to the music grew even more pronounced. Lyra started swaying wildly back and forth, completely driven by the song.

With a final strong draw of her bow, Lyra ended her song, signaling the magi to abruptly cut the storm off and allow the false sun to shine clear once more. As the steam cleared the stage, it revealed Lyra curtsying with her bow and violin swept out and her lyre floating above her head.

Stomping hooves of praise rang through the audience. Lyra ended her curtsy to bask in the overwhelming cheer. Most of the aristocracy were too posh for such displays, so many of them remained seated, but offered their version of high praise with gentle clapping. Lyra milked the audience for all they're worth, and blew kisses at any stallion she saw.

Her gushing calmed a bit when Blitz spoke to her. Bravo as always, Lyra.

Lyra gave a girlish giggle as her queen's pride touched her every thought. The accolades the audience was showering her with was but a pale shadow compared to receiving even a modicum of praise from Blitz. Lyra couldn't stop her wings from buzzing from the warm feeling. You can thank the mirror world for the training.

Perhaps. Could you do me a favor and play that melody you've been working on?

Lyra nearly missed the stage light signaling her to either leave the stage or quietly agree to an encore. But it's incomplete. I'm writing it to have lyrics but I haven't found the right words yet.

But the instrument parts are complete. Can you still play, for me?

Blitz's love for Lyra flooded the musician, a feeling that burned away any and all desire to deny her queen. It was not just the love of mother to daughter, queen to drone, but also Blitz's love of Lyra's craft. Anything for you, my Queen.

Lyra looked to the stage director hidden in the dugout to the right of the stage and nodded her wish to do the encore. Yet it was left to Lyra's brothers and sisters to relay the more detailed instructions to the staff.

* * *

As the magi were bringing the storm to life, Night Light was enraptured by the expert playing. Along with the rest of the audience, he too was pleasantly caught off guard by the sudden storm and lightning. The lightning flashes lit up the whole theater with just enough light to not cause pain. By the second flash, though, Night Light caught something in the corner of his eye.

He leaned forward, disturbing Stellar and Azure so they moved away from him to get better looks at the performance. That freed Night Light up to get a closer look at the balcony below and ahead of his own. _No, it couldn't be…_

The delightful music was all but ignored as Night Light focused on the shadow-cloaked pony sitting with one other on the balcony. When the storm cracked with lightning again, the flash of it burned the image of Twilight Velvet into his retinas. All it took was that instant of recognition for an anger he thought had long since been repressed to surge through him. Memories of the lies Velvet told him to hide her work with the PCE, of being forced under house arrest so she could kidnap Twilight, and of so many other wrongs his ex-wife had committed.

"Daddy?"

Stellar's fearful question snapped Night back to his family. The music caused Azure to miss the little filly's question, but the two changelings and one quasi were looking at him with concern. It didn't take Azure long to see everyone else was distracted. She looked to him as well and noticed the tension in his face. "Something wrong, dear?"

"Just a bad memory," he offered apologetically. "I need to use the restroom anyway. You all enjoy yourselves; I'll be back soon."

Azure Skies may have been willing to buy the lie, but none of the changelings were. Even so, Pear Butter didn't want to stick her muzzle where it didn't belong. She quietly pulled the two princesses over in a hug and tried to distract them with the performance. Flurry Heart had been ignorant of the whole exchange and was still enraptured by the music.

Night Light slipped away without further incident. His first impulse was to head straight for the other balcony. _Better head to the restroom anyway. That way, nopony can call me a liar even if somepony catches me checking to see if that mare is truly Velvet._

By the time Night Light got to the lower balcony, Lyra had moved on to the song requested by Blitz. It was a slow, somber tune that tugged on the heartstrings. To Night Light, it sounded eerily like an old lullaby Velvet used to sing to Twilight. The gentle calm and love it used to evoke in the old stallion was tainted by renewed malice and regret.

There was no one in the hallway, and upon reaching the three stairs leading into the balcony, he found two ponies present, but the one that riled him up was seated closer to him. "Twilight Velvet," he announced without anger, just in case he was mistaken. The way the seat was positioned, he couldn't see her cutie mark.

The mare stiffened in response, and slowly turned her head to look at him. Standing this close, there was no mistaking her face for anyone else. Night Light ground his teeth, wishing to yell at her. _I can't risk the girls sensing my anger, I shouldn't have come down here._

With a silent, seething warning in his eyes, he stepped backwards, unwilling to turn his back on the pony who had betrayed him so completely. It didn't matter that he could see her sobbing into her clasped hooves. Yet before he could move out of sight, a second mare got up from behind Velvet and all but raced to get close enough to speak quietly with him. "Sir Night Light?"

Night Light only averted his eyes away from Velvet for the barest of moments to take in the newcomer's apparence. She was a cream colored earth mare he had seen on rare occasions around Lyra, but her name escaped him. "Yes, and who are you? This one's parole officer, I hope."

"My name's Bon Bon." The earth mare looked back towards Velvet, who was trembling but wasn't turning away. "And I suppose you could think of me more as a… counseling officer."

The job title gave him pause. He faced Bon Bon fully with a perplexed expression. "You're… Lyra's friend, right? The same Lyra on stage?"

Bon Bon nodded with what she hoped was a disarming smile. "The one and only, so far." Bon Bon glanced down both sides of the hallway, grateful the coast was clear. "It was Queen Blitz's idea that Velvet try to find some measure of closure with the family."

"And she thought a damn concert is the best place for that?!" Night Light hissed angrily.

By now, Velvet had worked up the courage to walk up to the top of the balcony stairs and hide beside the wall that would shield her from sight of the rest of the family above. Before Bon Bon could say anything further, Velvet spoke up. "Please, Nighty, I just want to talk, nothing more."

In his periphery, Night Light saw Bon Bon give Velvet a deeply concerned and questioning look. Uncaring what she had to say, Night Light put the earth pony off balance by throwing a dismissive hoof in Velvet's direction. "I don't give a flying rut about what you have to say. Just _leave_ before I get Rainbow Dash to bully you completely out of Equestria this time!" Trusting a friend of a changeling to keep Velvet from doing anything stupid, Night Light stormed off. _I need some fresh air._

Velvet hesitated at first, allowing the stallion to put some distance between them. She attempted to chase after her ex-husband until Bon Bon placed a restraining hoof across her chest.

"What was that about? The plan is to give him time to cool off first." Bon Bon warred with herself trying to keep her exasperation at Velvet in check in favor of being diplomatic.

Velvet clenched her teeth in an attempt to calm herself down. It wasn't working. "I - I can't risk waiting. If I do, I don't think I can work up the strength to confront him again."

"You go out there right now, and both of you could say something you'll regret." Bon Bon used Velvet's hesitation to walk in front of the older mare, and gave her a sympathetic small smile. "Velvet. We did what we came here for, more or less. He's seen you, and now he can go cool down, and so can you. If you're not up for staying around, we can go back to the hotel; Lyra will understand."

"No, no, no!" Even before Bon Bon finished speaking, Velvet was violently shaking her head. "That's not what Arvatus taught me." Velvet's labored breathing came in heavily. "'A broken bone that didn't set right must be rebroken to correct it.' This whole 'ease him into it' thing was a bad idea. He needs to vent his anger on me or else it will just fester again."

"And you _will_ rebreak it, just not here, alright? Look, I don't presume to be smarter than a doctor," Bon Bon cried, almost too loud for her liking, "but all I know is that you're in no state to face whatever toxicity he'll unload on you. Please, we did what we came here to do-"

 _I'd trust that kind tom over some_ confectionist _any day of the week._ Knowing she couldn't push past Bon Bon, Velvet grabbed the earth mare with her magic and all but tossed her aside. Velvet sucked in a long, hard breath to steel herself and ran off.

Bon Bon hit the other wall. She was more stunned by the act itself rather than any damage done to her. "Velvet, stop!" she shouted as loud as she dared. If Velvet heard her, she ignored Bon Bon and raced to the far end of the hallway where Night Light had run off.

Night Light had retreated to one of the many pegasus aerial exits on this floor. They weren't hard to find, thanks to the convenient exit signs. It was on the south face of the building, overlooking some other concert halls nearby. The light from recently installed neon lights of changeling design gave the exterior some illumination beyond the dim streetlamps. The exit itself had a short, fenced balcony to keep drunken ground ponies from falling to their deaths.

There was more than enough room for him to bask in the cool evening air. After a few long moments, he realized he didn't hear the door shut behind him. He whirled around to see Twilight Velvet meekly poking her head around the door. There were lines of tear stains under her eyes, and the aging mare looked like she had taken a few moments to collect herself. Nevertheless, her red-rimmed eyes told their own story. "You'll get locked out here if you let the door shut."

Night Light bristled and turned to face her fully, ignoring her advice. _Did she do something to that officer? I can't believe Bon Bon would let Velvet approach me again in good faith._ "You shouldn't be here," he growled with panicky defiance. "Go back to Manehattan and rot in that library!"

Velvet's ears wilted along with her depressed frown. Using a nearby door stopper, Velvet propped the door open before stepping fully onto the balcony. It wasn't a large affair, barely big enough for three ponies to stand end to end.

"Night, I - I," Velvet couldn't bring herself to speak of Celestia and Blitz forcing her hoof into action. _I should have done this years ago._ Mustering up the courage to look her ex-husband in the eye, she found deep wounded anger, but his defensive stance and tensed muscles reminded her of a cornered animal.

Burning shame forced Velvet to avert her gaze towards the ground below. "Am I really that terrifying?"

Her demure stance did nothing to dampen the fear he had, but his anger flashed as he whisper-shouted to prevent drawing eyes up from the street. "How _dare_ you ask that if you're as sane as you claim to be."

The retort felt like a slap to the face, making Velvet wince.

"From my great-great-grandfather, I've carried my family tradition of second chances," Night Light seethed with almost clenched teeth. "But you threw it away by lying about continuing to consort with the PCE. I gave you a third because I loved you, then I find your letter to the archmage condemning your daughter! A fourth chance because you were my wife, then you proceed to drug me and place me in a cell so you had free rein to foalnap Twily." He vigorously shook his head. "There will be no fifth. I don't care what the princesses say; you're a walking disaster as far as I'm concerned."

Stinging tears dampened Velvet's face, yet she made no excuses, taking his verbal lashing like a flagellant.

As Night Light's anger overpowered his fear of Velvet, he vented all the pain and tortured thoughts and feelings he had been keeping locked away. "Why couldn't you just move on?!" he raged, his voice getting a little louder. "Sure, Twilight came back to us as some kind of insect, it took some serious getting used to. I'm not so self-righteous not to admit that, but you never gave her a chance! You always rambled on and _on_ about how she was going to become the next Chrysalis! Her children, _our_ grandchildren, are the most loving ponies in the world! Maybe a bit too much at times, but still! But you couldn't see any of it. First it was becoming Chrysalis, then it was taking over Equestria from within." Night Light couldn't stop his ranting even if he wanted to. The dam had burst and Velvet was damn well going to get swept up in the flood. "All the lies you told me. 'I told the PCE I wasn't interested.' 'Just because I agree with them doesn't mean I support them,'" he spat acidly.

Every word, every barb, all the lies thrown back at Velvet were like hammer blows to her already frayed nerves. Night Light was nearly a minute into his tirade when Velvet's own self-condemnation doubled the weight of his accusations. All of her resolve to weather his hatred had evaporated before the truth. Irrational panic started setting in, causing her to back away from his fury. Velvet didn't get very far due to the railing pressing against her tail.

"I knew you drugged my wine that night," Night Light growled with hatred in his eyes. Velvet looked at him with stunned surprise. "You think I was so blind back then that I wasn't watching you carefully?" He clenched his teeth, wrestling with long pent up self-anger. "But I had hope. Some thin hope that after I died—or at least was knocked out by your poison—you'd come to your senses. That you would finally step back from the cliff."

With an almost sarcastic huff, he flailed a hoof at their surroundings. "And look where that trust brought us." He jabbed the same hoof in Velvet's direction. "Were it not for Twilight Sparkle and Shining Armor, I'd say nothing good ever came from our marriage."

Velvet languished in the silence Night Light left as he turned his thoughts inward. Again, she looked at the pavement three stories down. "We were happy once…" She looked back up at Night Light, trying to remember his smiling face. The young stallion she had fallen in love with. But time and depression had robbed those memory of any clarity. All she could see now were the reopened scars she had created just by showing her face. "Weren't we?"

Night Light saw no danger in the broken mare doing a poor job trying to control her sobbing. He would have left her there had she not been so close to the door that he'd have to touch her to get by. "We were," he admitted coldly after a long moment. "We had loving kids too. But only one of us still does," he added spitefully. As much as he'd loathe himself later for it, he took some sick satisfaction in seeing Velvet's thin mask of control shatter completely.

Velvet collapsed against the side of the balcony, her sobs muffled by her foreleg. Her body shook with every wracking cry, and she was finding it hard to breathe. Yet she controlled herself enough to stutter out a question. A question to which she had tried to think of an answer for six years and had come up with nothing. "What…" some small spark of her drive—the same drive that had pushed her to do everything in her power that she thought would save her daughter—gave her the strength to face Night Light again, "What can I do to make it right?"

Night Light snorted dismissively, and fixed her with a wrathful eye. "You have the gall to ask that?" He shook his head. "Twily was always better at forgiveness, or at least figuring out some worthy penance. So I won't speak for her. But as for me, I'd be perfectly fine never seeing your face again."

The street below lingered in Velvet's tear-blurred gaze. A few passersby started to notice her. The thought of jumping and letting Elysium or Tartarus take her in final judgement bore down on her. It felt like hours passed as her self-preservation rebelled against her wish to end it all. _I can't face her. Not Twily. Not after what I tried to do to her._

In a surge of movement, Velvet was magically thrown away from the edge and pressed hard against the wall.

Night Light closed in on her face with indignation burning in his eyes. "Don't you _dare!_ " Velvet's sobbing was cut short by the sheer audacity of his act. "I don't know who or what possessed you to come here and try to speak to me after all these years, and frankly, I don't care.

"What I _do_ care about is letting Twilight have her say about any form of penance before you decide that for yourself." Night Light cut his magic off, allowing Velvet to slide down to the cold, cement floor. "And when I said I don't want to see your face again, that included seeing your splatter on tomorrow's paper."

Not willing to babysit her, Night Light unceremoniously shoved Velvet aside so he could get through the door. The grey and purple mare offered no rebuttal or resistance to the act.

In the tight squeeze to get through the door, Night Light accidentally kicked the door stop and only realized it after the door had closed behind him. He looked around, but no one was present in the hallway. _Just as I thought. Either Velvet did something to that counselling officer, or Bon Bon used this whole thing as a therapy session._

He thought about just leaving Velvet to her fate, or Bon Bon, whichever happened first, but that damned nagging lesson his father gave him stayed his hooves. _"A watershed moment can change a pony for good or ill, Nighty. Oftentimes, however, others are not willing to believe or trust such repentant ponies. Be the one that does._

Night Light ground his teeth. "This is the reason you always told me not to pry." _It gets too personal._ Even with his father's words in his mind, Night Light was not willing to give a sixth chance. But he could almost feel his father's disapproval weighing down on him from the grave.

In a burst of action, and before he could regret it, Night Light cracked the door back open and shoved the doorstop in place. He didn't bother sticking around to hear any gratitude and marched off to find some other place to cool down before returning to his family.

After he left, Bon Bon crept out of a nearby unoccupied balcony and made for the exit door. _Blitz is not going to be happy about this._


	89. Chapter 89

The Ties That Define Us

 _Three and a half months after Pear Butter was exposed as a quasi._

Deep within Phoenix Castle, Twilight Sparkle entered into her alchemy lab. The colony ship-turned-castle had been quite cramped when it was first laid down, but the process of cannibalizing the ship had given the changelings an excuse to expand the size of carefully selected areas by removing whole sections.

At present, a quartet of drones were already in the chamber toiling away with the completion of their latest project. The walls were covered end to end with books and scrolls climbing towards the ceiling while vials and tinctures of alchemical agents lined the shelves closer to the ground. The total cost of the reagents alone would buy a city block in Canterlot.

There were a couple of sedated drones, blue and purple both, who were encased in large glass tubes filled with multicolored liquid. Three of the scientists were studying the new strains, while the last one was overseeing Pear Butter who was resting on a bench while her legs were all knee deep in her own vat of alchemical soup.

Twilight gave a few passing words to the trio before arriving at the quasi's side. "Feeling alright, Pear Butter?" she asked with morning tiredness.

The former earth pony wanted to wave in greeting, but had been instructed to not step out of the vat. Not that she felt she could. While she had a nice cushy bench to lay on, the process itself was a metabolically draining experience. An unexpected side effect was that Pear was unable to actually sleep, no matter how tired she was. Since alchemical dipping was still experimental, Twilight had opted to minimize the risks to Pear Butter by making her stay in the shallow pool of alchemical reagents for the whole treatment, rather than short doses over a longer period of time. The bags under her eyes were so heavy she hadn't been able to lift her head off the pillow until Twilight's arrival gave her motivation to look up at her. "Tired as a bump on a log ta be honest, yer highness."

"Well, let's hope you can get some proper rest soon." Twilight turned to the tending scientist. "How's she doing, Test Tube?"

The stallion nervously held his clipboard close to his face as his eyes scrutinized the readings taken from the night shift. "Provided Tangent Curve was not asleep at his desk when he took last night's readings, I think the subject is ready to vacate the vat."

Twilight's mouth made a pressed line at how clinical Test Tube was towards Pear, but she decided not to call him on it for now. "Excellent news. Pear, would you mind lifting your right forehoof for me?"

Too tired to be properly remember she normally couldn't, the quasi did as instructed with some difficulty. Test Tube spat a bit of re-engineered salve designed to break resin apart. That allowed Twilight to offer Pear some magical assistance in pulling the leg free.

Twilight shook away some of her own morning fatigue and used a simple spell to remove the clingy chemicals and loosening resin off of Pear Butter's lifted leg. Luckily for the vat, Test Tube moved in after her to place a lid on the hole, to keep the air out.

It didn't take long to see that all signs of chitin were completely removed. However, while Pear had a normal looking pony leg and hoof, she now possessed the hoof structure that enabled wallwalking, a feature she had orginally lacked. _Not… quite what I was aiming for, but I hope she sees this as a plus rather than anything negative._

After inspecting the rest of Pear's legs and finding they were complete as well, Twilight lifted the wobbly mare away from the vat while Test Tube took a small hose to wash away the small fortune of spent chemicals. During all of this time, Pear had finally succumbed to her exhaustion and collapsed into sleep.

* * *

Pear Butter slept through the next two days. When she awoke to the gentle chiming of a clock, she found herself stretched out in a large bed within a guest room in the castle. It was a room on par with what she had grown accustomed to in the Sparkle Manor: finely decorated, yet with a hint of modesty. The key difference however, was the masterwork of artistic moving gearwork along the walls. All of it was behind glass to protect against accidents, and muffle the sound.

She rubbed her eyes to get the sleep out, only to realize halfway through that her hooves felt normal against her eyelids. Blinking the last of the sleep away and holding her hooves out, she saw peach colored hooves and fur adorning her legs once more. Quiet tears fell from her eyes and she shoved the blankets away to see her back hooves were the same.

 _She actually did it!_ Pear Butter could still feel the bed sheets rubbing her wings and the weight of her horn. _Ah may never be who Ah once was, but at least she got me as close as possible._

Ah good, you're awake, Twilight called out from within her head.

Pear Butter jumped out of her skin, she was so startled, and fell hard on the carpeted floor. Wha? T-Twi, er, Ah mean, your highness? Pear asked instinctively, without realizing she didn't vocalize the question. She cast her gaze to and fro, looking for the purple Queen, or even a PA speaker, but found no obvious source.

I take it Polybia never spoke to you over her Link. Twilight's tone was sympathetic enough to give Pear pause. You remember when I told you one of the conditions of remaining Stellar's foalsitter was to join my hive mind, correct?

Pear dumbly nodded her head, not even thinking if Twilight could see her.

Since she could not see the act, Twilight decided against puppeting the mare and opted for plan B. I'm going to have to apologize for this ahead of time.

Pear Butter's world bent and shifted. For a full second, she felt like she was getting pulled through a tunnel of silver light before being deposited onto a grassy plain. The grass and dirt beneath felt real and the early morning sun warmed her skin. Taken completely by surprise, she instantly began hovering and scanning her surroundings until she spotted her new Queen standing a few feet away. The taller changeling bore a small motherly grin and just by looking at her, Pear felt at ease, as if her fears and nightmares were dashed away by Twilight's presence.

Yet Pear Butter had spent enough months under Polybia to not trust her sudden mood change, and resisted the calm by remembering Twilight's hostility when she was outed as a quasi. "Where am Ah?"

"To keep the answer simple, you are within a small artificial landscape I've created within the hive mind. Personally I like the term Linkscape. I coined that one by the way," Twilight added with a hoof on her chest and proud grin on her face.

Pear Butter nervously fidgeted with a lock of her curly hair. "Ah see."

"I would have preferred to have spoken to you in person, but a queen's job is never done," Twilight added with both pride and enthusiasm. Her tone quickly shifted to a more serious one. "As I promised, I only looked into your mind enough to see you are no threat to my family, and I've left the rest of your thoughts private." She breathed, giving Pear a moment to process. "Pear Butter, I've noticed you've been respectful in addressing me since coming here, but you have never called me, 'my queen'."

Pear Butter shied back a bit, wishing there was something other than open fields of grass to hide behind. "Ah- Ah'm sorry if Ah've insulted you-"

"You misunderstand me," Twilight interrupted in haste to keep Pear Butter's building panic from derailing her thoughts. Twilight sighed, trying to think of a diplomatic way of putting it. "What I'm trying to say is, Miss Pear Butter, do you wish to be one with my hive, or would you prefer to be mentally isolated like non-changelings are?"

Pear Butter went wide-eyed for a long moment before subconsciously shielding her chest with a raised hoof. "Yer - yer givin' me a choice?"

"I am," Twilight replied with her firm but well practiced regal voice. "I originally required your connection so I could have better access to your mind. I couldn't be sure just how much of your personality was being shaped by the geas Polybia placed on you. For all I knew, you could have been a hardened criminal who wouldn't think twice about harming Stellar Drift or my father once the geas was removed."

"Ah figured as much," Pear replied while scraping the grass. She briefly marveled at how authentic the fake world felt. "At least ya don't have any doubts now though, right?"

"I don't, and I'm glad you understand," Twilight continued with a nod of approval. "So I'm going to leave it up to you. Do you wish to be removed from the Link, a biologically dangerous prospect, but if that's what you want, I'd abide by your choice." Twilight caught a whiff of morose resignation in Pear's slight frown. "I would like it if you'd prefer to become a full member and citizen of my hive, should you wish it." Twilight suppressed a disappointed frown from appearing. "Or… perhaps we can keep the status quo and we only maintain a basic connection for emergencies and is probably safer for you in general than the first option."

Pear Butter closed her eyes to think. She took in the sun's warmth, the smell of wild grass, and the soft wind in her mane. It was so perfect that it reached the realm of the surreal, even more so due to the highly technological hive she was in. She could even feel the traces of her earth magic entwine with the earth and grass.

Twilight waited as patiently as stone for an answer. Luna had told Twilight of Pear's dreams that included Stellar Drift, of caring for Stellar as if she were her own daughter. This was not a mare Twilight wanted to sour any further than her earlier confrontations already had.

"Ah thank you for the options," Pear answered at last. "But Ah don't think Ah really have a choice. Ponies out there're fine and dandy with changelin's so long as they're from your hive. But if they knew Ah was freelance, they'd rightly be a mite suspicious." Pear Butter opened her eyes to find Twilight giving her a sad yet agreeable frown. "'Sides, bein' separated would end up killin' me. Last time it happened after _Polybia_ ," she seethed, "died, Ah could barely move. Even if that alone don't kill me, starvin or going thirsty ain't worth the pride."

"I… wasn't aware of that," Twilight replied glumly. "Sorry." There was a pause. "Assuming this was on your mind, no, I can't reverse the changes to your nervous system to make you more independent, not without turning you completely into a changeling. As I've told others who…" Twilight closed her eyes to steel herself from dark memories. "Tried to turn me back into a pony. Once a changeling, _always_ a changeling."

Pear Butter nodded gratefully, but her ill mood lingered. "I figured as much. Thanks for tellin' me the truth of it." Pear Butter lifted hoof up to eye level, enjoying the feel of the gentle wind on her fur. "But um - bein' in yer Link ain't no different than bein' in Polybia's. Plus if Ah stay in, Ah can tell ya if any danger happens to the family quick smart, and you—"

Pear Butter hesitated once she realized Twilight was barely controlling her laughter behind a hoof. She was struggling so badly that echoes of her laughter gently rolled over the land.

"What's so funny?"

Twilight had to leverage all of her experience to control her mirth enough to talk. "I'm afriad I've given you the wrong idea. While you are connected to me, just enough to keep any withdrawal symptoms from manifesting apparently, you are _not_ part of the greater Link. I've kept you shielded from joining the main chorus. It's been my experience that anypony who even briefly joins the chorus will never leave willingly, changeling or not. So I thought you'd prefer to decide for yourself on this."

"Do Ah have ta be connected to this 'chorus' at all?" Pear asked after some thought. "Is it dangerous ta not be part of the whole hive mind?"

"I can't say for sure on the long term, but so far you seem in good health." Twilight tilted her head slightly and gave a contemplative frown. "Such as it is, I suppose. The fact is, you are more drone than pony. I've cleaned up what you wanted me to, but at the end of the day, your nervous system was almost completely transformed. If what you said about your medical condition after Polybia died, and before being connected to Stopwatch, I presume, then I would hazard a guess in saying that's why you are still alive at all.

"In light of that, I would not risk full separation if I were you."

A depressed sigh escaped Pear Butter, it was not surprising news, just unwelcome. "Ah see."

"As I mentioned, you can remain as you are," Twilight offered with a carefully crafted neutral expression, "and I'm willing to refrain from speaking to you over the Link if you so desire. It will be about as close to a pony's isolated mind as possible. But," she added with much more enthusaism, "allow me to toot my own horn for a moment by saying you would be far and above happier being fully integrated."

Pear Butter became more conscious of the insect wings resting on her back, and she reached up to rub the horn she knew she hadn't be born with. The months of hating what Polybia had done to her festered below the surface. She had already tried ripping her wings off once, only to find the pain unbearable and the cursed things grew back in a few months out of spite. Pear had not dared harm her horn or peel at her chitin for fear of lethal injury or being exposed as a quasi.

Yet here and now, Twilight, who had reversed some of that damage Polybia inflicted, was asking her to be a willing member of her hive mind. "Will Ah still be able to foalsit Stellar? Ta see and help her grow into a proper mare?"

An approving hum escaped Twilight. "I must confess my surprise at how… loyal you are to the directive Polybia placed upon you. Especially since you seem to revile her so vehemently."

Pear looked away and snorted angrily. She feared the foul language she'd unleash in the presence of a queen she actually respected, so she chose her words very carefully. "Ah don't remember much of who Ah used to be. But every time Ah held Stellar close, Ah felt pride and joy at seeing her bein' happy… Ah bet my bottom bit Ah was a momma when Polybia foalnapped me. Ah don't know if Ah can have foals of my own anymore, and mah original kids could be long gone by now.

"Even if Ah could never call Stellar Drift my own, Ah'd be happier than a pig in mud if you'd let me keep bein' her sitter."

A sorrowful, fragile smile crossed Twilight. "When we first met, I sorely misjudged you, Pear Butter. For that I'm sorry."

Pear tried to wave it off with a causal hoof shake. "Don't be. You thought somethin' was off about me, and you were right with the whole geas and belongin' to a rival queen bit. Ah…" Pear Butter's dismissiveness drained away along with her good mood. "Ah woulda done the same thing. Ah bet the old me wouldn't though. Probably how we got spirited away in the first place."

The 'we' in that statement brought Twilight's mood down further. The Queen voiced the answer she suspected Pear was too polite to ask for. "I'm afraid we never found your partner Paint Brush. There's no real point in using wanted posters, but I hope we pick him up alive one day."

"That poor stallion," Pear whispered more to herself than Twilight. "He was so scrambled up by Polybia, the pony he used ta be is probably long dead."

Twilight let the conversation hang for a long moment. She could see Pear Butter was close to breaking down, and felt some silence would help her recollect herself with dignity.

It was not too long before Pear Butter's sniffles died away. Here in this Linkscape, she didn't possess the red rimmed eyes her real body surely did. "This… um… this Link a' yours," Pear started, trying to keep her voice free of emotional hiccups. "Will Ah still be mahself if Ah fully join? Ah don't want ta be brainwashed into bein' a yesmare."

"We all change, Pear Butter," Twilight explained with more sympathy than the academic lecture she wanted to give. "Every species does through their experiences. But I can tell you that our conjoined hive mind champions individuality. Ad… mittedly, conformity is a bit of an odd thing to our species. The drones' genes make them predisposed to be uniform in thought, to an extent, so most of the individuality pressure has to come from the queens. So…" Twilight frowned at herself for taking too long. "Yes, you will still be able to think for yourself and be independent in that fashion."

Nodding in acknowledgement, Pear Butter steeled herself. "Ah suppose that's 'bout what Ah expected." Pear Butter fell silent and cast her gaze up to the wispy clouds in the distance. "Lil Stelly's the reason Polybia freed me from her pod prison, and then from her control entirely. Ah owe that little filly so much and she don't even know it. Ah guess… Ah guess the only way ta best understand her as she grows up is to be a part of her hive mind, isn't it?"

Twilight merely shrugged at the observation. "It's what we are. Stellar especially since she will one day be a nexus of her own section of the unified hive mind."

"Then Ah want ta be apart of that. That so called 'chorus' and all if that's what it takes."

"As you wish." Twilight's image glowed bright violet as she released the dam of voices.

Polybia's hive mind left Pear Butter woefully unprepared. A cacophony of loving voices surrounded Pear and lifted her spirits with passive encouragement backed by the weight of tens of thousands of souls. Pear staggered to the ground, utterly enraptured by the full voice of the Link so readily embracing her. Gone was the cold isolation and the silence that caused dull pain in the back of her head ever since waking from the pod. Here, she was family. Not a servant to a caring aristocrat. Not a simple foalsitter, not an outsider, not some malformed quasi, but a sister. She _belonged_. The voices, energetic and overflowing with the deep ties of family, resonated with Pear to her very core. It did not matter to the thousands of other drones that Pear didn't come from their Queen, only that Twilight had accepted her into the fold.

Pear Butter fell on her side as brain-clouding joy overwhelmed her. The need for family ties that she had tried to project onto Stellar was satiated in an instant. Tears streamed down her face as she wept in utter bliss. With Twilight's gentle guidance, Pear Butter took her place within the chorus of the Link to add her own voice to the eternal song.

The world around Pear Butter shifted and she was dropped back into the real world inside her guest room. Towering over her was Twilight Sparkle and two attending caretakers. Pear Butter had been weeping here too, and looked up to Twilight's offered hoof, and then to her face. It was the same face Twilight always had, but now Pear felt half of the other voices of the hive mind calling to her. Twilight was the absolute center of their world, the Queen-Mother. To Pear, who always believed that Celestia loved all of her subjects, it was entirely different to _feel_ that love.

With a knowing warm grin, Twilight pulled the dumbfounded mare to her hooves. "How about we start over, you and I?"

A wide grin cleaved Pear's muzzle and she eagerly accepted the hoof. "Gladly, my Queen." For the first time, Pear was relieved to have a queen worthy of the title.

After helping Pear Butter up, Twilight hugged and nuzzled the foalsitter, making Pear return it in earnest. The two caretakers joined in, mirroring the embrace in the hive mind. Through it all, Pear Butter wept wracking sobs at how much pain her transformation had caused her, only for Twilight and her hive mind to turn it all around into a blessing. Pear grapsed Twilight harder, begging this wasn't some fevered dream.

On their part, Twilight and the two caretakers strengthened their own embrace, helping Pear Butter cry away all the emotional turmoil she had been shouldering until now.

After a time, Pear Butter was emotionally exhausted, and finally brought herself to let go of Twilight. "What happens now? Do Ah go back to Canterlot or stay here?"

Twilight's tone remained warm, but developed a commanding edge. "As you know, Stellar Drift is to be reared in both a pony and changeling environment. So you will be traveling with her back and forth from now on, at least when my father can't make the trip. Your place will be at her side until she is of age. After that, I'll leave the matter between the two of you.

"For now though, Stellar and Amber are being tended to in the Brass and Steam Kindergarten. We have to reinforce that love of engineering after all," Twilight added with a sly grin. Twilight took a moment and hummed curiously at the mare before her. _She's passed the tests. Let's see if I'm right about another little mystery._ Twilight adopted a friendly and casual tone. "You know what? It just so happens to be cider season in Ponyville, which also happens to coincide with the Sisterhood Social this year. I've tried to convince everypony to make it the Sibling Social to include males, but they just decided to host that event on Father's Day instead." Twilight shrugged with mock helplessness. "At any rate, why don't you join Rainbow Dash, me, and some of our children in Ponyville? I can only imagine the case of cabin fever you must have by now."

Ponyville. Even after hearing about the growing town mere weeks after first arriving in Canterlot, the name had brought ghostly memories. One thing she had learned through casual eavesdropping, was that Applejack lived there, plus, Apple Bloom was in town on break from engineering school. Pear was up until now incapable of confronting neither of the sisters directly due to the geas forcing her to shy away. But now… now she was free, and given an open invitation to boot. Pear Butter's wings buzzed with more excitement than she realized. "Ah would absolutely love to!"

* * *

The train from the hive to Ponyville hissed to a complete stop. Since Twilight had departed on her own to find Rainbow Dash, Intel was designated as Pear's escort. _And here I thought I'd get the day off. Lucky me._

The Captain of the Jevruun Vrunningee moved to join Pear (who had been smushing her face expectantly against the window the entire ride over) with far more dignity, and had the common sense to fly over the crowd so she could easily keep up with the running mare.

The majority of the other passengers were changelings, though there was the odd mix of imperial thestrals and sphinxes. Pear Butter paid neither them nor Intel any mind and spotted the ticket master kiosk currently free of any travelers. She made a mad dash through the crowd to get to the earth stallion manning the post before any customers could beat her to it and slow her down.

With Intel trailing behind her, Pear Butter all but slammed into the kiosk, startling the stallion into banging into the opposite side. "Farm! There's a farm here, right?!"

The stallion gave her a baffled look and looked to Intel who had managed to reach them. The captain shrugged at him. "Uhh… I take it you're here for cider season. You have that look about you," he muttered. "But yes, if you follow the main road, you should see signs directing you to Sweet Apple Acres. Are you here for the cider or the Social?" he asked, trying to get the manic mare to leave as soon as possible.

The actual details of both events escaped her for a long moment, long enough for Intel to answer for her in an almost bored tone. "She's here on business with the Apples, or something."

It took the stallion a moment to realize Pear was a changeling since her eyes didn't have the typical blue glow. "Ah, I see. Well, the Social isn't until tomorrow morning, so I would imagine Applejack is at her shop in town square."

"Thank ya, thank ya!" Pear called out as she raced away. With the wider town open to the station, the crowd had thinned considerably, giving Pear Butter more room to run. Intel chased after the manic mare through streets and and alleyways before curiosity got the better of the captain. The small town had grown quite a bit since Twilight founded her hive, let alone when Pear Butter was abducted. What scant few hints of memories she had of the layout were prodding her in the wrong directions. It didn't help that industrial development had led to several stretches of town being rezoned and built up.

Intel had no trouble following after the mare from the air as Pear neglected her wings entirely. _It's like she doesn't know how to get to the Square._

Hey, momma, is there a reason Pear wants to meet the Apples so badly? Isn't she just some half-drone you picked up from grampa?

Intel could almost feel the coy smile on her mother's face. Oh, I think there's much more to her than meets the eye. Just keep an eye on her though. If she breaks anything running around, just have it charged to the treasury.

Okaaayyy. Why not just gift her the location for Aunty Apple and save us the trouble?

Some things are best done on your own. Let her have this.

Intel almost missed Pear's sudden left turn as she flew after her, barreling over an aging brown earth stallion with grey hair, causing him to drop a load of firewood. Intel hesitated long enough to see the stunned gaping jaw on him before having to chase Pear Butter again. _He looks like he's seen a ghost._

* * *

The town was all wrong. The ghostly memories, barely coherent enough to give instinctual directions, were useless. The number of brick and mortar stores were above and beyond what she vaguely remembered. What few houses she ran across had either become larger apartments or were far more wealthy than the small, sleepy town had any right to be in her time. She came to a stop upon seeing a large building on a low hill with tall spindly towers that looked like an overcompensating chimney. A few pegasi had a dark grey cloud hovering just over the mouth of the black belching chimneys. _That was most certainly not there before._ She just so happened to catch them moving the grey cloud away to replace it with a white and puffy one.

 _Is this really the right place? Are mah memories that tore up?_ The sound of buzzing wings behind her caused Pear to look back at her escort. Intel. While Pear had inherited some empathic abilities, Intel was too far away for them to work, so she couldn't tell if the full changeling was annoyed or bored from this distance.

"Why don't you try flying?" Intel called out. Now that Pear had stopped, the Queen's Guard landed next to her. The pair were standing on the walkway of a cobblestone road near the retirement home. A few aged ponies were nestled on their rocking chairs, oblivious to them.

Pear Butter shuffled nervously on her hooves, trying to fight the urge to follow her instincts over learning the town's new layout. "Ah uhh… Ah don't want any of the Apples to see me first, is all." Pear Butter closed her eyes to think and calm her nerves. The chorus of the hive mind was a tempting place to retreat to, to allow her anxiety and stress to be diluted through just listening to her new kin. The hive mind's subtle nature was a constant reminder that she was now part of a greater whole, but it was by no means a dominating impulse. Pear squeezed her eyes tighter to reassert herself. _No, it's not their troubles, only mah own._ As if to comply with her wishes, the chorus dimmed to only the background of her mind.

Intel sniffed out the will for self-assertion, but nothing else of Pear's inner conflict. "Were… were you somepony important to them?" Intel asked in a much more somber tone.

The question caught Pear Butter completely off guard, and she stared at Intel for a long silent moment. Only the clip clop of hooves or the occasional chug of steam engines filled the street. "Twilight didn't tell you all about me? But you're her personal bodyguard or something, aren't you?"

Pear Butter caught a brief flash of pain in Intel's eyes. Not physical, but one of longingness, and dare she think, kindredness. "Only the queens know us drones inside and out, as is proper." Intel's eyes focused intently on Pear's non-glowing eyes, trying to judge on what to say. "Twilight may have accepted you into the hive mind, but you are still a mystery to the rest of us. It's… not something I'm used to in kin."

Pear scuffed at the ground, her searching gaze went back to the streets. "Ah'd tell ya, honest. But first Ah have to know if Ah'm actually somepony to the Apples. If Ah was a friend, kin, or… even a rival. It's all Ah got left of mah past life." Pear looked back at Intel. "Ah know Ah can never be that pony again but… "

Intel's eyebrows lifted at the news, her somberness forgotten. "Did you try looking into the census archives in Canterlot?"

Pear sadly shook her head. "Ah couldn't. Every time Ah went there the geas would keep me from entering the door like Ah was some sorta vampony that hadn't been invited."

Intel studied Pear intently before sighing heavily. "That must have been horrible, being a prisoner in your own body." Intel hugged Pear after the former pony retreated back into the alleyway and started crying quietly. Intel was mildly impressed she didn't want to weep openly in public, causing a scene. "Come on, you'll find the Apple Store two streets down and to the left."

Pear silently accepted the news as an excuse to recollect herself a bit faster than she wanted. Once the tears stopped and she rubbed the water off her face, Pear turned to give Intel a small annoyed scowl. "You knew where to go this whole time? Seriously?"

Intel rolled her eyes, the mood lost. "Peh. Well, yeah. You just ran off before I could show you." She flew into the air to be just below the roofs of the nearby structures. "So unless you want to run around aimlessly again, follow me this time, eh?"

"It wasn't aimless," Pear Butter countered with a huff and a stomp. The fuming frown only deepened when Intel just gave her a disbelieving smirk. "Fine, Ah'll fly this time."

* * *

And there it was, the Apple Family Store. It had a deactivated red neon apple sitting on top of the whole place with a windowed front. Within was a display of not just apples and cider, but all kinds of jiyya products. A few thestral couples were eyeballing the bulbous fruit with gluttony. Superimposed on the window in front of the jiyya display was a stylized thestral chowing down approvingly on the fruit. The store as a whole had a strange mix between rustic wood, brass, and iron.

The store was lit, but a large sign on the polished wooden door read 'out to lunch'. There was a little clock on the sign, indicating the break had just started less than a minute ago.

Pear Butter stood in the middle of the street with Intel beside her. She gazed at the store as if it was both a beacon of hope and a monster of emotional devastation all at once.

"Intel 'La 'Gence, my long time friend and ally!" a deep masculine voice called out from behind the pair. Both mares turned around to find a muscle-bound thestral stallion. He had a single saddlebag that smelled of hay burgers and pickles. He wore a massive, friendly grin and had a foreleg open, ready for a bear hug. "How's my favorite trooper?"

With a grin to match, Intel cackled at the proper use of her full name. "Dusk Branch, I was hoping I'd get to see you again!" She all but leapt into his waiting hug and the two squashed each other to see who would relent first. No matter how much she tried, Intel didn't have the strength to match Branch and released him first. "How've you been ya big softy?"

Dusk Branch bellowed a laugh at her, before faking insult by gasping and holding a hoof to his chest. "Da, there's not need for such cruel words between friends. Why I got voted the toughest nut in my family ten years going, I'll have you know!" He dropped the act as quick as it came. "So what are you doing here? Finally got some time off?"

"Almost." Intel turned around and pointed a hoof at Pear Butter who was waiting politely. "I have orders to escort Ms. Pear Butter over here to meet with the Apples, or at least Applejack."

"Is that right?" Branch asked rhetorically. He slid past Intel to both size up the odd changeling and to offer a hoof. "Well you're in luck there, I was just coming back with lunch for all while AJ did inventory. The name's Dusk Branch."

Pear Butter smiled at the friendly giant and eagerly shook his hoof. "Pear Butter, heh, as you heard. Are you a family friend or just an employee?"

"Ha! A bit of both and more. I'm Applejack's fiancee." His grin widened at Pear's astonished reaction. "But come, come, we can all chat and eat. I brought enough for all, and the store can't stay closed for lunch forever."

As Intel moved up alongside them, Branch found it a perfect excuse to rope her into a second hug, and partially dragged her to the door. "Come my friend, we simply _must_ have lunch together. I want to hear _all_ about your crazy stories."

Intel didn't need much prodding, but she played the part of a resistant guest and pulled against him, not that it helped. "Think you can stomach the good stuff this time? AJ got pissed when she had to clean your breakfast up off the floor last time."

"That was not my fault. I had a bad cannoli, it disagreed with me horribly, is true. But now, I can listen to the worst you can throw at me this time, _without_ fail!"

Pear chuckled behind a hoof and followed them in. _Ooh, Ah like him._

The jolly group made their way inside with Branch calling out as soon as the door shut, "Soups on, everypony!"

"Oh, you better not have brought soup!" a terse Applejack cried out from behind the stockroom door. "Ah tolda," she burst through the door with eyes zeroed in on Dusk Branch. "You best be playin' again, ya big lunk."

"Dah! You know I only be fooling." Branch teased with a flourish of his left hoof. "But let us quibble for fun later, we have guests!" Branch stepped aside to reveal Intel and Pear behind him.

Applejack had marched half way across the store by the time the stallion moved aside, and she stopped dead in her tracks upon seeing Pear Butter. Applejack's mouth was agape at a pony that had stepped out of her time-fogged past.

As for Pear, the instinctual fear of the geas' reprisal for being this close to Applejack hit hard, but the punishment didn't come. This was her chance, at long last. Even still, her heart pounded in her chest, and she broke out in a cold sweat trying to come up with something to say.

Both Intel and Branch were puzzled by the reactions, equally unsure of how best approach the situation.

"Landsakes," Applejack said slowly, almost reverently. Upon regaining her wits, she noticed the horn, holes, and short yet noticeable fangs the mystery mare possessed. The only thing that gave her more pause than the mare's colors, face, and curly hair, was that her turquoise eyes had no blue glow, allowing them to shine on their own. Her brow furrowed in mild suspicion. "You look… awfully familiar. What's your name, missy?" Applejack asked the mare that looked slightly younger than she did.

"P-pear Butter," she replied shakily. "Ah—"

Pear stopped when she saw Applejack getting angry in a hurry. "Pear Butter ya say?" Applejack gave Pear a look that could melt steel beams before glaring at Intel. "Girl, Ah'm gonna say this once. Ah like a good joke er prank, but anythin' about mah parents is off limits, ya hear me?!"

Intel cowed out of surprise under the seething fury and waved her hooves placatingly. "Whoa, wait a second. Hold up! If this is a prank, it's news to me."

"Well, ain't that the biggest donkey manure lie Ah've ever heard!" Applejack stormed over and jabbed the drone in the chest with a hard hoof. "Y'all should know family is sacred. And as for you—" Applejack began as she returned her ire towards the peach colored changeling, "—Ah should throw… you…" Applejack stopped as she stared at Pear Butter's cutie mark, or at least what was left of it. Applejack stepped off to the side to get a better look at the damaged cutie mark.

Pear Butter kept scurrying away until she bumped into a shelf. She cowed a little at the irate farmpony, but stopped resisting after she had nowhere else to retreat to.

Applejack ignored Pear's flight, and focused solely on that distorted cutie mark. She had fully expected to either see the unforgettable jar of fruity cream on Pear's flank, or no cutie mark at all. Yet what she found looked like a smear of darker peach colors mixed with the light blue of glass and a hint of red from the lid.

The lapse in Applejack's anger prompted Branch to come over and lay a reassuring hoof on his fiancee's back. Applejack grabbed the offered hoof with her own. "Who _are_ you?"

Pear Butter refused to let the hive mind shoulder any of her anxiety. She took comfort in the presence of the chorus, but she wanted to do this solely with her own strength. Shoring up the courage to speak, Pear Butter started slowly. "Ah'm hopin' somepony from here, actually." She risked an upward tug on her lips, but Applejack's stern look made her press on before losing her nerve. "Ah know Ah used to be a farmer when Ah was a pony. But a long time ago, _Queen Polybia_ ," Pear Butter forced the words out with deep hostility instead of the usual, less identifying, and decidedly more crass names she reserved for the dead queen. "She, foalnapped me and put me in a pod so she could use mah experience as a farmer to feed her swarm." Now that she had started, the words flowed faster and easier. "She woke me up ta be a guard for her royal daughter and sent me and one other to Canterlot. Her daughter was, uh, Stellar Drift by the way. The whole time though…" and on Pear Butter went, spilling every little detail, emotion, and event she remembered.

Through it all, Applejack listened with rapt attention, yet she kept the walls around her heart. This was not a scar she wished to open so readily. Her mouth was bone dry all the same. Applejack's memories of her mother were almost as faded as the quasi's own, worn away by time rather than alchemy. The singular thing Applejack remembered most of all though, was her mother's kind voice. A voice that had always put her at ease as a filly with lullabies and praises. She grasped Branch's hoof tighter and tighter as Pear's story continued right up to the end.

"...And so Ah ended up here," Pear Butter ended hopefully, looking at Applejack with shaky optimism. "Ah can't tell ya how much Ah've wanted to meet ya. Ta learn who Ah used to be."

Applejack licked her parched lips with a sandy tongue. She looked to Intel for a moment. "Ah know you're listen'n, Twi. Ah can't see ya letting her get to say her piece like this if you didn't believe her."

Everyone looked to the soldier as Intel bore her mother's eyes and voice. Twilight put on a troubled, if regal air. "I had Starlight Glimmer double check my investigation on her cutie mark. It's badly degraded, as you can tell, but it _is_ real. Polybia was a lot of things, but I can't see her awakening a random prisoner and injecting your mother's broken memories, assuming she somehow acquired them in some other way. Only to then not use her against you in some manner." Twilight caught Pear's stunned reaction at being called Applejack's mother out of the corner of her eye. "As far as I can determine, Pear Butter is who she says she is. Anything more than that, I have to leave up to you and the rest of the Apples."

"Are - are you seriously tell'n me mah momma ain't dead!?" Applejack took a tentative step forward, daring to hope this wasn't some sick joke. _RD maybe, if she were stinkin' drunk. But not Twilight._ "Are you for real?" she asked desperately, tears starting to fall. "No foolin?"

Pear Butter could feel it in her heart. Older though Applejack may be, having a moment to look her in the eyes was all she needed to connect some of her broken memories. A tearful smile crossed Pear Butter, with, she too making that first step. "Ah am, by Celestia's light, Ah am!"

With a rush of tears, Applejack burst forward and embraced her long lost mother in a crushing hug. Pear Butter responded in kind, the both of them a reunion neither thought possible.

Upon Intel's suggestion, Twilight erected a privacy screen over the windows. Both she and Dusk Branch watched mother and daughter cry out decades of absence. Catharsis of such depth, such reopened pain, was a rare and surprisingly euphoric emotional high for Intel, and Twilight by proxy.

So caught up in the waves of euphoric catharsis were they, that neither of them noticed Dusk Branch suddenly catch them as Intel started to keel over. The flash of vertigo brought both queen and drone back to their senses, only to have to resist the euphoria again.

"You ladies are suckers for a good, tearful reunion aren't you?" Branch flashed a thankful grin as he helped Intel stand again. He whispered to as to not disturb the reunion. "My Apple was always mum about her parents, now I see why."

As if on cue, both of them overheard Applejack ask her mother the question Twilight had dreaded. "Where's pa? Did he get woken up too?"

As Twilight mustered an answer, it was Pear Butter who spoke first. She pulled away from Applejack with a deep pained sorrow threatening to eclipse her joy. "Ah don't know, exactly. Ah told you Polybia woke me alongside a stallion. After a while, Ah thought he was mah husband, or at least a special somepony in some manner. But…" Pear Butter steeled herself, and found strength from Applejack's side-hug. "But whoever he used ta be is long gone. Polybia changed him too much for any real memories to return. The last Ah saw him, his only thoughts were to protect Stellar Drift, not because she deserves it, but because it was Polybia's final command."

Applejack wiped the tears from her eyes, a surge of righteous anger coloring her voice. "If Ah had known." She turned that furious look at Twilight. "Ah'd have gone on that warpath with ya. By Celestia, Ah'd have done more than Luna did. A _thousand_ times more."

Twilight heaved a slow controlled breath. "Let's not dwell on her. Polybia is dead and locked in a horrible afterlife. We should leave it at that."

"Aye," Pear Butter agreed while putting a hoof on Applejack's withers, drawing her daughter's attention, which softened into sympathy. "Ah say we forget her entirely, that's the worst thing we can do ta her."

Applejack squeezed her eyes shut and grit her teeth to release some of her anger. In the end, she wasn't very successful. "Fine. But we should look for that stallion. He might be pa, or he might not… anymore. But Ah want to be sure. If only to put him to rest for real."

Twilight nodded in agreement. "Between Princess Luna's and Rainbow's efforts, I have no doubt we'll find him eventually. Once we do, you can be brought in, but for now, please don't let this news hound you. Leave the hunt to us, and focus on your _own_ life." _If only Stopwatch was able to track him through her connection with him, but that would be too easy now wouldn't it?_

"Ah… Ah know ya will, Twi. Thank ya." Pear Butter walked up behind her and nuzzled her daughter, eliciting a grateful, if teary smile from the farmpony.

"Come on," Pear offered with excitement to chase away the negative pallor that threatened to ruin the day. "Show me this cider season and Sisterhooves Social Ah kept hearing about on the train over!"

Seeing the ice breaker for what it was, Dusk Branch leapt at the opportunity Pear presented. "Ah ha! Excellent idea! We should make it a whole affair, all day!" He manhandled Applejack into a side-bear hug while gesturing wildly with his free foreleg. "Think of the headlines we could bring. The season is not only expanded to Jiyya cider as well, but we can have the return of my future mother-in-law as the keystone! Oh, what fun we shall have!

"Come, my dear sweet apple, we have much to do!" Dusk Branch belted off a jolly laugh as he all but dragged Applejack away to the storeroom. Applejack offered only playful resistance, producing giddy laughter from the changelings who briefly remained on the store floor.

Once the couple were out of sight, Pear Butter inched over to Intel and whispered conspiratorially at her. "Oh Ah like him, where did she find him? Is he one of them imperial bat ponies?"

Twilight giggled behind a hoof. _I could just hive chat for perfect privacy, but where's the fun in that?_ Intel conveyed her own lack of amusement, only for Twilight to perform the Link equivalent of blowing a raspberry at her. "Nope, he's Equestrian born and bred. AJ picked him up after she went searching for a jiyya expert. She wouldn't go into details, the spoilsport, but I think we can guess how the two met."

"Ah might be able to leverage some maternal strings to get the truth," Pear Butter snickered happily. She took a long moment to enjoy the feel of social gossip. As the two passed theories back and forth on how Applejack and Dusk Branch got together, Pear Butter's eyes wandered throughout the store's interior, marveling at what her family had accomplished in her absence. The general layout was about as much as could be expected, with shelves lined with various types of apples, jiyya, or their fruity products. There were also a number of simple machines, by changeling standards. Each of the machines served an obvious function, be it product lifting or sorting; very little was left to artistic flair, save for the repeating cutie mark of an apple on top of a shield. Pear Butter walked off towards the stockroom, but stopped at the sorting machine. "Did an Apple make these or is this one of yours?" Pear asked, breaking the chain of gossip.

With a proud grin she reserved for her students, Twilight was all too happy to let the topic shift and extol the tale. "This was designed and built by your very own Apple Bloom, _thanks_ to my excellent engineering school of course. Bye the bye, she's staying at Sweet Apple Acres this week."

* * *

It wasn't long before everyone made towards the asphalt road into Sweet Apple Acres. Along the way, Twilight had arrived with her real body, allowing Intel to scamper off to enjoy some free time. The quartet had chatted up all the minute little things both had lived in Pear's absence. Applejack had been mum on most of Apple Bloom's achievements, willing to wait for her little sister to speak for herself later, and so Apple Bloom could see her mother's pride first hand. Dusk Branch had been more than happy to go into every little detail about jiyya farming and his own family business.

Twilight merely added occasional commentary, happy enough to see the light return to Applejack's eyes. Something that had been missing for a while.

The group was along the same old dirt path between the main freight road and the farm house. Pear Butter took in all the sights. The healthy and bountiful apple trees stretched far and wide in perfect rows. There were even some new pear trees, and by Pear Butter's critical eye, she could tell they were only a year away from producing a full crop. Off in the distance were rows of massive greenhouses with even more trees within.

The group was halfway up the road when Pear Butter popped the question Twilight had been dreading. "Ya only been mentioning yer siblings. What about your grandparents? Weren't some of them alive before Ah was taken?"

At that, Applejack stopped walking and stared longingly at a particularly young apple tree. "Well…" Dusk Branch gave her a side hug, but knew Applejack well enough to let her speak on her own. "I don't know if you remember, but Grandpa Apple died well before you were… taken. But Granny Smith, she - she passed on last year." Applejack leaned into Dusk Branch's barrel silently thanking him for his strength. "Oddly enough, yer father, Grand Pear, passed not a day after."

"Oh." Pear Butter's ears wilted with a mix of anger and sorrow warring over her face. "Ah wish Ah remembered either of them."

Wiping away a tear, Applejack turned back towards Twilight. "Is there anything you can do about that?"

"Afraid not." Twilight used her magic to project a brilliantly cut gem. "Memories can only be saved like that in a memory crystal. Since Polybia abhorred individuality in her… subjects, nothing like that would exist for Pear."

Dusk Branch pulled away from Applejack and waved towards the farmhouse. "As horrible as all this is, _I_ think we should focus on making new memories instead of letting what horrors Polybia inflicted on us. To show we can move beyond her."

Pear Butter found vindictive strength in that. "Agreed. Ah want to see mah family, even if Ah have ta reintroduce myself."

Shaking her head to cast the pallor of depression aside for the time being, Applejack interposed herself between Pear Butter and the farmhouse. "As good an idea as any other. Why don't Ah make sure everypony is ready before ya come on up. Ah won't tell them who, just that somepony important is coming to see us."

Twilight stepped forward and placed a wing on Pear's back. "Don't worry, we'll wait for you to shout us over."

Nodding in agreement with her queen, Pear Butter smiled. "Ah can hardly wait."

"Well, won't be long, Come on, DB, time to rouse the family!"

"As if I would ever miss this!"

With that, the two ponies raced off, leaving the two changelings alone for the time being. Now that they were out of earshot, Pear Butter looked up and gave Twilight a long worried look. "Mah queen, can Ah stay here for a while? Like, longer than the social, at least?"

Twilight bore the same concerned motherly face she often bore with her children. It wasn't quite neutral, but it wasn't smile or frown either. "Your meeting with Applejack was the final bit of evidence I needed to be sure you were who I thought you were.

"Pear, you didn't choose to be a changeling, half though you may be. So I don't want to force you into it either. You may stay as part of the hive mind, of course, but if the farm is where you choose to stay, then far be it from me to keep you away from them."

Twilight could see the conflict on Pear's face. "If you're worried about Stellar Drift, don't be. I have _more_ than enough caretakers who can help daddy out in raising her in Canterlot when she's over there."

For the longest time, long enough that Twilight expected Applejack to call them over at any moment, Pear Butter stewed in her own thoughts. But eventually, Pear Butter shook her head. "No, Ah can't do that. Not ta Stellar." Pear gave Twilight a determined stare that brooked no rebuttal. "Ah don't care if Polybia forced me inta bein' Stellar's guardian. That filly is kin, more now than ever." Pear glanced out at the trees gently swaying in the wind. A pained expressed marred her face. "Ah want ta see mah pony family a' course, and Ah want ta visit often but… Ah can't abandon Stellar just to make mahself happy. Neither can Ah do it ta Night Light, Pranceston, or Azure Skies. Polybia may have forced me into it, but _Ah_ choose to stay."

With a few tears of her own, Twilight knelt down to be eye level with Pear Butter and embraced her. An act that surprised the former earth pony before she eventually reciprocated. "You're a wonderful person, Pear. I know you'll do an amazing job with Stellar."


End file.
